Publications

26 Oct 2021
Research & Ideas

What Companies Want Most in a CEO: A Good Listener

skills who can: actively listen to others; empathize genuinely with others’ experiences; persuade people to work toward a common goal; and communicate clearly—or, as Sadun puts it, “touch the chords of listeners.” Top executives who... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald

04 Feb 2014
What Do You Think?

Has Listening Become a Lost Art?

Summing Up When Is Listening Not a Good Strategy? Like a good case debate, the discussion of the question of whether listening is a lost art was not one-sided. What was clear was how important people felt listening is to effective leadership. As Shari Morwood put it,... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

07 Jun 2023
Blog Post

My One Case: MBA Class of 2023 Looks Back

motivations? How do you incentivize your employees? How do you work with others to create change? I came to HBS thinking that I would learn all the hard skills such as accounting and finance—which I did—but I also realized that a lot of the value from my time at HBS... View Details

18 Nov 2013
Research & Ideas

Pulpit Bullies: Why Dominating Leaders Kill Teams

When Harvard Business School Associate Professor Francesca Gino invites high-powered business leaders to address her class, she often observes an interesting phenomenon. The guest speakers announce that they are just as interested in learning from the students as... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

29 Jan 2018
Book

How 'Teaming' Saved 33 Lives in the Chilean Mining Disaster

family members, emergency response teams, rescue workers, and reporters poured into the vicinity. Meanwhile, the Chilean mining community dispatched experts, drilling machines, and bulldozers. At the request of President Pinera, Codelco,... View Details

Keywords: by Amy C. Edmondson; Mining

December 2022
Article

'Just Letting You Know…': Underestimating Others' Desire for Constructive Feedback

By: Nicole Abi-Esber, Jennifer E. Abel, Juliana Schroeder and Francesca Gino

People often avoid giving feedback to others even when it would help fix a problem immediately. Indeed, in a pilot field study (N=155), only 2.6% of individuals provided feedback to survey administrators that the administrators had food or marker on their faces.... View Details

Keywords: Feedback; Helping; Prosocial Behavior; Misprediction; Relationships; Interpersonal Communication; Perspective

May 2009 (Revised August 2010)
Case

The Jenner Situation

By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Andy Whittemore and Eliot Sherman

Dr. Bill Lemont is the new chief medical officer of a large academic medical center. During his first week on the job he has become aware of the abusive behavior and temper outbursts of a prominent orthopedic surgeon. How Dr. Lemont handles the situation will be... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Employee Relationship Management; Managerial Roles; Behavior; Conflict Management; Health Industry

October 2003
Case

Henry Tam and the MGI Team

By: Jeffrey T. Polzer, Ingrid Vargas and Hillary Anger Elfenbein

Within a short time frame, seven diverse team members assemble to write a business plan for a new company and struggle to define their roles, make decisions together, and resolve conflict. Henry Tam, a second-year Harvard MBA student, who joins an aspiring start-up... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Business Plan; Groups and Teams; Decision Making; Jobs and Positions; Leadership Style; Human Resources; Management Teams; Conflict and Resolution; Diversity

September 2017
Case

Sensing (and Monetizing) Happiness at Hitachi

By: Ethan Bernstein and Stephanie Marton

Inspired by research linking happiness and productivity, Hitachi had invested in developing new “people analytics” technologies to help companies increase employee happiness. Hitachi had begun manufacturing high-tech badges that quantify a wearer’s activity patterns.... View Details

Keywords: People Analytics; Japan; Sociometers; Wearables; Interpersonal Communication; Human Resources; Happiness; Technology Industry; Japan

September 2023
Technical Note

Note on Difficult Conversations in the Family Enterprise

By: Christina R. Wing

The best time to have a difficult conversation is, ideally, as soon as possible. Engaging in challenging conversations early can produce beneficial results for several reasons, such as resolving issues, improving communication, preserving relationships, and increasing... View Details

Keywords: Conversation; Family Business; Interpersonal Communication; Conflict and Resolution

11 Jan 2022
Research & Ideas

Feeling Seen: What to Say When Your Employees Are Not OK

verbally recognizing how employees feel, particularly when they are sad, upset, or angry, helps coworkers form a much deeper connection. The team’s paper, Emotional Acknowledgement: How Verbalizing Others’ Emotions Fosters Interpersonal... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

02 May 2019
Sharpening Your Skills

How To Ask Better Questions

Asking the right questions is the key to unlocking talent, opportunity, money, even second dates. Research shows asking follow-up questions improves your life and increases emotional intelligence. A Good Place to Start Asking Questions Can Get You a Better Job or a... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

29 Jul 2021
Blog Post

Exploring the Intersection of Business & Health Care: Summer Fellow Derek Soled (MD/MBA 2022)

Equity Team in the Vaccine Operations Center, whose goals are to achieve maximum vaccination levels in New York City, to close the vaccination gap between different boroughs and ethnic groups, and to tackle structural racism in healthcare through public health... View Details

Article

The C-Suite Skills That Matter Most

By: Raffaella Sadun, Joseph B. Fuller, Stephen Hansen and PJ Neal

Landing a job as a CEO today is no longer all about industry expertise and financial savvy. What companies are really seeking are leaders with strong social skills. That’s what the authors discovered after analyzing nearly 7,000 job descriptions for C-suite roles.... View Details

Keywords: C-Suite; Skills; Skills Development; Social Skills; Management Skills; Interpersonal Communication; Talent and Talent Management

Register to Read

12 Mar 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, March 12, 2019

The organization pays for the individual to enhance his or her skills—and résumé—and thereby benefit from participating. The second is the gap between the skills that executive development programs build and the skills that organizations require—particularly the View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

Web

Career Re-Entry & Flexible Work - Alumni

Learning to create an effective network, improve your interpersonal skills, access new information, and connect with important organizational stakeholders in this self-guided course. Resume Maintenance Make it a habit to document your... View Details

April 2023
Article

Learning Down to Train Up: Mentors Are More Effective When They Value Insights from Below

By: Ting Zhang, Dan Wang and Adam D. Galinsky

Although mentorship is vital for individual success, potential mentors often view it as a costly burden. To understand what motivates mentors to overcome this barrier and more fully engage with their mentees, we introduce a new construct, learning direction, which... View Details

Keywords: Mentoring; Learning Direction; Interpersonal Communication; Learning; Leadership Development

May 2011
Article

The Power of Small Wins

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer

What is the best way to motivate employees to do creative work? Help them take a step forward every day. In an analysis of knowledge workers' diaries, the authors found that nothing contributed more to a positive inner work life (the mix of emotions, motivations, and... View Details