Middle Skills - Publications - Faculty & Research

30 Jan 2012
Research & Ideas

Measuring the Efficacy of the World’s Managers

for the survey included primarily middle managers in manufacturing plants, although over time the data collection was extended to other industries, such as retail, schools, and hospitals. The approach was to interview those who were high... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

08 Nov 2016
First Look

November 8, 2016

because Patagonia was a private company. The Tompkins dual strategy of exit from business and application of entrepreneurial skills to conservation resulted in large environmental gains, including sequestering and storing an estimated 80... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

22 Jun 2021
Research & Ideas

The COVID-19 Mutiny: When Teams Leave and Take Their Clients

Jones Industrial Average soared amid a “bonkers” real estate market. Professionals have been looking around, and recruiters have data and stories to grab even the most contented employee’s attention. "You could have a two-hour meeting in the View Details

Keywords: by Robin Abrahams, Boris Groysberg, and Steven L. Manchel

06 Nov 2013
What Do You Think?

Is Top-Down Resource Allocation on the Rise?

be due to an increasing emphasis on innovation. Making a similar argument, Gerald Nanninga said, "Much of the new growth will come from new ventures which reapply core skills in new ways. These usually fall in the cracks between the... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

28 Aug 2008
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: History Matters

Sharpening Your Skills dives into the HBS Working Knowledge archives to bring together articles on ways to improve your business skills. Questions To Be Answered How can business history influence current practice? What can the work of... View Details

Keywords: Re: Geoffrey G. Jones & Anthony Mayo

15 Feb 2012
Op-Ed

Occupy Wall Street Protestors Have a Point

would triple the middle class from 400 million to 1.2 billion people, these business leaders were concerned about the growing inequality of income within many nations, across nations, and across regions. Half the world's poor would be in... View Details

Keywords: by Joseph L. Bower, Herman B. Leonard & Lynn S. Paine

27 May 2008
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Thinking About Global

Sharpening Your Skills dives into the HBS Working Knowledge archives to bring together articles on ways to improve your business skills. Questions To Be Answered Are global brands effective? How should I think about strategy in a flat... View Details

12 Nov 2018
Research & Ideas

'Always On' Isn't Always Best for Team Decision-Making

biggest variety in solutions, ranging from very good to very bad, but with a low average quality. Those theories were borne out. Rather than falling somewhere in the middle of those results, the intermittent groups combined the benefits... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland

19 Dec 2012
Research & Ideas

How to be Extremely Productive

schedule to be productive. I wanted to discuss skills that have been critical in my own career. Communication is one—reading, writing, and speaking. Another is how you operate within your organization and deal with both those above you... View Details

Keywords: by Deborah Blagg

24 Jul 2018
Op-Ed

4 Ways Managers Can Exercise Their 'Agency' to Change the World

climate change. More recently, JPMorgan Chase made a major effort to improve the economic vitality of Detroit. The second false assumption is that lower and middle managers cannot help their companies explore the profit potential of... View Details

Keywords: by George Serafeim

21 Apr 2003
Research & Ideas

Are Crummy Products Your Next Growth Opportunity?

have owned started out as a disruptive company.— Clayton M. Christensen Copying the management best practices of leading firms isn't necessarily the answer, Christensen said. When inventors in the Middle Ages tried to invent a contraption... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

29 Jun 2009
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Leading Change

Sharpening Your Skills dives into the HBS Working Knowledge archives to bring together articles on ways to improve your business skills. Questions To Be Answered: How do I build my business in this environment? What should leaders... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

04 Aug 2021
Research & Ideas

Worried About the Great Resignation? Be a Good Company to Come From

We’re in the middle of a Great Resignation. This past April, 2.7 percent of Americans quit their jobs, the highest rate on record. And according to a study by Microsoft, more than 40 percent of the global workforce would consider leaving... View Details

Keywords: by Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta

12 Feb 2014
Research & Ideas

Private Sector, Public Good

between companies and their communities, but also put pressure on the middle class, which were suddenly in competition for jobs with skilled workers around the globe. "And how did our society respond to... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

March 2022
Supplement

Winning Business at Russell Reynolds (B)

By: Ethan Bernstein and Cara Mazzucco

In an effort to make compensation drive collaboration, Russell Reynolds Associates’ (RRA) CEO Clarke Murphy sought to re-engineer the bonus system for his executive search consultants in 2016. As his HR analytics guru, Kelly Smith, points out, that risks upsetting–and... View Details

Citation

Purchase

03 Nov 2016
Op-Ed

Forget About Making College Affordable; Make it a Good Investment

state colleges and universities for families with incomes below $125,000. "A bachelor’s degree may once have been a ticket to the middle class, but that is no longer a sure thing" Such a plan has obvious appeal. It would reduce... View Details

Keywords: by Joseph Fuller; Education

18 Jun 2001
Research & Ideas

Caught in the Cogs: When Manufacturing and IT Meet

company," he said. "It was such a time-consuming process, however, that by the time they were finished, the product was out of date." Find Your Spot On The Spectrum Holding the middle ground of Upton's continuum are two... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Aisner

01 May 2009
What Do You Think?

Do Innovation and Entrepreneurship Have to Be Incompatible with Organization Size?

Summing Up Where are the leaders that can help elephants avoid a stall? Like a good case study, this month's question divided respondents nearly down the middle on the question of whether or not organizations naturally "stall"... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

February 2024
Supplement

Dena Almansoori at e&: Fostering Culture Change at a UAE Telco Transforming to a Global Techco

By: Emily Truelove, Michelle Zhang and Alpana Thapar

Dena Almansoori, the first female and one of the youngest members of the United Arab Emirates-based e&’s leadership team, joined in 2020 just before e& began a strategic transition from being a regional telecommunications company to becoming a global technology... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Telecommunications; Employee Mobility; Leading Change; Human Resources; Organizational Culture; Transformation; Talent and Talent Management; Change Management; Employee Relationship Management; Telecommunications Industry; Technology Industry; Middle East; United Arab Emirates