Harvard Business Review

How to Make Venture Capital Accessible for Black Founders: An Entrepreneur’s Dilemma

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 14:43:55 -0500

In May of 2021, Kevin D. Johnson had just graduated from a rigorous Executive MBA program, and he needed to decide on his next career move. Johnson was the founder and CEO of a successful media company, but his career goals had shifted during business school. He wanted to...

We Need Universal ESG Accounting Standards

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 14:32:30 -0500

Nearly every company today understands that sustainability must be made core to its strategy and capital allocation process but are often confused by how best to report on ESG progress in a way that will be credible to shareholders and other stakeholders. What is needed is...

How to Intervene When a Manager Is Gaslighting Their Employees

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 11:52:56 -0500

“We missed you at the leadership team meeting,” our executive vice president messaged me. “Your manager shared an excellent proposal. He said you weren’t available to present. Look forward to connecting soon.” In our last one-on-one meeting, my manager had enthusiastically said that I, of course, should...

Robots Need Us More Than We Need Them

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 10:05:16 -0500

Imagine trying to find a particular image within the National Football League’s historical archive of hundreds of thousands of videos. A single season produces more than 16,320 minutes (some 680 hours) of game footage. If you include coverage of every pregame, halftime, and postgame show, every practice, and every media interview, you have...

How to Choose the Right Forecasting Technique

Fri, 04 Feb 2022 10:34:20 -0500

In virtually every decision they make, executives today consider some kind of forecast. Sound predictions of demands and trends are no longer luxury items, but a necessity, if managers are to cope with seasonality, sudden changes in demand levels, price-cutting maneuvers of the competition, strikes, and large swings of the economy. Forecasting can help...

The Psychology of Your Scrolling Addiction

Thu, 03 Feb 2022 14:47:48 -0500

Picture this: You’ve just settled into your workday and pulled up that big report you need to finish, when a friend sends you a couple of celebrity videos on Instagram. You figure you’ll just take a few minutes to watch the videos — and then the next thing you know...

Why Business Leaders Need to Understand Their Algorithms

Mon, 25 Nov 2019 04:00:00 -0500

One of the biggest sources of anxiety about AI is not that it will turn against us, but that we simply cannot understand how it works. The solution...

4 Ways to Manage an Emotionally Needy Employee

Thu, 24 Oct 2019 01:00:00 -0400

These days, there’s lots of discussion about the importance of leaders being more vulnerable and creating psychologically safe work environments in which people can share their feelings. But what happens when someone takes that too far? A client of mine...

8 Things Leaders Do That Make Employees Quit

Fri, 13 Sep 2019 04:00:00 -0400

Algorithms are becoming increasingly relevant in the workplace. From sifting through resumes to deciding who gets a raise, many of these new systems are proving to be highly valuable. But...

How Cloud Computing Is Changing Management

Wed, 11 Jul 2018 11:17:34 -0400

Theories and practices of management often spring from the opportunities created by new technologies. Interchangeable parts spurred ideas about structuring assembly lines and logistics. The complex calculations of the field known as Operations Research were enabled by mainframe computing. Client-server technology begat enterprise resource planning systems, and...

When Sales And Marketing Aren't Aligned, Both Suffer

Fri, 22 Jun 2018 12:10:16 -0400

A Fortune 250 B2B company spent a quarter of a million dollars trying to solve the wrong problem. A new product line had failed, and the company believed the problem was either poor product delivery times or lack of effort by the sales force. After throwing millions at both problems, they finally realized what the real issue was...

How To Improve Your Sales Skills, Even If You're Not A Salesperson

Thu, 15 Jun 2017 11:23:45 -0400

At some point in your career, even if you're not a salesperson, you're going to have to sell something - whether it's your idea, your team, or yourself. So how can you improve your sales skills, especially if you don't pitch people often? What should you focus on first? And what should you do if you lose a sale?...

The Traits Of Leaders Who Do Things Fast And Well

Fri, 18 Nov 2016 04:59:00 -0500

An exceptional leader we know would occasionally get a question from his direct reports in a variety of forms but with the common message, "Do you want this done fast or right?" His answer was always the same: "Yes!" He chose not to compromise on either dimension. For this leader and for most highly effective leaders we know,...

To Recover Faster From Rejection, Shift Your Mindset

Mon, 25 Apr 2016 10:03:18 -0400

Everyone knows what rejection feels like. It's a universal (and universally disliked) experience, but it's one that we each experience differently. For the most part, people are pretty good at moving on with their lives - even better than they might guess. Sometimes, though,...

How To Cool Down A Heated Negotiation

Mon, 29 Feb 2016 11:01:18 -0500

Many people fear that no matter how they prepare, their negotiation will spiral into an unproductive debate or a shouting match. Even if you're approaching the negotiation with a collaborative, joint problem-solving mindset, it's possible that things will get heated. You know when it's happening:...

To Get More Creative, Become Less Productive

Wed, 02 Dec 2015 08:46:43 -0500

There is a fundamental tension between productivity and creativity, and managers won't get more of the latter until they recognize it. Productive people move through the tasks they have to accomplish in a systematic way. They make...

What Amazing Bosses Do Differently

Wed, 02 Dec 2015 08:41:47 -0500

We all know that job satisfaction often hinges on the quality of the relationships we have with our bosses. Yet in today's rapidly evolving, 24/7 workplaces, it's not always clear what managers should do to create the most satisfying work experiences and the happiest employees. My research into the world's most successful bosses has...

What Separates High-Performing Leaders From Average Ones

Tue, 17 Nov 2015 10:22:41 -0500

Research shows that employees dislike their jobs, don't trust their leaders, and aren't engaged. If you're a leader - or aspiring to be one - you should be frightened. Are organizations in the modern world built for leaders to fail? Or...

Understand The 4 Components Of Influence

Thu, 28 May 2015 10:36:00 -0400

We've all encountered people who say less but what they say matters more; people who know how to use silence to dominate an exchange. So having influence means more than just doing all the talking; it's about taking charge and understanding the roles that positional power, emotion, expertise, and nonverbal signals play. These four aspects of influence are essential to master if you want to succeed as a leader. Take positional power. If you have it,...

Seven Types Of Sales Managers

Wed, 16 Oct 2013 09:39:02 -0400

Over the past decade, I've worked closely with hundreds of vice presidents of sales, and like all of people, each has a unique personality. Some are gregarious. Some are assertive. Some are action-oriented. But even as I observe their individual differences, I have recognized patterns of behavior, which have allowed me to catalog their styles of sales management. I have found that seven management styles are most prevalent:...

What to Do When an Employee Cries at Work

Thu, 18 Jul 2013 01:16:23 -0400

There are lots of reasons someone might be upset at work, from the personal (divorce, illness, kid troubles) to the professional (a failed project, bad review, or nasty colleague). Given how much time we spend in the office, it seems inevitable that people will occasionally get emotional. But how should you handle tears as a manager? What should you do...

The Unexpected Antidote to Procrastination

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 10:21:31 -0400

A recent early morning hike in Malibu, California, led me to a beach, where I sat on a rock and watched surfers. I marveled at these courageous men and women who woke before dawn, endured freezing water, paddled through barreling waves, and even risked shark attacks, all for the sake of, maybe, catching an epic ride. After about 15 minutes, it was easy to tell the surfers apart by their style of surfing, their handling of the board, their skill, and their playfulness. What really struck me though...

How to Give a Killer Presentation

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 10:10:10 -0400

A little more than a year ago, on a trip to Nairobi, Kenya, some colleagues and I met a 12-year-old Masai boy named Richard Turere, who told us a fascinating story. His family raises livestock on the edge of a vast national park, and one of the biggest challenges is protecting the animals from lionsï؟½especially at night. Richard had noticed that placing lamps in a field didnï؟½t deter lion attacks, but when he walked the field with a torch, the lions stayed away. From a young age...

Six Components Of A Great Corporate Culture

Wed, 22 May 2013 11:21:32 -0400

The benefits of a strong corporate culture are both intuitive and supported by social science. According to James L. Heskett, culture "can account for 20-30% of the differential in corporate performance when compared with 'culturally unremarkable' competitors." [But what makes a culture? Each culture is unique and myriad factors go into creating one, but I've observed at least six common components of great cultures. Isolating those elements can be the first step to building a differentiated culture and a lasting organization...]

Seven Rules for Managing Creative People

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 17:57:48 -0400

Moody, erratic, eccentric, and arrogant? Perhaps ï؟½ but you can't just get rid of them. In fact, unless you learn to get the best out of your creative employees, you will sooner or later end up filing for bankruptcy. Conversely, if you just hire and promote people who are friendly and easy to manage, your firm will be mediocre at best. Suppressed creativity is aï؟½