Hard Power - Publications - Faculty & Research

04 Jun 2012
Research & Ideas

The Business of Life

sticking to principles every day, considering all the hard work involved. "He told me he thought it had 'a negative net present value.'" “It's a travesty that somehow our society has gotten to a point where people have the view that... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

18 Jul 2011
Research & Ideas

Looking in the Mirror: Questions Every Leader Must Ask

learned--and that many of these skills require executives to rethink their conception of what a superb leader actually does. Developing and practicing these skills requires hard work and may demand that talented executives overcome some... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

10 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

Retailing Revolution: Category Killers on the Brink

retailers that can see this trend coming and react quickly enough, this upheaval is survivable. But those slow to register the tsunami wave on the horizon stand to be swept away. As retailing entered the new century, this slowing was hard... View Details

Keywords: by Rajiv Lal & Jose B. Alvarez; Retail

17 Dec 2008
Lessons from the Classroom

‘Ted Levitt Changed My Life’

his love of a provocative argument and a good discussion, as well as the powerful breadth and depth of his mind. "He always said he didn't mind that people thought he was wrong if they listened long enough to give him a shot,"... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Education; Retail

04 Oct 2018
Research & Ideas

Diversity Boosts Profits in Venture Capital Firms

school degrees over the same period. Ethnic minority representation was even lower, with Hispanics and African Americans representing around 2 percent and at 1 percent respectively over the same period. “We really saw how powerful the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Banking; Financial Services

19 Sep 2016
Research & Ideas

Why Isn't Business Research More Relevant to Business Practitioners?

journals. “Academic research can be helpful, but it tends to be overly complex, hard to digest, and not backed by real quantitative insights from customer populations or engagements,” says Neale-May, executive director of the Chief... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Education

22 Jul 2019
Book

How to Be a Digital Platform Leader

challenges and opportunities posed by digital platforms, The Business of Platforms: Strategy in the Age of Digital Competition, Innovation, and Power is a new book by Harvard Business School Professor David B. Yoffie and coauthors Michael... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

13 Apr 2009
Research & Ideas

Kind of Blue: Pushing Boundaries with Miles Davis

repeat them. For instance, on the song "Freddie Freeloader" Davis comes in one bar early at one point. The band adjusts to this unexpected entry by the leader in such a seamless way that very few people notice the subtle glitch. This is the View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Music

21 Apr 2021
Research & Ideas

The Pandemic Conversations That Leaders Need to Have Now

leaders manage these conversations effectively. Drawing on our insights and those of others, we offer this guide to help leaders have the kinds of discussions we need to be having right now. The four I’s of conversational leadership The book Talk, Inc.: How Trusted... View Details

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

06 Aug 2019
Cold Call Podcast

Super Bowl Ads Sell Products, but Do They Sell Brands?

just think about 100 million people watching the Super Bowl, if you can get another 100 million people posting on Facebook, that's really powerful and very compelling. So, the reach that social media platforms have, in addition to the... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Sports; Entertainment & Recreation; Media & Broadcasting

10 Mar 2011
What Do You Think?

To What Degree Does the Job Make the Person?

retired." This led Illysa to comment, "One more reason we must choose not only our careers but our work places carefully: who do we want to become?" Heidi Olson wondered "if the change in hormones when gaining power is... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

25 Jun 2001
Lessons from the Classroom

Machiavelli, Morals, and You

how they should be governed, what they should worship, and how they should have power over their lives. Leadership is a struggle by flawed human beings to make some important human values real and effective, in the world as it is.... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

26 Oct 2017
Research Event

In an Era of 'Fake News,' What is the Future of Advertising and Publishing?

at HBS and author of The Content Trap: A Strategist’s Guide to Digital Change. “It’s hard to think about revenue without willingness of users to pay,” Anand said. The panel included Brendan Eich, a technologist instrumental in creating... View Details

Keywords: by Jen Deaderick; Media & Broadcasting; Journalism & News

09 May 2011
Research & Ideas

Moving From Bean Counter to Game Changer

expected Anglo's risk managers to emerge as "the heroes of risk management." "I saw these larger-than-life personalities making deal-making and deal-breaking decisions—billion-dollar megadeals," she says. "There's a lot of power involved... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Banking

08 Apr 2002
Research & Ideas

How to Negotiate “Yes” Across Cultural Boundaries

into their negotiating approach. It's a lesson many companies have learned the hard way. And influence on negotiations need not be driven by an informal, underlying power structure, as U.S. Stone Container... View Details

Keywords: by James K. Sebenius

28 Apr 2008
HBS Case

Negotiating with Wal-Mart

Farms, but it's pretty hard to live without Tide and Pampers.” "The concept of win-win bargaining is a good and powerful message," Sebenius says, "but a lot of our students and executives face... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail

10 Sep 2018
Research & Ideas

Celebrating 'The Men and Women of the Corporation' 40 Years Later

issue with a colleague in which we looked at feminist perspectives on a lot of topics, and I took on organizations. I had some early insights, though they were very hard to articulate, and they all entered into this project that became... View Details

Keywords: by Robin J. Ely

20 Jun 2011
Lessons from the Classroom

Fame, Faith, and Social Activism: Business Lessons from Bono

to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Then he began lobbying the administration of George W. Bush for additional funding to fight AIDS (in 2003, the US government pledged $15 billion toward the disease). Like Bono, Koehn says, leaders "must take a... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Entertainment & Recreation

05 Mar 2001
What Do You Think?

Fine Coupling: Can Human Resource Management Learn from Supply Chain Management?

will be the next logical step [in managing human resources]. I think it is win/win for employers and employees to move in this direction. The hard question is not really how can we modularize people — this can be done with testing and... View Details