Hard Power - Publications - Faculty & Research

21 Mar 2019
HBS Case

The Ferrari Way

Ferrari N.V. is one of the rare brands that unequivocally achieves it—making its iconic horse logo synonymous with luxury and excitement. Thomke, the William Barclay Harding Professor of Business Administration, thinks of a student he... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Auto

04 Jun 2020
Book

It’s Not About You: Why Leaders Need to Look Outward

to Empowering Everyone Around You, Frei and Morriss argue that a true leader is focused on empowering others, not on their own power or prowess. Through helping to unleash the full potential of those they lead, a brave leader increases... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

16 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Restaurant Revolution: How the Industry Is Fighting to Stay Alive

make raising restaurant employee wages nearly impossible absent increased menu prices, which customers hard hit by the crisis are likely to reject. "The most important thing we are all facing is really the confidence and comfort that... View Details

Keywords: by Michael S. Kaufman, Lena G. Goldberg, and Jill Avery; Food & Beverage

21 Sep 2020
Research & Ideas

Are You Sabotaging Your Own Company?

their work.” “Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.” The spy manual struck a chord with Stefan H. Thomke, the William Barclay Harding Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, since he... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

10 May 2022
Research & Ideas

Being Your Own Boss Can Pay Off, but Not Always with Big Pay

declined during the past five decades, and the self-employed are unlikely to be the top earners in their communities. “It’s gotten harder to make a substantial profit at those smaller-scale levels,” explains Kerr. “It’s hard to make the... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald

24 Jun 2002
Research & Ideas

Four Keys of Enduring Success: How High Achievers Win

positive attitudes; Stevenson ticked them off. Successful people are good at matching goals with their own skillsets; they lead a team of believers; they take risks; they are lucky, hard workers, fierce competitors; they overcome... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

13 Jul 2020
Research & Ideas

Merck CEO Ken Frazier Discusses a COVID Cure, Racism, and Why Leaders Need to Walk the Talk

thought the kids would praise me, but the kids did anything but praise me. My son said to me, "Dad, you're really good in sort of rational, intelligent discourse, but tell me, what does your acquired pragmatism do for African Americans?" That's a View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Pharmaceutical

20 Oct 2008
Research & Ideas

The Seven Things That Surprise New CEOs

signs: You have become the bottleneck. Employees are overly inclined to consult you before they act. People start using your name to endorse things, as in "Frank says " Surprise Three: It Is Hard To Know What Is Really Going On... View Details

Keywords: by Michael E. Porter, Jay W. Lorsch & Nitin Nohria

22 Dec 2008
Research & Ideas

10 Reasons to Design a Better Corporate Culture

excerpt, the authors outline the top 10 lessons of the best practitioners, from ING Direct to Build-A-Bear Workshop to Harrah's Entertainment.We can learn a great deal from organizations whose strong and adaptive ownership cultures give them a View Details

Keywords: by James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser & Joe Wheeler

17 Oct 2019
Research & Ideas

‘Chick Beer’ for Women? Why Gender Marketing Repels More Than Sells

your order.” Gender-tailored marketing messages from these brands and others—including Mangria and Pink Power tools—are common, yet new research shows they can turn off consumers, particularly women. In fact, they often backfire to the... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Consumer Products

17 Jan 2011
Research & Ideas

Being the Boss

your boss. That's not the deal. You have to figure out the sources of power you have to influence the boss. You also have to see the boss as human and fallible in all the ways that you're human and fallible, and figure out how to deal... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

16 Mar 2015
Research & Ideas

Advice on Advice

discounting the wisdom they were given, often because of an egocentric bias that has them naturally favoring their own viewpoints. Sometimes people will ask for advice from others, but their true goal is to seek validation or praise for their own solutions. Experience... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

01 Nov 2021
Op-Ed

Team Success Starts with the Individual—and with Love

an unusual but immensely powerful approach to leadership that held promise far beyond the football field. To optimize performance, many leaders take the team or organization as the basic unit of analysis, seeking out processes and... View Details

Keywords: by Ranjay Gulati; Sports

16 Mar 2009
Research & Ideas

When the Internet Runs Out of IP Addresses

addresses in the Internet's early days, when addresses looked abundant and when it was hard to subdivide address blocks into just the right sizes. Other networks have scaled back their IPv4 needs through a change of business focus, or... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Telecommunications

03 Oct 2005
Research & Ideas

The Truck Driver Who Reinvented Shipping

to maritime trade so phenomenal that he has been compared to the father of the steam engine, Robert Fulton. As a youth growing up on a farm in a small town of Maxton, North Carolina, McLean learned early on about the value of hard work... View Details

Keywords: by Anthony J. Mayo & Nitin Nohria; Manufacturing; Transportation; Aerospace

23 Apr 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 23, 2019

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=55999 forthcoming Journal of Accounting Research The Role of Gatekeepers in Capital Markets By: Srinivasan, Suraj, and Sugata Roychowdhury Abstract—Gatekeepers in financial markets have the View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

14 Apr 2022
Op-Ed

Let’s Move Forward from COVID—Without Forgetting What We’ve Learned

with the new ones. Organizations are trying so hard to maintain their hybrid work environments and fill offices. They’re trying so hard to get back to the pre-pandemic workplace, but was it so great? No.... View Details

Keywords: by Hise O. Gibson and MaShon Wilson

17 Apr 2019
Research & Ideas

How Managers Stifle Creativity

The slate of companies going public this year— Pinterest, Slack Technologies, and Uber, to name a few—should silence anyone who doubts the power of a bold idea. After all, one seemingly crazy brainstorm can up end an entire industry,... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

07 Jun 2021
Book

9 Tips from an Expert Fundraiser: Help Donors 'Invest in Their Passion'

regard, helping to open and secure support. "It is hard work and absolutely vital if the organization is to succeed." McFarlan has spent the past 40 years serving on social enterprise boards, helping organizations find the right leaders,... View Details