Publications

Educators

Web

Frequently Asked Questions | HBS Online

said, there are certain deadlines that must be met with the goal of keeping the majority of the group focused on the same topics to maximize social interactions. Details on individual course or program requirements are communicated to... View Details

Web

Organizational Behavior Awards & Honors - Faculty & Research

Lumumba B. Seegars : Recipient of the 2021 Doctoral Programs Dean’s Award for Service to the School and Society. Monique Burns Thompson : Received the 2021 Greenhill Award for Outstanding Service to the HBS Community for creating and... View Details

01 Aug 1998
News

High Honors

their boards of directors. It's a tribute to his years of experience as a corporate and community leader and to his stature as one of Canada's most distinguished executives. Barford graduated from the University of Toronto at the age of... View Details

Web

Power and Influence for Positive Impact | HBS Online

Trust and Exercising Influence Understand how to earn people’s trust so that you can uncover and respond to what they value and apply a repertoire of behaviors for leveraging influence in relationships. Navigate difficult conversations and View Details

September 2013 (Revised August 2015)
Background Note

Leadership and Teaming

By: Ethan Bernstein

Small differences in the leadership of teams can have large consequences for the success of their efforts. Many initiatives fail not because of a fatal error in judgment or insufficient ideas, knowledge, motivation, or capabilities to deliver a solution. They fail... View Details

Educators

17 Dec 2008
Lessons from the Classroom

‘Ted Levitt Changed My Life’

bored," wrote Robert Sullivan (HBS MBA '61). "Levitt made me a convert. He taught that marketing is the guts of any business, that it's critical to understanding the connection between sales, manufacturing, finance, human resources, and View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Education; Retail

02 May 2016
Research & Ideas

Why People Don’t Vote--and How a Good Ground Game Helps

Democracy has a dirty little secret. Despite the fever pitch over presidential primaries this year, the truth is there are few people actually voting. Before the most recent round of voting, only some 11 percent of eligible Democrats voted in the primaries, and the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Communications; Communications

August 1972 (Revised September 1976)
Background Note

Understanding Another Person, Part II: Some Aspects of Self-Concept

By: Anthony Athos and John J. Gabarro

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication

Article

The Errors of Experts: When Expertise Hinders Effective Provision and Seeking of Advice and Feedback

By: Ting Zhang, Kelly Harrington and Elad Sherf

To be effective, experts need to simultaneously develop others (i.e. provide advice and feedback to novices) and advance their own learning (i.e. seek and incorporate advice and feedback from others). However, expertise, and the state of efficacy associated with it,... View Details

Keywords: Expertise; Self-efficacy; Feedback; Perspective Taking; Cognitive Entrenchment; Interpersonal Communication

February 1997
Background Note

Principles of Effective Persuasion

Summarizes six principles of effective persuasion. A rewritten version of an earlier note. View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication

Educators

October 1974 (Revised November 1975)
Background Note

Understanding and Helping Another Person

By: John J. Gabarro

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication

15 Mar 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Backhanded Compliments: How Negative Comparisons Undermine Flattery

Keywords: by Ovul Sezer, Alison Wood Brooks, and Michael I. Norton

2025
Book

Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves

By: Alison Wood Brooks

We all struggle with difficult conversations, but we're often not very good at easy ones either. Though we do it all the time, conversation is one of the most complex, demanding, and delicate of all human tasks, rife with possibilities for misinterpretation and... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication

September 20, 2019
Editorial

Why Asking for Advice Is More Effective Than Asking for Feedback

By: Jaewon Yoon, Hayley Blunden, Ariella S. Kristal and A.V. Whillans

Conventional wisdom says you should ask your colleagues for feedback. However, research suggests that feedback often has no (or even a negative) impact on our performance. This is because the feedback we receive is often too vague—it fails to highlight what we can... View Details

Keywords: Feedback; Advice; Advice Seeking; Feedback Culture; Advice Taking; Interpersonal Communication