Harvard Business School Publishing

Significant change in groups of any size — from small organizations to large communities to entire societies — has traditionally come about through top-down initiatives such as hiring experts or importing best-of-breed practices. Such methods usually result in companywide rollouts of templates that do little to get people excited, or countless government policy initiatives that seem indistinguishable to people on the ground. This is the conventional social engineering approach to making change. But within almost every group, there are a few individuals who find unique ways to look at problems that seem impossible to solve. Although these change agents start out with the same tools and access to resources as their peers, they are able to see solutions where others do not. These positive deviants are the key, the authors believe, to a better way of creating change. With inspiring and insightful stories, the authors show the phenomenal success of the positive-deviance approach in alleviating some of the world's toughest, most complicated and diverse problems such as malnutrition in Vietnam, female circumcision in Egypt (a practice dating back thousands of years), and the rise of MRSA infections in hospitals around the world. In later chapters, they highlight the core principles and themes underlying the PD approach, such as: acting your way into a new way of thinking; suppressing the social immune defense response; working backward from the solution space; and, making the group the guru. The book makes a powerful case for a fresh and surprising alternative to our standard, top-down models of problem solving and of leadership.

This book reinvents corporate boards for the twenty-first century. Business scandals from Enron to WorldCom have escalated concerns about corporate governance into a full-blown crisis. Institutional investors and legislators have dominated the debate and enacted important changes in corporate accounting and other areas. But Colin B. Carter and Jay W. Lorsch say that we must now focus on the performance of corporate boards. This timely book argues that boards are being pressed to perform unrealistic duties given their traditional structure, processes, and membership. Carter and Lorsch propose a strategic redesign of boards — making them better attuned to their oversight, decision-making, and advisory roles — to enable directors to successfully meet twenty-first century challenges.Based on the authors' deep expertise and longtime experience working with boards around the world, and on a probing survey of CEOs, Carter and Lorsch help boards to develop a realistic value proposition customized to the company they serve. The authors explore the core dilemmas and responsibilities boards face, and outline a framework for designing the most effective structure, makeup, size, and culture. This book provides a candid account of the current state of boards and points the way in a time of crisis and change.

Offers managers and professionals the fundamental information they need to stay competitive in a fast-moving world.

Since 1922, «Harvard Business Review» has been a leading source of breakthrough ideas in management practice. «The Harvard Business Review Classics» series now offers you the opportunity to make these seminal pieces a part of your permanent management library. Each highly readable volume contains a groundbreaking idea that continues to shape best practices and inspire countless managers around the world. This classic article shows how to make mass customization and efficient and personal marketing work by putting companies and their consumers in a 'learning relationship'. Over time, this ongoing relationship allows your company to meet customer's changing needs, develop learning relationships with them and retain their business forever.

How do you lead a team scattered all over the globe? How do you keep members you can't see focused, communicative, and productive? This book helps you understand both the benefits and challenges of virtual teams and shows you how to build and coach a community that promotes collaboration and ongoing communication. The Pocket Mentor series offers immediate solutions to the challenges managers face on the job every day. Each book in the series is packed with handy tools, self-tests, and real life examples to help you identify strengths and weaknesses and hone critical skills. Whether you're at your desk, in a meeting, or on the road, these portable guides enable you to tackle the daily demands of your work with greater speed, savvy, and effectiveness.

Every day on the job, you face common challenges. And you need immediate solutions to those challenges. The Pocket Mentor Series can help. Each book in the series is packed with handy tools, self-tests, and real-life examples to help you identify your strengths and weaknesses and hone critical skills. Whether you are at your desk, in a meeting, or on the road, these portable, concise guides enable you to tackle the daily demands of your work with speed, savvy, and effectiveness. The latest volume in the series: Laying Off Employees Implementing a layoff is one of the most difficult and painful challenges a manager can face. Handled skillfully and compassionately, a layoff can set your team--and your company--on a positive new path. But, when handled improperly, layoffs can have negative effects that impact morale, productivity and more.

Every day on the job, you face common challenges. And you need immediate solutions to those challenges. The Pocket Mentor Series can help. Each book in the series is packed with handy tools, self-tests, and real-life examples to help you identify your strengths and weaknesses and hone critical skills. Whether you're at your desk, in a meeting, or on the road, these portable, concise guides enable you to tackle the daily demands of your work with speed, savvy, and effectiveness. The latest volume in the series: Fostering Creativity To survive in today's hypercompetitive climate, businesses must innovate constantly. Innovation hinges on creativity--generating novel and useful ideas. By fostering creativity in your team, you help unleash your company's innovative powers. But this requires a disciplined process for leveraging employees' unique experiences, thinking styles, and expertise.

Every day on the job, you face common challenges. And you need immediate solutions to those challenges. The Pocket Mentor Series can help. Each book in the series is packed with handy tools, self-tests, and real-life examples to help you identify your strengths and weaknesses and hone critical skills. Whether you're at your desk, in a meeting, or on the road, these portable, concise guides enable you to tackle the daily demands of your work with speed, savvy, and effectiveness. The latest volume in the series: Executing Strategy That strategy you've defined for your group is brilliant--promising better market share, higher profits, or some other impressive business result. But your strategy won't deliver the expected outcomes if you and your group don't execute itthat is, if you don't put it into action by implementing the right strategic initiatives. This volume helps you master the challenging art of strategy execution. You'll learn how to: -Craft action plans for the strategic initiatives required to meet your goals -Keep your action plans on course despite the inevitable setbacks and surprises -Cultivate employees' sense of ownership and accountability for your plans -Create a group culture in which everyone views strategy as their job

Featuring interviews with: Kay Koplovitz, USA Networks; Howard Lester, Williams-Sonoma; Jerry Rice, San Francisco 49ers; and, Peter Seligmann, Conservation International. Learn how the most accomplished leaders from around the globe have tackled their toughest challenges with «Lessons Learned». Concise and engaging, each volume in this book series offers fourteen insightful essays by top leaders in industry, the public sector, and academia on the most pressing issues they've faced. «The Lessons Learned» series also offers all of the lessons in their original video format, free bonus videos, and other exclusive features online. A crucial resource for today's busy executive, «Lessons Learned» gives you instant access to the wisdom and expertise of the world's most talented leaders.

Learn how the most accomplished leaders from around the globe have tackled their toughest challenges with Lessons Learned. Concise and engaging, each volume in this book series offers fourteen insightful essays by top leaders in industry, the public sector, and academia on the most pressing issues they've faced. The Lessons Learned series also offers all of the lessons in their original video format, free bonus videos, and other exclusive features online. A crucial resource for today's busy executive, Lessons Learned gives you instant access to the wisdom and expertise of the world's most talented leaders.

Since 1922, «Harvard Business Review» has been a leading source of breakthrough ideas in management practice many of which still speak to and influence us today. «The HBR Classics» series now offers you the opportunity to make these seminal pieces a part of your permanent management library. Each volume contains a groundbreaking idea that has shaped best practices and inspired countless managers around the world and will change how you think about the business world today. Ralph Stayer, head of family owned Johnsonville Sausage, saw that his employees were bored, made dumb mistakes, and didn't care. By teaching himself to step back while teaching his employees to jump forward, he changed his workforce into self starting, responsibility grabbing, independent thinkers. In this classic article, Stayer describes how to let your employees manage themselves for greater productivity.

Corporate values and corporate operations have always been dynamically intertwined, but today more than ever the trend toward focusing on the social impact of the corporation is an inescapable reality that must be factored into managerial decision making. Instead of the utopian and sometimes anticapitalistic bias that marks much of applied business philosophy, this article presents a process of ethical inquiry that is immediately accessible to managers and executives. The process begins with 12 basic questions What is needed is a process of ethical inquiry that is immediately comprehensible to a group of executives and not predisposed to the utopian, and sometimes anticapitalistic, bias marking much of the work in applied business philosophy. First step is a set of 12 questions that draw on traditional philosophical frameworks but that avoid the level of abstraction normally associated with formal moral reasoning.

Wondering how the most accomplished leaders from around the globe have tackled their toughest challenges? Now you can find out- with Lessons Learned. Concise and engaging, each volume in this series offers 12-14 insightful essays by top leaders in industry, the public sector, and academia on the most pressing issues they've faced. The contributors share surprisingly personal anecdotes and offer authoritative and practical advice drawn from their years of hard-earned experience. A crucial resource for today's busy executive, Lessons Learned gives you instant access to the wisdom and expertise of the world's most talented leaders.

HR professionals have made major strides toward becoming strategic partners. But they need to do more — by generating value through savvy decisions about talent. HR leaders typically assume that, to make such decisions, they must develop sophisticated analytical tools from scratch. Even then, the resulting tools often fail to engage their peers. In Retooling HR, John Boudreau shows how HR leaders can break this cycle — by adapting powerful analytical tools already used by other functions to the unique challenges of talent management. Drawing on his research and examples from companies including Google, Disney, IBM, and Microsoft, Boudreau explains six proven business tools leaders already use. And he shows how HR can apply these tools to talent management. Examples include: · Using engineering tolerances to find pivot points that job descriptions miss · Using inventory and supply-chain analytics to ensure a ready supply of the right talent · Applying logistics tools to optimize succession planning and leadership development · Adapting consumer research tools to find untapped value in total rewards Retooling HR builds on Boudreau's bestselling book Beyond HR, which traces HR's evolution as a decision science. For HR professionals seeking to sharpen their decision-making prowess, this provocative new book blazes an innovative new path.

When faced with packed schedules, endless emails, and towering in-boxes, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and ineffective at work. This guide will put readers back in charge of their time and workload by showing how to: — Set goals and prioritize tasks — Utilize appropriate scheduling tools — Control distractions and interruptions — Delegate wisely

The Pocket Mentor series offers immediate solutions to the challenges managers face on the job every day. Each book in the series is packed with handy tools, self-tests, and real-life examples to help you identify strengths and weaknesses and hone critical skills. Whether you're at your desk, in a meeting, or on the road, these portable guides enable you to tackle the daily demands of your work with greater speed, savvy, and effectiveness. Many organizations encourage diversity because providing equal opportunity for everyone is the right thing to do. A diverse workforce can also yield such important competitive advantages as a higher level of profitable innovation, a better understanding of market opportunities, and stronger employee productivity and commitment. But as people with different backgrounds, beliefs, and values interact in the workplace, conflicts can arise. How can you foster diversity on your team and surmount the challenges that can come with it? This book teaches managers how to: — Recruit a diverse team — Foster an inclusive environment by replacing common misperceptions with facts — Handle diversity-related conflict — Tap the business value generated by the team's diversity

Every day on the job, you face common challenges. And you need immediate solutions to those challenges. The Pocket Mentor Series can help. Each book in the series is packed with handy tools, self-tests, and real-life examples to help you identify your strengths and weaknesses and hone critical skills. Whether you're at your desk, in a meeting, or on the road, these portable, concise guides enable you to tackle the daily demands of your work with speed, savvy, and effectiveness. The latest volume in the series: Managing Change In order to remain competitive in increasingly aggressive markets managers must adopt a positive attitude towards change. Successful managers know how to embrace change with an open mind and use it as a stimulus for new ideas, enthusiasm and progress. In Managing Change, you'll learn how to — Recognize the importance of communicating throughout all phases of change — Understand and address people's reactions to change — Understand a systematic approach for creating and implementing change — Prepare your unit or group to become change-ready

One small idea can ignite a revolution just as a single matchstick can start a fire. One such idea—putting employees first and customers second—sparked a revolution at HCL Technologies, the IT services giant. In this candid and personal account, Vineet Nayar—HCLT’s celebrated CEO—recounts how he defied the conventional wisdom that companies must put customers first, then turned the hierarchical pyramid upside down by making management accountable to the employees, and not the other way around. By doing so, Nayar fired the imagination of both employees and customers and set HCLT on a journey of transformation that has made it one of the fastest-growing and profitable global IT services companies and, according to BusinessWeek, one of the twenty most influential companies in the world. Chapter by chapter, Nayar recounts the exciting journey of how he and his team implemented the employee first philosophy by: • Creating a sense of urgency by enabling the employees to see the truth of the company’s current state as well as feel the “romance” of its possible future state • Creating a culture of trust by pushing the envelope of transparency in communication and information sharing • Inverting the organizational hierarchy by making the management and the enabling functions accountable to the employee in the value zone • Unlocking the potential of the employees by fostering an entrepreneurial mind-set, decentralizing decision making, and transferring the ownership of “change” to the employee in the value zone Refreshingly honest and practical, this book offers valuable insights for managers seeking to realize their aspirations to grow faster and become self-propelled engines of change.

In an era of raging commoditization and eroding profit margins, survival depends on resilience: staying one step ahead of your customers. Sure, most companies say they re customer-focused, but they don t deliver solutions to customers thorniest problems. Why? Because they re stymied by the rigid silos they re organized around. In Reorganize for Resilience, Ranjay Gulati reveals how resilient companies prosper both in good times and bad, driving growth and increasing profitability by immersing themselves in the lives of their customers. This book shows how resilient organizations cut through internal barriers that impede action, build bridges between warring divisions, and transform former competitors into collaborators. Based on more than a decade of research in a variety of industries, and filled with examples from companies including Cisco Systems, La Farge, Starbucks, Best Buy, and Jones Lang LaSalle, Gulati explores the five levers of resilience: Coordination: Connect, eradicate, or restructure silos to enable swift responses. Cooperation: Foster a culture that aligns all employees around the shared goals of customer solutions. Clout: Redistribute power to bridge builders and customer champions. Capability: Develop employees skills at tackling changing customer needs. Connection: Blend partners offerings with yours to provide unique customer solutions. Authoritative and practical, Reorganize for Resilience helps you walk the walk, not just talk the talk, of customer-centricity jump-starting a virtuous cycle of profits, growth, and competitive advantage.

What can you, as a manager, do to attract top talent and keep your company's high-performing employees? In Retaining Employees, you'll learn ways to stay competitive in the war for talent by using creative and effective retention strategies, including: Managing or removing common obstacles to retention, such as burnout and work-life imbalance Developing programs to better meet employees' diverse needs and interests Hiring the right employees in order to improve retention

list and how to utilize pre-crisis resources, this book will show managers how to shepherd their team from crisis to success. This is a guide no manager should be without.

Managers today can no longer rely on formal power to persuade people. Increasingly, you must negotiate shared solutions and learn from colleagues and employees to solve problem sand achieve goals. In The Necessary Art of Persuasion, Jay Conger describes the four essential elements of persuasion and explains how to master them, providing you with the information needed to fulfill your managerial mandate — getting work done through others.

Judging by all the hoopla surrounding business plans, you'd think the only things standing between would-be entrepreneurs and spectacular success are glossy five-color charts, bundles of meticulous-looking spreadsheets, and decades of month-by-month financial projections. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, often the more elaborately crafted a business plan, the more likely the venture is to flop. Why? Most plans waste too much ink on numbers and devote too little to information that really matters to investors. The result? Investors discount them. Timely in this age of innovation, «How to Write a Great Business Plan» helps you give your new venture the best possible chances for success.

Too many companies are managed not by leaders, but by mere role players and faceless bureaucrats. What does it take to be a real leader — one who is confident in who they are and what they stand for and who truly inspires people to achieve extraordinary results. In this lively and practical book, Goffee and Jones draw from extensive research to reveal how to hone and deploy one's unique leadership assets while managing the inherent tensions at the heart of successful leadership. «Why Should Anyone Be Led By You?» will forever change how we view, develop and practice the art of leadership, wherever we live and work.