Silos - Publications - Faculty & Research

25 Oct 2004
Research & Ideas

Planning for Surprises

independently operating silos and the filtering of information as it passes up through the hierarchies. Political vulnerabilities contribute to predictable surprises when a small number of individuals and organizations are able to... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

21 Nov 2012
Research & Ideas

What Health Care Managers Need to Know--and How to Teach Them

patient, few actually engage them in meaningful ways to help with prevention and wellness, shared decision making, provider choice, expectation setting ,and compliance. The problem is that practical skills such as cost accounting and organizational behavior are taught... View Details

Keywords: by Paul Guttry; Health; Education

07 Jun 2019
Book

Are You a Digital Manager?

early to cope with time zone challenges or living in airports sometimes being 50 percent of a manager’s time. “It comes as no surprise that so many managers are overwhelmed and burned out these days.” Many companies are working overtime to break down the View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

19 Oct 2015
Research & Ideas

Business Research that Makes for Smarter Public Policy

that regulators shared knowledge among themselves as well as with the academics. “We tend to get siloed in our thinking,” says OSHA senior policy advisor Debbie Berkowitz. “We don’t really reach out to other agencies enough to see how... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

23 Apr 2013
First Look

First Look: April 23

are working on the resulting potential breakthrough ideas. In this article, we describe how leaders of Harvard Catalyst, an organization whose mission is to drive therapies from the lab to patients' bedsides faster and to do so by working across the many View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

30 Oct 2005
Research & Ideas

Tuning Jobs to Fit Your Company

different operations to look beyond their silos to consolidate operations and share best practices to lower costs. Similarly, firms such as big-box retailers that centralize merchandising and distribution to deliver low prices must ensure... View Details

Keywords: by Robert Simons

28 Oct 2019
Research & Ideas

Brick-and-Mortar Stores Are Making a Comeback

the more traditional, siloed approach. Avery: I would give the example of Glossier, which is a digitally native, direct-to-consumer cosmetics company. They have one permanent showroom in New York, but everything else that they’ve done,... View Details

Keywords: by Jen McFarland Flint; Retail

22 Jun 2021
Research & Ideas

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

there’s no pressing need for introductions; since these groups are usually siloed revenue producers. Competition with other departments, the need for subject-matter expertise—these are the circumstances that typically create leadership... View Details

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

01 Sep 2008
News

Building a Better MBA

students how to think beyond information silos and to be more self-aware as leaders. It’s the “know how” that’s most valued in the business world, Datar and Garvin found in their research. How to bridge the “knowing-doing” gap became a... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

01 Jun 2022
News

Empowering Entrepreneurially Minded Students

class. Harvard had been siloed by school, and the Harvard i-lab, which opened in 2011 and evolved into the Harvard Innovation Labs ecosystem, was one of the first things that very deliberately cut across these boundaries. It’s a resource... View Details

Keywords: Jennifer Gillespie

29 Nov 2004
Research & Ideas

Caves, Clusters, and Weak Ties: The Six Degrees World of Inventors

flows across these links—that that's the lifeblood of research and creativity. At the other extreme, we found two CEO managers in Silicon Valley who were vehemently opposed to these ideas and complained about how they hired their scientists and trained them for a year... View Details

Keywords: by Sara Grant; Publishing

25 Mar 2021
Research & Ideas

Steer Clear of the Blind Spots That Derail Experiments

managers valuable insights, but there are potential pitfalls, Luca says. They include: Failing to tie experiments with managerial decision-making. Some organizations tend to relegate testing to specialized teams without deep managerial involvement, building View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

24 Nov 2008
Research & Ideas

Harvard Business School Discusses Future of the MBA

functional knowledge. But they fall down on "know how"—teaching students how to think beyond information silos and to be more self-aware as leaders. It's the "know how" that's most valued in the business world, Datar... View Details

Keywords: by Roger Thompson & HBS Bulletin; Education

05 Oct 2021
Blog Post

First-Gen Voices: Eric Westphal on Tapping into the Global Alumni Network & Making a Difference across Borders

rewarding to work directly with the founders and with teams day-to-day to solve problems than to be more siloed and emerge with a project at the end. At the same time be prepared to be flexible. Startups change a lot, even in a matter of... View Details

29 Apr 2020
Book

The Key to Powerful Social Change: Small Villages

Who will solve the great problems facing humanity, a list of critical issues that only begins with the current pandemic? In the interview below, Rosabeth Moss Kanter discusses her recent book, Think Outside the Building, and her view that solutions are most likely to... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

03 Jan 2017
First Look

January 3, 2017

silos within numerous academic medical centers, pharmaceutical companies, and some disease-based foundations. For new precision therapies to be developed, these data sets need to be shared broadly. Patients can help lead this effort by... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

17 Mar 2008
Research & Ideas

The Lessons of Business History: A Handbook

research accessible to nonspecialists. Academics have a growing tendency to pursue ever-narrower research agendas and to talk primarily to their own discipline, resulting in a chronic problem of knowledge existing in silos and different... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

27 Aug 2013
First Look

First Look: August 27

silos are one reason for the lack of integration. More important, however, is the lack of a common framework and even language that would allow engineers, lawyers, and business executives to manage IP assets better. This article provides... View Details