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Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(166)
- News (11)
- Research (144)
- Multimedia (1)
- Faculty Publications (4)
- 06 Jul 2009
- What Do You Think?
Are You Ready to Manage in an Irrational World?
a me-centric view of life, then what seems rational to me as an individual may appear irrational in the context of social norms." Michael Linz asked to what extent a response to the question relies on how we frame the problem? As Jim... View Details
Keywords: by Jim Heskett
- 02 Sep 2010
- What Do You Think?
How Transparent Should Boards Be?
Summing Up The dilemma posed by the HP-inspired vignette of a CEO allegedly failing to adhere to company values divided respondents to the September column. Two schools of thought evolved. One was that the CEO should be fired for cause with only secondary concern about... View Details
Keywords: by Jim Heskett
- 10 Nov 2008
- What Do You Think?
How Much Can You Ask of Your Customers?
Summing Up Is customer volunteerism combined with "ownership" a double-edged sword? It's seems okay to involve customers in providing ideas for new products and processes. Encourage them to refer new business. But beware the downside of poorly thought-out... View Details
Keywords: by Jim Heskett
- 02 Jun 2011
- What Do You Think?
Is it Time for a National Bankruptcy?
Summing Up Responses to this month's column devolved into a debate about the division of responsibility among institutions faced with the potential for a national bankruptcy. The majority argued that such bankruptcies shouldn't be permitted, largely because of immense... View Details
Keywords: by Jim Heskett
- 02 Dec 2010
- What Do You Think?
Making Right Choices: Art or Science?
Summing Up Thoughtful comments are hard to summarize in five paragraphs. That explains why this month's task is impossible. But one thing unites nearly everyone responding to this column, and that is one kind of objection or other to the question: Is choosing an art or... View Details
Keywords: by Jim Heskett
- 05 May 2011
- What Do You Think?
How Ethical Can We Be?
Summing Up Our perceptions of whether we do "what's right" depend on such things as the situation, the time frame, the expectations of others, and whether we are face-to-face with the object of our actions. And we are much poorer judges of whether we are... View Details
Keywords: by Jim Heskett
- 01 Feb 2008
- What Do You Think?
How Sustainable Is Sustainability in a For-Profit Organization?
Summing Up How will sustainability be achieved? To sum up responses to this month's column, the question is not whether global sustainability will be achieved but how. One school of thought could perhaps be characterized as enlightened self-interest, a realization on... View Details
Keywords: by Jim Heskett
- 05 Sep 2012
- What Do You Think?
Will Business Management Save US Health Care?
Summing Up What Role Will Management Play in Saving US Health Care? The verdict is in, according to respondents of this month's column: Problems confronting health care in the US are much larger and broader than those that can be solved by management in the absence of... View Details
- 30 Nov 2007
- What Do You Think?
What Is Management’s Role in Innovation?
Summing Up Can creativity and innovation be managed? Judging from responses to questions posed by practitioner panelists at a recent colloquium on "Creativity, Entrepreneurship, and Organizations of the Future" at Harvard Business School, many feel that... View Details
Keywords: by Jim Heskett
- 07 Aug 2009
- What Do You Think?
Why Can’t Americans Get Health Care Right?
Summing Up Does U.S. health care need more pull or push? There are clear symptoms that something is wrong with U.S. health care. In Edward Hare's words, "It's making us uncompetitive and turning us against each other." In this month's discussion, several of... View Details
- 07 Jul 2011
- What Do You Think?
So We Adapt. What’s the Downside?
that "Where I believe we need more than ever to be strident and more fixed is in our intolerance of unacceptable behavior by our leaders." Both commitment and adaptability have their place. Jeffrey Cufaude reminded us that Jim... View Details
Keywords: by Jim Heskett
- 07 Jan 2009
- What Do You Think?
Is the World Really Flat?
Summing Up In supporting innovation, does it matter how flat the world really is? "The world is oval!" (Hujaj Ali Nawazkhan). "[T]he world is flatly circular" (Santhanam Krishnan). "[T]he flattening process, while occurring, is highly uneven in... View Details
Keywords: by Jim Heskett
- 03 Dec 2008
- What Do You Think?
Can Housing and Credit be “Nudged” Back to Health?
Summing Up The current global recession has, judging from responses to this month's column, many origins, among them housing and credit. All, of course, are traceable to human responses to both perceived opportunities and calamities, which in turn have been engineered... View Details
Keywords: by Jim Heskett
- 01 May 2009
- What Do You Think?
Do Innovation and Entrepreneurship Have to Be Incompatible with Organization Size?
different that it is too much to expect one person to be able to do, as Forrest Christian suggested? Referring to the same problem, Jim Johnson invoked my colleague Michael Tushman's work on "ambidexterity" among leaders,... View Details
Keywords: by Jim Heskett
- 03 Sep 2009
- What Do You Think?
Are Retention Bonuses Worth the Investment?
Summing Up What is the time and place for retention bonuses? Retention bonuses have their time and place but have to be used sparingly, according to many respondents to this month's column. Others were not so sure. Gerald Nanninga perhaps explained the ambivalence... View Details
Keywords: by Jim Heskett
- 02 Jun 2010
- What Do You Think?
How Do You Weigh Strategy, Execution, and Culture in an Organization’s Success?
Summing Up Strategy, execution, and culture: Do we have our priorities right? First, my thanks to all of you who weighed in on the issues of the month regarding ways of thinking and asking questions about the relative importance of strategy, execution, and culture in... View Details
Keywords: by Jim Heskett
- 05 Sep 2008
- What Do You Think?
Is Case Method Instruction Due for an Overhaul?
Summing Up Is the case method gaining relevance over time? Case method instruction may not be perfect, but to paraphrase Winston Churchill's view of democracy (and Sameer Kamat's response to the column), it's better than the alternatives. At least that's the impression... View Details
- 04 Nov 2010
- What Do You Think?
Why Do We Chase Stars?
Summing Up Three themes appear to characterize many of the responses to this month's column: (1) leadership talent is portable, (2) the reasons that we chase stars are traceable to human nature, and (3) women have qualities that explain why they have greater success in... View Details
Keywords: by Jim Heskett
- 08 Jan 2007
- What Do You Think?
Neuro Economics: Science or Science Fiction?
Summing Up Neuro economics is here to stay, according to a majority of those responding to this month's column. Its promises are too great to ignore. But it may be too early to know whether the promises will be realized in practice. And in the meantime, we stand warned... View Details
Keywords: by Jim Heskett
- 03 Jul 2008
- What Do You Think?
Are Followers About to Get Their Due?
Summing Up Are leadership and followership joined at the hip? It seems impossible to separate the two. They are reflective of one another. These are two of the predominant opinions expressed in one way or another by respondents to this month's column. Phil Clark... View Details
Keywords: by Jim Heskett