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August 2001 (Revised June 2002)
Case

IBM Software Solutions (B)

By: Michael L. Tushman and Robert Chapman Wood

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Information Technology Industry

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Read excerpts from DENIAL

By: Richard S. Tedlow

The Edifice Complex: Denial at Sears

Book Excerpt: Denial at Sears (BusinessWeek.com, February 26, 2010)

From Denial: Why Business... View Details

November 2001 (Revised October 2004)
Case

IBM Network Technology (A)

By: Michael L. Tushman and Robert C Wood

An unconventional manager within IBM leads the creation of a business unit with multibillion-dollar potential, winning over customers and nudging the organization to make the changes needed to achieve dramatic growth. This case provides an example of how organizational... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Leadership; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Change Management; Management Practices and Processes; Business Plan; Organizational Design; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Success; Technology Industry

27 Apr 2023
News

Life Preserver

aging-associated diseases, which grew out of Harvard University.) Sylvatica is named for the wood frog—scientific name Rana sylvatica—which can freeze each winter and emerge alive and active with the thaw, up to 212 days later. "Nature... View Details

Keywords: April White

February 2023
Case

SIMmersion: Simulating Crucial Conversations

By: Alison Wood Brooks, Julian Zlatev and F Katelynn Boland

This case introduces readers to SIMmersion, a company founded in 2002 that creates and sells training programs to firms, government agencies, educational institutions, and individuals (B2B and B2C). Their training programs are built around simulations (“sims”) that... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Interpersonal Communication; Training

17 May 2019
News

How Asking Multiple People for Advice Can Backfire

September 2020 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Gong: Resonating Conversational Insights

By: Alison Wood Brooks and Trevor Spelman

In 2015, Amit Bendov was struck by a realization about a new technology that might be able to transcribe musical notation in real-time, which eventually became known as Gong. Gong’s business proposition was simple: provide software that automatically captures,... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Technological Innovation; Communication; Performance Effectiveness; Sales; Customer Satisfaction; Competitive Strategy

2020
Working Paper

Topic Preference Detection: A Novel Approach to Understand Perspective Taking in Conversation

By: Michael Yeomans and Alison Wood Brooks

Although most humans engage in conversations constantly throughout their lives, conversational mistakes are commonplace— interacting with others is difficult, and conversation re-quires quick, relentless perspective-taking and decision making. For example: during every... View Details

Keywords: Natural Language Processing; Interpersonal Communication; Perspective; Decision Making; Perception

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September 2017
Case

Harvard Men's Soccer

By: Alison Wood Brooks and Katherine Coffman

In the fall of 2016, the Crimson, Harvard’s undergraduate newspaper, broke a story revealing that the 2012 Harvard Men’s Soccer team had produced a sexually explicit “scouting report” about the Women’s Soccer team. The story generated national headlines and... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Ethics; Gender; Social Issues

25 Sep 2015
News

One Reason Women Aren't Getting the Promotion: They Don't Want It

24 Sep 2015
News

Women Don’t Always Want the Jobs at the Top, and That’s OK

07 Oct 2014
News

Asking Advice Makes a Good Impression

10 Sep 2022
News

Rules of Civility in a Sometimes-Uncivilized World

01 Nov 2013
News

Selling Crafts with a Story

Etsy—with a strong story line. Koss likes to talk about it this way: Brika might tout a handmade cheeseboard—no real difference from Etsy or its knockoffs, there. But they're also going to tell you that the board was made of reclaimed View Details

Keywords: Maureen Harmon; crafts; hobbies; ecommerce; Miscellaneous Store Retailers; Retail Trade; Arts, Entertainment

01 Jun 2010
News

Get Well Soon

million Pursuing Perfection grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In addition to funding an improvement-science training program, the grant requires that the hospital undertake improvement projects. Hence, Kotagal develops... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; Ambulatory Health Care Services; Health, Social Assistance

March 2025
Article

Boomerasking: Answering Your Own Questions

By: Alison Wood Brooks and Michael Yeomans

Humans spend much of their lives in conversation, where they tend to hold many simultaneous motives. We examine two fundamental desires: to be responsive to a partner and to disclose about oneself. We introduce one pervasive way people attempt to reconcile these... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Motivation and Incentives; Perception; Behavior