efore our eyes, the world is undergoing a massive demographic transformation. In many countries, the population is getting old. Very old. Globally, the number of people age 60 and over is projected to double to more than 2 billion by 2050 and those 60 and over will outnumber children under the age of 5. In the United States, about 10,000 people turn 65 each day, and one in five Americans […]
On his first day as CEO of the Carlsberg Group, a global brewery and beverage company, Cees ‘t Hart was given a key card by his assistant. The card locked out all the other floors for the elevator so that he could go directly to his corner office on the 20th floor. And with its picture windows, his office offered a stunning view of Copenhagen. These were the perks of […]
In his introduction to Working, the landmark 1974 oral history of work, Studs Terkel positioned meaning as an equal counterpart to financial compensation in motivating the American worker. “[Work] is about a search…for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor,” he wrote. Among those “happy few” he met who truly enjoyed their labors, Terkel noted a common attribute: They […]
Though many companies and managers go to extraordinary lengths to boost their teams’ performance, only a fraction seem to accept this simple fact: high performing teams require psychological safety. How to Boost Performance by Increasing Psychological Safety in Your Team
We all know that culture has the capacity to drive and alter everything that happens in our teams and organizations. Business results, services and products, relationships with clients and suppliers, the way people think, the stories they share, the way they go about their work and interact with one another; all this and much more is influenced by culture. In Conversation with Edgar Schein: Answering Three Common Questions about Culture
In a famous scene in the 1967 movie The Graduate, a family friend takes aside Dustin Hoffman’s character, Benjamin Braddock, and whispers in a conspiratorial tone, “Plastics….There’s a great future in plastics.” It seems quaint today, but back then plastics really were new and exciting. The Industrial Era Ended, and So Will the Digital Era
Many companies have soared on the wings of radical ideas, from Polaroid’s instant camera to the sharing economy of firms like Airbnb. What the World’s Best Restaurant Knows About Keeping Its Creative Edge
I looked at my watch. It was 3:20pm. I had been on the phone for over an hour, almost all of that time listening to Frank*, a senior manager at Jambo, a technology company, complain about his boss, Brandon. Jambo is a company I know well — I have many ongoing relationships there from when I used to work with their CEO — but they are not, currently, a client. […]
The problems we’re facing often seem as complex as they do intractable. And as Albert Einstein is often quoted as saying, “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” So what does it take to increase the complexity of our thinking? What It Takes to Think Deeply About Complex Problems
If your workplace is toxic, can you change it? In this episode of HBR’s advice podcast, Dear HBR:, cohosts Alison Beard and Dan McGinn answer your questions with the help of Nicholas Pearce, an associate professor at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. They talk through how to transform a toxic culture, whether you’re a junior employee, a manager, or in charge. Toxic Workplaces Recommended Intuit QuickBooks: From Product […]
