Vision - Publications - Faculty & Research

30 Nov 2007
What Do You Think?

What Is Management’s Role in Innovation?

managers have the courage, but does the CEO have the vision and fortitude to stand before the board and defend the opportunity to explore and fail?" Joe Violette, who reminded us that innovation (as opposed to invention) is most... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

10 Apr 2014
Research & Ideas

John Kotter’s Plan to Accelerate Your Business

management tackle big opportunities. The accelerators are: Create a sense of urgency. Build guiding coalition. Form strategic vision and initiatives. Enlist volunteer army. Enable action by removing barriers. Generate short-term wins.... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard

06 Jul 2011
Research & Ideas

Are You a Level-Six Leader?

twin mirages of short-term profit or stock market valuations. They have a grand vision for the future of their organizations, and they infect others with their energy, enthusiasm, and integrity. These are the leaders we write books about,... View Details

Keywords: by Mitch Maidique

11 Aug 2003
Research & Ideas

Why Budgeting Kills Your Company

based on "industry best-in-class performance measures or direct competitors," Hope and Fraser write; and give teams "an extended period of time to reach them"—two to three years. Atlanta-based eye-care company CIBA View Details

Keywords: by Loren Gary

14 Apr 2022
Op-Ed

Let’s Move Forward from COVID—Without Forgetting What We’ve Learned

organizations fail to train new members and pass knowledge down. Business leaders have an opportunity to create a new vision for working that values ideas and innovation, but only if they can take what they've learned and look forward—and... View Details

Keywords: by Hise O. Gibson and MaShon Wilson

14 Jul 2003
Research & Ideas

Understaffed and Overworked: What Now?

also help your work get noticed. "Keeping your head down under the burden of responsibilities will mean that your personal and strategic vision will be stymied within your own organization," Segil notes. If you miss the... View Details

Keywords: by Paul Michelman

03 Jul 2013
What Do You Think?

What Are the Limits of Transparency?

cautioned us not to expect too much from a policy of transparency, saying "If the company culture operates better within the founder's vision of transparency, all well and good, be transparent. But to trust transparency alone to... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

07 May 2020
Research & Ideas

The One Good Thing Caused by COVID-19: Innovation

drastic changes in their interactions with consumers. In education, teachers from elementary schools to universities transformed content and delivered it online or through phones. Retailers started to license Amazon's Just Walk Out technology that combines computer... View Details

Keywords: by Hong Luo and Alberto Galasso

14 Feb 2017
Research & Ideas

A Strategy For Steady Leadership in an Unsteady World

business leaders to step forward and lead in ways that business schools don’t teach. Let’s examine these different ways of leading comprising VUCA 2.0: Vision – Today’s business leaders need the ability to see through the chaos to have a... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

01 Oct 2014
What Do You Think?

Is Too Much Focus a Problem?

process, they provoked a new round of questions. David Physick teed up the discussion nicely by commenting, "The wonderful American motor racing driver, Mario Andretti, who was as focused an individual as any racer, remarked he'd stop driving when his peripheral... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

11 May 2009
Research & Ideas

The IT Leader’s Hero Quest

sacrificing organizational agility, the company would institute more formal systems and controls. IT was, of course, key to achieving this. An expression Williams and Barton had begun to use in conversation to describe where they were headed captured their joint View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

06 Oct 2010
Research & Ideas

John Kotter: Four Ways to Kill a Good Idea

genuinely good plan, pursuing a great idea, or making a needed vision a reality might be filled with frightening risks—even though that is not really the case. There are all sorts of ways to create fear. You have seen a half dozen in the... View Details

Keywords: by John Kotter & Lorne A. Whitehead

17 Sep 2021
Research & Ideas

The Trial of Elizabeth Holmes: Visionary, Criminal, or Both?

vision. By all accounts, she and the others at Theranos, all of them wanted Theranos to succeed. Their vision was incredible; it would have been transformative. The question is, at what point does that wishfulness and enthusiasm go from... View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Biotechnology; Technology; Medical Devices & Supplies

22 May 2017
Lessons from the Classroom

A Luxury Industry Veteran Teaches the Importance of Aesthetics to Budding Business Leaders

healthy thirst for competition. Dubbed “Aesthetic Idol,” the project asks students to split into small groups and choose a true-life business challenge, and to come up with a solution that combines creative vision with a compelling... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Beauty & Cosmetics; Apparel & Accessories; Auto; Tourism

02 Apr 2001
Research & Ideas

Not All M&As Are Alike—and That Matters

industrial-strength evaluation processes. There is no time for slow assimilation when substituting acquisitions for R&D. The new people won't work if the vision and values aren't compatible. Cultural due diligence is especially... View Details

Keywords: by Joseph L. Bower

11 Apr 2011
Lessons from the Classroom

Teaching a ‘Lean Startup’ Strategy

"In many ways I'm using the lean startup strategy. A lot of the course is cobbled together—it's an MVP in itself," he says. "When you teach a case for the first time you're often surprised at what does and doesn't work. So this issue of the tension... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Technology; Computer

21 Apr 2021
Research & Ideas

The Pandemic Conversations That Leaders Need to Have Now

effective. This type of conversation can provide the clarity needed to personalize our work’s purpose better than an organization’s vision or mission statement, which is often so grand that employees have difficulty connecting it to their... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg, Robin Abrahams, and Katherine Connolly Baden

15 Oct 2007
Research & Ideas

Businesses Beware: The World Is Not Flat

fundamental building blocks of the company's strategy. “The idea is to help businesses cross borders profitably by seeing the world as it really is.” Note that Toyota's starting point is not a grand, longer-term vision of some distant... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

Research Summary

Overview

By: Roberto Verganti

Roberto’s research focuses on how to create innovations that are meaningful for people, for society, and for their creators. He explores how leaders and organizations generate radically new visions, and make those visions come real. His studies lie at the intersection... View Details

Keywords: Integrated Design; Strategy; Design Thinking; Innovation; Artificial Intelligence; Design; Technology; Leadership; Innovation Strategy

2011
Book

Detour: My Unexpected, Amazing, Life Changing Journey With OnStar

By: Chet Huber

Detour is the story behind the launch of OnStar’s now well known blue button, as told through the eyes of its founder and CEO of over fourteen years, Chet Huber. It’s a personal narrative that describes the events that led up to General Motors’ unexpected choice... View Details