Performance Goals - Publications - Faculty & Research

04 Oct 2021
What Do You Think?

How Do We Make Sure the Right People End Up with Power in Organizations?

systems or processes.” Bill Edwards added, “Trust is a trait! Like any trait, it is earned by action and repetition.” Bill Fotsch added, “Companies that have clear goals, transparency of performance and compensation aligned around those... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

03 Jan 2023
What Do You Think?

How Would the Leadership Style of Girl Scouts' Frances Hesselbein Fare Today?

(management development) conference center” on one end before writing the words, “one 10-year-old girl” on the other and announcing, “It balances.” The goal was not to enable girls in general, but rather to help each girl reach her full... View Details

Keywords: Re: James L. Heskett

09 Sep 2015
Research & Ideas

Leadership Lessons of the Great Recession: Options for Economic Downturns

company’s competitiveness after the downturn ends? For the last five years, we have been studying layoffs and their alternatives. Our goal with this research is to help leaders understand when it makes sense for companies to use layoffs... View Details

Keywords: by Sandra Sucher & Susan Winterberg; Aerospace; Electronics

16 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Nonprofit Networking: The New Way to Grow

are deliberately using a network strategy and discovering its potential to serve more people more effectively. "I'm interested in high performance networks and understanding how those networks were created and are managed," says... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

16 May 2000
Research & Ideas

Getting the Message: How the Internet is Changing Advertising

Internet—ad serving. The firm sells ad space on the Web sites it represents and has invested heavily in developing technology to deliver targeted ads to these sites, with the simple goal of "making advertising work on the Web."... View Details

Keywords: by Susan Young

06 Oct 2020
Sharpening Your Skills

18 Tips Managers Can Use to Lead Through COVID's Rising Waters

address concerns, and ultimately get everyone back on the same track to achieve team goals. Team leaders should focus their relaunch in four key areas. Revisit your shared purpose. A relaunch ensures that every team member understands and buys into the clear and... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

29 Aug 2005
Research & Ideas

How Organizations Create Social Value

organizations in Latin America and Spain. For good governance you need some degree of overlap between governance and management.— Ezequiel A. Reficco This research will be published in Harvard's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies book series through... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls

23 Apr 2018
Research & Ideas

Sponsorship Programs Could Actually Widen the Gender Gap

more money. The goal of the researchers: To find out whether participants were more likely to compete if someone were sponsoring them. The research revealed that sponsorship definitely increased the likelihood that participants would... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

September 2020 (Revised September 2021)
Case

Student Success at Georgia State University (A)

By: Michael W. Toffel, Robin Mendelson and Julia Kelley

Georgia State University had developed a reputation for driving student success by nearly doubling its graduation rate for students of all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. It did so while growing its student body and the proportion of Black/African... View Details

Citation

Educators

Purchase

18 Apr 2000
Research & Ideas

Learning in Action

never made twice. AT&T's Bell Laboratories conducted reviews of its own software engineers to determine why some were more productive than others with the goal of distilling their techniques into best practices that their less... View Details

Keywords: by David A. Garvin

27 Oct 2020
Research & Ideas

Can Being the ‘Token’ Give Women and Minorities a Competitive Edge?

of similar backgrounds. Perhaps they were also responding to perceived “implicit quotas,” an organization’s informal goal to promote people from certain groups. However, neither of those reasons proved as powerful as the simple notion... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

10 Mar 2021
Research & Ideas

Key to Doing Your Best at Work? Be Yourself

John, the charismatic chief marketing officer of Netflix (once described by Buzzfeed as the “coolest” person to ever go onstage at an Apple event). Research shows being true to who you are leads to greater professional performance and... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette

26 Mar 2006
Research & Ideas

The Office of Strategy Management

though more than 90 percent had detailed strategic plans with much higher targets. Our own work with clients supports the existence of a persistent gap between the strategic goals organizations set for themselves and the results they... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

13 Nov 2019
Research & Ideas

Don't Turn Your Marketing Function Over to AI Just Yet

how new products or services would perform at various prices or with different characteristics. The machine learning algorithms that might power such a device are, at least for now, incapable of producing such promising results. But what... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

13 Jan 2021
Research & Ideas

How 'Small C' Change Can Beat Large-Scale Rebuilding

the organization’s core activities, sharpen the performance of its leadership team, and rebalance where necessary. This finding came to light when we studied Big C and Small C change in professional sports—specifically, how coaches who... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg, Sascha L. Schmidt, and Sebastian Flegr; Sports

18 Nov 2013
Research & Ideas

Pulpit Bullies: Why Dominating Leaders Kill Teams

a series of studies, they found that when leaders were focused on their own sense of power, they can hurt the performance of their teams—but with an important catch. The effects only occur when leaders are actually in a position of power.... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

27 Jan 2009
First Look

First Look: January 27, 2009

supplement: http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/ b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=809093 Iris Running Crane: March 2011 Harvard Business School Case 809-071 In Spring 2011, Iris Running Crane, a 2009 HBS MBA, has finally achieved her View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

20 Oct 2010
Op-Ed

Export Competitiveness: Reversing the Logic

export is what has often been understood as "export competitiveness". In this thinking, exports become the target and ultimate goal of economic policy. While the crisis has increased the demand for growth strategies, it has also... View Details

Keywords: by Christian Ketels

26 Nov 2001
Op-Ed

Why Corporate Budgeting Needs To Be Fixed

able to realize the sales before the end of the quarter and thus fulfill their budget goal and make their bonuses. But the high cost of assembling the goods at a distant location—it required not only the rental of the warehouse but also... View Details

Keywords: by Michael C. Jensen

01 May 2017
Research & Ideas

Bad At Your Job? Maybe It's the Job’s Fault

jobs is not expanding,” says Simons. “People feel more pressure to own their roles and they’re stressed because they’re being pulled in a lot of different directions, but they’re not getting the help they need.” The idea that an employee’s poor View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

Publications