Leadership and managing people

Hitting the hiring bull’s-eye is one of an executive’s most important—and most difficult—responsibilities. Ten common mistakes can get in the way, but a pointed and systematic approach can virtually guarantee success.

Brewer says inclusion and equity are about making employees feel seen and heard.

Giving feedback, particularly constructive feedback, is often a stressful task. As counterintuitive as it may seem, giving feedback to a top performer can be even tougher. Top performers may not have obvious development needs and in identifying those needs, you can sometimes feel like you’re being nitpicky or over-demanding. In addition, top performers may not […]

Bonuses and other forms of incentive compensation are an effective motivator of executives to achieve ever higher earnings per share. The drive to produce short-term results, however, often influences management to forgo investment in capital equipment and R&D that would benefit the corporation several years hence even more than improved earnings next year would. The […]

The best change agents almost never realize when it’s time to stop. That’s what makes them so good.

Eight ways to encourage your team to think more critically.

As projects get more complicated, managers stop learning from their experience. It is important to understand how that happens and how to change it.

Network groups for black and Hispanic employees had been an unqualified success. Now a Christian group was forming—and Bill Thompson didn’t know what to think about it.

Apparently, my post on the “lunch lesson” rubbed some people the wrong way. When I opined that I found that leadership = responsibility = not always getting to eat lunch, this was, for some, the most heinous concept short of universal healthcare for illegal aliens. The comments that disagreed with me fell into a few […]

You don’t have to go to every keynote.

Joe Ryan turned a small-town cosmetics company into a national powerhouse, making employees happy and shareholders rich in the process. Does it really matter that he cheats on his wife?

Most entrepreneurs want to make a lot of money and to run the show. New research shows that it’s tough to do both. If you don’t figure out which matters more to you, you could end up being neither rich nor king.

When companies cause emotional pain through nasty bosses, layoffs, and change, a certain breed of “healing” manager steps in to keep the gears moving. They are toxic handlers—unsung corporate heroes who save the day, but often pay a high price.

A recent study found that people were 67% more likely to agree to in-person requests than those made over audio or video call.

The latest wave of Covid-19 is pushing us to new depths of personal resilience.

We all know why leap years exist, right? Our calendars get out of synch with the solar system so we must periodically get our human calendars back on track with the celestial ones. In other words, February 29th is all about correcting drift. Without those corrections, things become more and more out of synch. Not […]

The trade-offs can be complex.

Too many organizations descend into underperformance because they can't confront the painful gap between their strategy and the reality of their capabilities,...

A look at the personal, relational, and organizational factors that will help your team do its best work.

Using the results of a survey of 380 companies in 34 industries, this author examines three basic types of compensation plans: salary, commission, and combination (salary plus commission). Most companies in the study favored a combination plan, but such plans have some disadvantages to offset their obvious attractiveness. The author sets out the possible reasons […]

Gujarat Automotive Corporation Limited (GACL) was an Indian manufacturing company that made bus bodies. The firm was a subsidiary of Tata Motors Limited,...

A product manager at a health products company is responsible for marketing sharps containers, which hospitals use to store used needles in order to protect...

Helps students develop an effective sales pitch for their greatest asset--themselves. Also, broadens their understanding of how salespeople sell products...

Supplements the (A) case.

This case series describes the startup of Farm to School of Park County, an emerging nonprofit organization in the US state of Montana. Case (A) describes...

While some cases may focus on using social media to advance the interests of a business or brand, this case is best positioned as a springboard for exploring...

The protagonist,David Dunwood, is a second-time search fund entrepreneur who in mid-2004 purchased Mountain Auto, a leading auto parts retailer in the...

Students evaluate the performance of four mutual funds and compute the cost of capital for two companies using fixed benchmarks, the CAPM, and a multifactor...

Case traces the design and development of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Emphasis is on executive leadership and firm strategy in coordinating across a global...

Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation faces a serious threat to survival from the deep pockets of media mogul Ted Turner and Time-Warner, Inc. McMahon...

In early 2019, transportation was set to undergo a major transformation with the advent of autonomous vehicles (AVs), also referred to as driverless cars,...

On March 7, 2013, ThyssenKrupp Group CEO Heinrich Hiesinger was shocked to receive a resignation letter from Gerhard Cromme, chairman of the company's...

Describes the outcome of Erik Peterson's one-day meeting with his superior and the events of the subsequent day's meeting with the president and vice...

This note describes the chi-square statistic as applied to goodness-of-fit tests. Goodness-of-fit tests check to see how closely a sample matches a particular...

A radical approach to growing high-quality talent--fast. You know that winning in today's marketplace requires top-quality talent. You also know what...

It can also be read on its own to gain a greater understanding of how organizational change unfolds over time. This note can also be used as a companion...

The Maple Leaf Foods (MLF): Changing the System case explores how a major food processor pivoted its vision and operations in an attempt to become the...

Sitara was a village in India whose local governing body had 15 members headed by the gram-pradhan. In 2011, the gram-pradhan had approved a project for...

Hitting the hiring bull’s-eye is one of an executive’s most important—and most difficult—responsibilities. Ten common mistakes can get in the way, but a pointed and systematic approach can virtually guarantee success.

Brewer says inclusion and equity are about making employees feel seen and heard.

Giving feedback, particularly constructive feedback, is often a stressful task. As counterintuitive as it may seem, giving feedback to a top performer can be even tougher. Top performers may not have obvious development needs and in identifying those needs, you can sometimes feel like you’re being nitpicky or over-demanding. In addition, top performers may not […]

Bonuses and other forms of incentive compensation are an effective motivator of executives to achieve ever higher earnings per share. The drive to produce short-term results, however, often influences management to forgo investment in capital equipment and R&D that would benefit the corporation several years hence even more than improved earnings next year would. The […]

The best change agents almost never realize when it’s time to stop. That’s what makes them so good.

Eight ways to encourage your team to think more critically.

As projects get more complicated, managers stop learning from their experience. It is important to understand how that happens and how to change it.

Network groups for black and Hispanic employees had been an unqualified success. Now a Christian group was forming—and Bill Thompson didn’t know what to think about it.

Apparently, my post on the “lunch lesson” rubbed some people the wrong way. When I opined that I found that leadership = responsibility = not always getting to eat lunch, this was, for some, the most heinous concept short of universal healthcare for illegal aliens. The comments that disagreed with me fell into a few […]

You don’t have to go to every keynote.