Learning From Failure - Publications - Faculty & Research

2025
Book

Retiring: Creating a Life That Works for You

By: Teresa M. Amabile, Lotte Bailyn, Marcy Crary, Douglas T. Hall and Kathy E. Kram

Retirement, as a major life transition, can be both thrilling and challenging in unexpected ways. Written by acclaimed authors in the fields of business leadership, careers, and work, this book goes beyond the typical financial and health-related advice on retirement,... View Details

Keywords: Retirement

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Find Past & Upcoming Events - Alumni

navigating professional decision points - removes the typical barriers in networking, chips away at uncertainty, and plays to a human tendency to learn from each other. May 02 12 PM – 1:30 PM EDT, 02 May... View Details

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Invention of the Polarizer - Edwin H. Land & Polaroid | Harvard Business School

thread," Land biographer Victor McElheny maintains. "There is a huge probability of failure to hit on a new technology that will make a market." 13 As he moved from the laboratory to the factory, View Details

27 Aug 2008
Research & Ideas

Creating Leaders for Science-Based Businesses

what the School teaches, and to whom. How can HBS best complement and contribute to the work of the University's world-renowned laboratories as well as to cutting-edge, science-based firms in Boston and beyond? Can the School itself learn... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons; Biotechnology; Health

17 Nov 2020
In Practice

How Retailers Can Thrive in a Shopping Season Like No Other

value than e-commerce, such as immediacy, curated selection, or allowing touch and feel of non-digital experiential goods. Thinking of online shopping as a compliment and an opportunity, rather than as a substitute and a threat to offline shopping, and searching for... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Retail

Teaching Interest

Design of Field Research Methods (DFRM)

Field research involves collecting original data (qualitative and/or quantitative) in field sites. This course combines informal lecture and discussion with practical exercises to build specific skills for conducting field research in organizations. Readings include... View Details

20 Dec 2017
Lessons from the Classroom

How to Design a Better Customer Experience

customer’s champion and own the problem. “We landed after a delayed 12-hour flight and learned that our connecting flight was gone. Our expectations were low because we flew on a mileage ticket from American... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Health; Entertainment & Recreation

26 Jan 2004
Research & Ideas

What Developing-World Companies Teach Us About Innovation

consultants, and promoters can give us a good idea of a product's acceptance within a week. With one of our perfumes, we realized it would be a failure from the consultants' reactions, even before the actual... View Details

Keywords: by Donald N. Sull, Alejandro Ruelas-Gossi & Martin Escobari

16 May 2024
News

On the Job

came very close to costing me an entire career. DM: In this special edition of Skydeck, associate editor Julia Hanna asked this year’s recipients of the School’s highest honor to describe a work experience that has really stayed with them over the years and what they... View Details

Keywords: first job; leadership; life experience; career lessons; Finance; Oil and Gas Extraction; Mining; Retail Trade

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Batten Hall | About

milestones, educational TV’s first star, chef Julia Child, launched her career. The upper two levels of Batten Hall include 10 curved, modular learning classrooms known as “hives,” developed for small-group exercises and team-based... View Details

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HBS Entrepreneurship Summit - Alumni

in addition to valuable connections that will move it in a strong direction. In a collaborative learning environment, attendees gained access to the latest thinking around rapidly changing global dynamics affecting entrepreneurship and... View Details

10 Nov 2015
Op-Ed

Authentic Leadership Rediscovered

authentic. Authentic Leadership was intended as a clarion call to the new generation to learn from negative examples like Enron, WorldCom and Tyco. In it, I defined authentic leaders as genuine, moral and... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George

04 May 2007
What Do You Think?

How Do Managers Think?

Summing Up Can managers acquire ways of thinking or ways of learning from doctors? Managers can learn from an understanding of how doctors think.... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

Portrait Project

Mike Laffin

at Catholic Charities, devoted their lives to serving the less fortunate in Hartford. They taught me to use your gifts to serve others and to never shy away from an opportunity to do the right thing—no matter the risk. I left investment... View Details

21 May 2024
News

A New Chapter

read with comprehension. If you play out the next 30 years, something really significant needs to change for the whole world not to be hugely impacted by the lack of resources in this region. You need to find solutions that can work outside the status quo.” As... View Details

Keywords: Catherine O’Neill Grace; photo by Cayce Clifford

23 Sep 2022
Research & Ideas

8 Strategies to Sustain Business Innovation

navigating from DVDs by mail to creating content. The venerable cereal company Kellogg has been shifting from breakfast food to snacks. McDonald says the big question is whether a company can use those... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

24 May 2017
News

Adebayo O. Ogunlesi, JD/MBA 1979

Independent Director, Goldman Sachs Chairman and Managing Partner, Global Infrastructure Partners As a student of philosophy, politics, and economics at Oxford, Bayo Ogunlesi learned that some lectures were optional. Several weeks into... View Details

Keywords: Susan Young

Research Summary

Experience and description-based decision making.

Prof. Barron and his co-authors study the effect of the economic environment on decision making. One example involves the effect of rare (low probability) events. People behave as if they overweight these events in some settings (e.g., when buying insurance and... View Details

01 Sep 2021
Blog Post

Investing in Career Switchers - Cyril Straughn-Turner & Invesco US

Straughn-Turner was aware he was making a significant pivot from consulting to real estate and would need to actively pitch himself to recruiters. He learned what skills were valuable in real estate and... View Details

Keywords: Real Estate

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Impact of the New Medium - Edwin H. Land & Polaroid | Harvard Business School

Clubs Faculty & Research Business & Environment Business History Christensen Center for Teaching & Learning Entrepreneurship Faculty & Research Global Healthcare HBS Working Knowledge Institute for Strategy & Competitiveness Leadership... View Details

Publications