Management Practices and Processes →
- 14 May 2009
- Sharpening Your Skills
Sharpening Your Skills: Managing Teams
The ability to lead teams is fast becoming a critical skill for all managers in the 21st century. Here are four HBS Working Knowledge stories from the archives that address everything from how teams learn to turning individual performers into team players. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 08 Dec 2008
- Research & Ideas
Thinking Twice About Supply-Chain Layoffs
Cutting the wrong employees can be counterproductive for retailers, according to research from Zeynep Ton. One suggestion: Pay special attention to staff who handle mundane tasks such as stocking and labeling. Your customers do. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 06 Jun 2008
- What Do You Think?
Why Don’t Managers Think Deeply?
Online forum closed. Summing Up. According to Gerald and Lindsay Zaltman, nearly all research techniques commonly used today probe humans only at their conscious level, though it is the subconscious level that really determines behavior. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 22 Oct 2007
- Research & Ideas
Bringing ‘Lean’ Principles to Service Industries
Toyota and other top manufacturing companies have embraced, improved, and profited by lean production methods. But the payoffs have not been nearly as dramatic for service industries applying lean principles. HBS professor David Upton and doctoral student Bradley Staats look at the experience of Indian software services provider Wipro for answers. Key concepts include: In terms of operations and improvements, the service industries in general are a long way behind manufacturing. Not all lean manufacturing ideas translate from factory floor to office cubicle. A lean operating system alters the way a company learns through changes in problem solving, coordination through connections, and pathways and standardization. Successful lean operations at Wipro involved a small rollout, reducing hierarchies, continuous improvement, sharing mistakes, and specialized tools. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 27 Nov 2006
- What Do You Think?
What’s to Be Done About Performance Reviews?
What can we do to make performance reviews more productive and less distasteful? Should their objectives be scaled back to just one or two? Should they be disengaged from the determination of compensation and, if so, how? Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 09 Jan 2006
- Research & Ideas
When Benchmarks Don’t Work
Benchmarks have their virtues, but professor Robert S. Kaplan argues they should be saved for surveys of commoditized processes or services. From Balanced Scorecard Report. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 22 Aug 2005
- Research & Ideas
The Hard Work of Failure Analysis
We all should learn from failure—but it's difficult to do so objectively. In this excerpt from "Failing to Learn and Learning to Fail (Intelligently)" in Long Range Planning Journal, HBS professor Amy Edmondson and coauthor Mark Cannon offer a process for analyzing what went wrong. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 08 Aug 2005
- Research & Ideas
Decision Rights: Who Gives the Green Light?
Four steps to ensure that the right decisions are made by the right people. HBS professor emeritus Michael C. Jensen explains in Harvard Management Update. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
High Commitment, High Performance Management
High commitment, high performance organizations such as Southwest Airlines, Johnson & Johnson, McKinsey, and Toyota effectively manage three paradoxical goals, says HBS professor Michael Beer. His new book explains what all companies can learn. Q&A Key concepts include: High commitment, high performance (HCHP) firms carry out performance alignment, psychological alignment, and the capacity for learning and change. HCHP transformations are a unit-by-unit process. HCHP firms allow employees to speak to power in honest, collective, and public conversations. Leaders must make conscious, principled choices. Leaders develop an institution that cares about people while understanding the importance of profits. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.