Publications

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18 Nov 2016
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Making a Fast Start on a New Job

One skill every new employee must master is getting a fast start. Here are stories from the archives on what Harvard Business School faculty have advised about hitting the ground running. A Fast Start On Your New Job Your first 90 days in... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

2019
Working Paper

Breaking and Reconfiguring the Boundaries Between Domain Experts and Crowds to Solve Complex R&D Problems through Partial Decomposition

By: Hila Lifshitz - Assaf and Zoe Szajnfarber

The need for domain experts is all but universally assumed when organizing for scientific and technological innovation. In contrast, we are witnessing a burgeoning of citizen science, crowdsourcing, and other “open” methods based on the opposite assumption that crowds... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Problem Solving; Expertise; Crowdsourcing; Nasa; Experience and Expertise; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Research and Development

July 2011
Teaching Note

Buro Happold (TN)

By: Robert G. Eccles and Erin McFee

Teaching Note for 409021. View Details

Keywords: Leadership Development; Training; Organizational Culture; Service Operations; Performance Effectiveness; Management Skills; Service Industry

March 9, 2023
Article

Linking Growth and the Frontline

By: Frank V. Cespedes, Jay Galeota and Michael Wong

Most strategies are about growing the business. But about one quarter of companies do not grow at all and, even before the pandemic, only one in eight achieved more than 10% revenue growth annually, according to data from S&P Global regulatory filings. One reason is a... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Customer Focus and Relationships; Competency and Skills

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June 2008 (Revised October 2012)
Case

Big to Small: The Two Lives of Barry Nalls

By: Noam T. Wasserman and Rachel Galper

Barry Nalls describes lessons learned during his 25-year career—his rise at GTE and shorter-lived ventures—and how these prepared him to found MASERGY, a telecommunications start-up. Even as a young boy in a family of entrepreneurs, Nalls had a reputation as a hard... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Experience and Expertise; Entrepreneurship; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Personal Development and Career

March 2011 (Revised February 2012)
Case

Innovation and Growth at Actelion Ltd.

By: Gary P. Pisano, Daniela Beyersdorfer and Ruth Dittrich

In late 2010, Jean-Paul Clozel, CEO of the Swiss biotech pharmaceuticals firm Actelion, looks back on a successful decade. The small venture that he had started with a few of his scientist colleagues in the late 1990s to discover novel medicine in a research-driven... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Talent and Talent Management; Innovation and Management; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Development; Organizational Culture; Research and Development; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Switzerland

02 Apr 2019
Research Event

Women Pay a Higher Career Price in Today's Always-On Work Culture

really done much in the mainstream academic literature in my field.” The team developed a system to identify and categorize moments when an interviewee tried to avoid a distressing feeling by hesitating, stumbling, or changing the topic,... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Consulting; Service

19 Mar 2006
Research & Ideas

Do I Dare Say Something?

that lead people to feel more or less safe speaking up: individual differences and contextual factors. Individual differences include personality dispositions such as one's level of extraversion or proactivity, or one's developed View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert

August 2011 (Revised October 2011)
Supplement

Lady Gaga (B)

By: Anita Elberse and Michael Christensen

In March 2011, Troy Carter, manager of pop star Lady Gaga, reflects on decisions made regarding his artist's concert tour and faces a new set of challenges regarding the launch of Lady Gaga's new album, Born This Way. Is a huge, expensive launch akin to that of a... View Details

Keywords: Music Entertainment; Product Launch; Product Development; Talent and Talent Management; Music Industry

July 1996
Background Note

The GM's Organizational Challenge: Embedding and Leveraging Capability

By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Ashish Nanda

Describes how general managers can build organizational capability in their firms. View Details

Keywords: Management Skills; Managerial Roles; Management Teams; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Growth and Development Strategy

Find at Harvard

2024
White Paper

The British Opportunity Index

By: Matthew Sigelman, Joseph B. Fuller, Mariano Mamertino and Shrinidhi Rao

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Talent and Talent Management; Employees

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November 2008 (Revised January 2011)
Exercise

Breaking Through Action Plan

By: David A. Thomas and Karen J. Watai

The "Breaking Through Action Plan" is a developmental tool based on the book, Breaking Through: The Making of Minority Executives in Corporate America by David A. Thomas and John J. Gabarro. The Action Plan was originally designed as part of a facilitated session but... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Personal Development and Career; Relationships; Power and Influence; Trust

October 1998
Case

CRA Managed Care, Inc. (C)

By: Myra M. Hart and Susan Harmeling

Chronicles an entrepreneur's transition from chairman/CEO of a large privately held company, to chairman of a public company, to board member, to president of several major nonprofit boards, to founder of a new nonprofit for women business owners and founder of a new... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Leadership; Nonprofit Organizations; Governing and Advisory Boards; Entrepreneurship; Personal Development and Career; Gender; Management Skills; United States

24 Apr 2013
Research & Ideas

Who Sets Your Benchmarks?

that they waited too long to develop good habits for honing their skills or for thinking deeply about what they wanted. Does any of this sound like you? Are you making the most of your capabilities? Do you... View Details

March 1992 (Revised April 1995)
Teaching Note

BMW: The 7-Series Project (A), Teaching Note

By: Gary P. Pisano

Teaching Note for (9-692-083). View Details

Keywords: Projects; Competency and Skills; Production; Quality; Product Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Decisions; Management Practices and Processes; Luxury; Auto Industry

03 Apr 2017
What Do You Think?

How About Investing in Human Infrastructure?

institutions seem to get far behind because they identify a need, then take a lot of time to develop curricula, find teachers, etc.” Aim was even more blunt, saying, “By the end of the year most probably View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Construction

February 2008 (Revised February 2008)
Case

Stanford Graduate School of Business

By: Srikant M. Datar, David A. Garvin and Carin-Isabel Knoop

In fall 2007, Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) adopted a new curriculum that it heralded as a "revolutionary change in management education." The new approach aimed at increasing the level and quality of student academic engagement. This case describes the... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Higher Education; Curriculum and Courses; Globalization; Leadership Development; Cognition and Thinking; Adaptation; Education Industry; California

December 1981 (Revised February 2010)
Case

Mike Miller (A)

Mike Miller, Harvard MBA '78, resigned his first job out of HBS within six months because he believed his personal values and learning objectives could not be accommodated. Students may discuss the problems of anticipating corporate culture, learning the ropes,... View Details

Keywords: Experience and Expertise; Values and Beliefs; Jobs and Positions; Organizational Culture; Personal Development and Career; Personal Characteristics