The Find: Like Lewis Carroll's red queen, companies in a cut-throat business environment can put so much effort into just keeping up with the competition that they fail to see they're getting no advantage for all their effort. The Source: The Random Rantings blog of Freek Vermeulen,...
As people continue to pinch pennies in a slowing economy, how does the seller of upscale products and services convince them to buy items that are impractical Hummer, unnecessary Amazon rain forest excursion, or expensively luxurious Lobster of the Month Club? The answer is simple. Lay...
The Find: If you feel perpetually crunched for time, a Wharton School professor suggests the culprit isn't your overstuffed calendar but your leadership skills. The Source: The blog of Tim Ferris, author of "The Four-Hour Workweek" discussing "Total Leadership" by Wharton School professor Dr....
Stanford professor, Bob Sutton, has built a small industry around telling business people not to be assholes. You can check him out explaining the basic idea of his book, "The No Asshole Rule," in this BNET Book Briefing: working with rude, self-obsessed people isn't just aggravating, it's a drain on...
"It's better to be a leader than a follower." -- Your 2nd Grade Teacher Everyone heard this piece of conventional wisdom from at least one teacher when they were breaking a rule at a classmate's behest. We had a sneaking suspicion that it was lame advice back...
Oprah's been hitting the campaign trail with Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama and Chuck Norris is stumping for Mike Huckabee in hopes that the celebrity support will sway wavering voters (trust us, this has something to do with business). However, recent research suggests that celebrity endorsement won't help the candidates...
Tonight, I sat in class and listened to my fellow classmates summarize points from a textbook. Let me repeat that. Tonight, I, a 31-year-old graduate student, sat in class and listened to other grad students basically read from a college textbook. (Oh, I also...
Many people learn instinctively the importance of managing up -- that is, keeping your boss in the loop, in your corner, and under control. More difficult and subtle is the art and science of managing peers, subordinates, different generations, geniuses, and jerks. To varying degrees, all have...
Quick -- what do the Columbia space shuttle explosion, the Bay of Pigs and "New Coke" have in common? If you answered that all were disasters, you get partial credit. But to make the grade in a business school classroom -- and in your...
There's a ton of literature out there on the topic of business leadership, but Robert Sutton is in a field of his own. The Professor at Stanford University's Management Science and Engineering department has written a volume of influential work on topics ranging from data-driven decisioning to his latest...
It's the stuff of horror stories: screaming fights, racist comments, coworkers falling asleep. Learn the right way to handle any conference-room crisis. "If you disagree with a colleague's idea, you should..." Propose a constructive alternative without being immediately dismissive. Mildred S....
We all read business books, most of them rah-rah motivational fluff like The 21 Irrefutable Laws Of Leadership or extended think pieces like A Whole New Mind. But the ones I enjoy the most are story-telling peeks inside another industry. I'm a fan of Michael Lewis (Moneyball, The New New...
Ethical violations are becoming common in the business world. Teaching proper ethical behavior can begin in college. In this study, one surveyed 350 students to determine what affects students? perceptions of the ethics of professors and to determine whether or not taking a course in ethics changes this perception. The...
HBS associate professor Youngme Moon teaches the MBA elective Consumer Marketing and several Executive Education marketing courses. This article presents the findings and insights into various issues related to marketing, based on the expertise of the professor. It highlights that making advertising hard to find is just one way companies...
The process of influencing people -- and the tactics you choose to do so -- are an important element of managerial success. UNC Kenan-Flagler management professor Dan Cable and University of Florida colleague Timothy Judge investigate the role of manager personality in the Journal of Organizational Behavior study,...
Tall shelving filled with binders lines the office walls of a Professor of Radiology and Oncology, and Head of Computed Tomography CT at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Stacks of diagnostic images, many three-dimensional renderings of stunning clarity and color, tower around the computer monitors. Taking a break from the...
The article presents the views of several scholars and journalists who have recently taken on a challenge that pervades organizational life but has hitherto received scant attention from those who study management. The challenge is managing up — developing a meaningful, task-related relationship with one’s boss. The professor describes the...
Passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley GLB Act in 1999 re-opened the debate on consumers' right to privacy in financial transactions. To broaden awareness of this debate, the Philadelphia Fed's Payment Cards Center sponsored a workshop, led by University of Pennsylvania law professor Anita L. Allen. Professor Allen opened the meeting with...
This paper contains a presentation focusing on competitive strategies. It compares competitiveness with prosperity, discusses the goals of antitrust policy, provides the information on the five forces model used for assessing the extent of competition and its advantages such as it embodies a much broader conception of competition, embodies a...
When businesses try to effect sweeping change, they usually fail, and according to Harvard professor John Kotter, the reason is often a collective lack of urgency. In this podcast, Kotter explains why urgency matters; how it can be gauged, created, and harnessed; and how to avoid false urgency and complacency,...