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HBR.org tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:0.global-incremental 2014-11-23T12:50:39Z http://feeds.harvardbusiness.org/harvardbusiness?format=skinPractical insights, tools and resources from leading business thought leaders.42.371296-71.181961http://cbimages.ed4.net/hbsp/9380_225659.gif Companies Have Always Struggled to Engage Young People tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.50669 2014-11-21T21:21:42Z 2014-11-21T21:21:42Z From hippies to hipsters. Andrea Ovans http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/80-andrea-ovans.jpg?w=80

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/companies-have-always-struggled-to-engage-young-people/ Finding the Right Metaphor for Your Presentation tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.50666 2014-11-21T21:20:41Z 2014-11-21T21:20:41Z It's worth the effort, because it provides a shortcut to understanding. Nancy Duarte http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/80-nancy-duarte.jpg?w=80

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/finding-the-right-metaphor-for-your-presentation/ Half of Employees Don't Feel Respected by Their Bosses tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.50663 2014-11-21T21:19:32Z 2014-11-21T21:19:32Z And it's keeping them from performing well. Christine Porath http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/80-christine-porath.jpg?w=80

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/half-of-employees-dont-feel-respected-by-their-bosses/ A Refresher on Net Present Value tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.50660 2014-11-21T21:18:20Z 2014-11-21T21:18:20Z Know what your project is worth in today's dollars. Amy Gallo http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/80-amy-gallo.jpg?w=80

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/a-refresher-on-net-present-value/ The Small Personal Risks That Actually Change Behavior tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.50657 2014-11-21T21:17:15Z 2014-11-21T21:17:15Z Showing courage is one of your most important jobs as a leader. Peter Bregman http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/80-peter-bregman.jpg?w=80

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/the-small-personal-risks-that-actually-change-behavior/ Are Most CEOs Too Old to Innovate? tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.50654 2014-11-21T21:15:57Z 2014-11-21T21:15:57Z Making sense of the research on age and creativity. Walter Frick http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/80-walt-frick.jpg?w=80

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/are-most-ceos-too-old-to-innovate/ How to Improve Your Business Writing tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.50651 2014-11-21T21:14:14Z 2014-11-21T21:14:14Z Cut the fat. Carolyn O'Hara http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/80-carolyn_ohara.jpg?w=80

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/how-to-improve-your-business-writing/ A List of Goals Is Not a Strategy tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.50648 2014-11-21T21:12:25Z 2014-11-21T21:12:25Z Graham Kenny http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/80-graham_kenny.jpg?w=80

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/a-list-of-goals-is-not-a-strategy/ What High Performers Want at Work tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.50646 2014-11-21T22:41:48Z 2014-11-21T21:09:37Z Money. Karie Willyerd http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/80-karie-willyerd.jpg?w=80

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/what-high-performers-want-at-work/ The 7 Laws of Regenerative Enterprises tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.50511 2014-11-19T16:37:23Z 2014-11-17T16:21:44Z A theory-based approach. Kim C. Korn and B. Joseph Pine II http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/80-joseph-pine-kim-korn.jpg?w=80
Managing baffles us with its complexity. Leaders looking to improve managing do not know where to start, much less where to finish. So even though the gales of creative destruction continually threaten their enterprises, they do not necessarily see radically revising their managing as the obvious solution. But that's exactly what their enterprises need.

In his recent HBR article Gary Hamel described traditional-enterprise ailments as being inertial, incremental, and insipid. He goes on to point out, "Until we challenge our foundational beliefs, we won't be able to build organizations that are substantially more capable than the ones we have today." How true! But it's hard to challenge current beliefs when managing itself remains a bit of a mystery. For too long now, we have gone without an actionable framework for managing that guides us in shaping enterprises toward specific ends so very needed – such as vitalization rather than optimization, constant regeneration over episodic transformation, and internal creative destruction versus preservation of stability.

The host of stories researchers continue to crank out for business leaders will never tell them what they need to know in order to break out of their management malaise. Management advisors are self-defeating when they extract principles from the practices they study, fooling us by pretending that correlation equals causation. And as readers we are also saps for well-crafted stories, pretending they make sense of it all regardless of their underlying truthfulness.

Until now managing's design, innovation, and transformation has not been effectively carried out because no framework made sense of it. No wonder business leaders have not charged forth boldly to develop and adopt new and better ways of managing. No wonder the long hard slog through the wilderness of finding a new way of managing continues. No wonder so few companies truly thrive, and rarely for longer than a decade or so.

Leaders today need a better approach. We need first to understand enterprises, along with the humanity and activities that make them up. And this understanding must be developed in light of (1) economic value creation – the primary function of a business enterprise – and (2) accepting the challenge that an enterprise ought to be able to thrive forever, if it chooses to. (For if your enterprise does not plan on thriving forever, expect it to fail eventually.)

Identifying the aspects of value creation from this simple real-world perspective yields the following comprehensive framework, with its clear answer for each major question:

Humanity:

Who creates value for the enterprise? The workers who choose employment in the work offered by the enterprise.

Why do people come together to create value within the enterprise? To satisfy personal needs while meeting others' needs.

Activities:

Where does the enterprise create value? In enterprise-filled ecosystems.

How does the enterprise create value? Through capabilities of people and activities.

What value does the enterprise create? Economic offerings, bought by customers, which satisfy human needs through the businesses it establishes.

When does the enterprise create value? In its decisions that operate, form, reform, and perpetuate the enterprise.

The Enterprise:

In What Way do these aspects collectively create value? When integrated and unified.

So let's formulate this collection of questions and answers as seven laws of managing. While we do not have space to develop them here – as we did from first principles, not from anecdotes and stories – you will see their connection to the aspects of value creation outlined above.

Humanity:

The Law of Potential: Only the enterprise that unleashes potential, through meeting its workers' innate needs, induces human engagement to its fullest.

The Law of Meaning: Only the enterprise that infuses meaning, through a shared purpose, effects alignment among fully engaged workers.

Activities:

The Law of Creativity: Only the enterprise that liberates creativity, through applying intuition and exercising free will, regularly discovers opportunities for surprising wealth-producing innovations.

The Law of Learning: Only the enterprise that invigorates learning – through exploring, exploiting, and orchestrating – generates the knowledge necessary to persistently create new value among infinite possibilities.

The Law of Humanity: Only the enterprise that enriches humanity, through the knowledge embedded in its business activities, creates offerings of unquestionable economic value.

The Law of Vitality: Only the enterprise that attains vitality, through its incessant destructive recreation, produces the wealth necessary to survive.

The Enterprise:

The Law of Coherence: Only the enterprise that sustains coherence in all its aspects, through ongoing orchestration, regenerates itself to thrive indefinitely.

The beauty of this system of laws of managing is that it leaves nothing out. They collectively address leadership, management, and governance. They provide the lens for sorting out the practices that lead to mediocrity from those that leading to thriving. They enable workers to reach their fullest potential as they perform in every aspect of enterprise value creation. Adhering to these laws produces a regenerative enterprise, an enterprise destructively recreating itself in the face of the creative destruction of its ecosystems. In following these laws, meaning & orchestration become the hallmark of managing, finally supplying the replacement for the old command & control that everyone knows doesn't work, but that so many still practice in one way or another.

Accepting these laws opens the door for executives to challenge and replace the current managing practices holding back the vitality of their enterprises. You now have the framework required to tackle transforming managing with confidence. You can now develop, retain, and eliminate practices in accord with the laws. The regenerative enterprise – one that thrives forever – now becomes a real possibility.

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/the-7-laws-of-regenerative-enterprises/ An Easy Way to Make Your Employees Happier tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.50596 2014-11-14T20:42:50Z 2014-11-13T20:40:27Z Give them a challenge. Liz Wiseman http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/80-elizabeth_wiseman.jpg?w=80

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/an-easy-way-to-make-your-employees-happier/ To Motivate Employees, Help Them Do Their Jobs Better tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.50601 2014-11-14T21:01:32Z 2014-11-12T21:00:10Z Results drive engagement. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/80-tomas-chamorro-premuzic.jpg?w=80

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/to-motivate-employees-help-them-do-their-jobs-better/ Why Citi Got Rid of Assigned Desks tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.50484 2014-11-14T20:38:01Z 2014-11-12T20:36:31Z A pilot initiative is testing a new workspace. Ellen Galinsky http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/80-ellen-galinsky.jpg?w=80 Eve Tahmincioglu http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/80-eve_tahmincioglu.jpg?w=80
It may seem odd to use a dystopian world as a model for an office workspace, but that's just what Citi did.

Susan Catalano, Citi's Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer of HR, was reading the Divergent series — about a future society broken up into five social factions cultivating different virtues — around the same time she was asked to assist with an open floor plan for the HR group's new workspace and the book influenced the end product. "We created what we call neighborhoods — a compensation neighborhood, a learning and development neighborhood, etc. — to help individuals feel they 'owned' their space, even though no one has a designated workspace and no one has a private office," she explains.

Workspace is an emerging dimension of what the Families and Work Institute has identified as an effective workplace. The physical environment, if done right, can foster elements of an effective workplace like collaboration and autonomy, work-life fit and opportunities for learning. However, as many of the articles in the special section on office space in the October issue of HBR makes clear, this is easier said than done.

The issues that Catalano and her team faced in designing the new space ranged from minor — Where do employees put their personal items such as knapsacks or handbags? How do we stop people from speaking too loudly? to major — How can we be open and collaborative if people are separated by specialties?

The space is a pilot in an initiative called CitiWorks, which is meant to optimize the company's workspaces. It addressed two problems. First, people had been scattered in different offices throughout the metropolitan area, creating a fractured feeling. Second, an internal study showed that some offices, like most workplaces, were underutilized because of travel, vacation, illness and flexible working arrangements.

The end result for the HR team is a consolidated space in Long Island City — an entire floor that overlooks New York City. The periphery of the space includes rows of workstations, each with large double-screened computers. In the center of the spaces are larger conference rooms, smaller meeting rooms, and private spaces for focused work. There are cozy seating areas scattered throughout the space as well as areas where people can meet or have lunch together.

The design intends for no one to have an assigned desk and there are only 150 spaces for 200 people. For those who were initially resistant to losing their assigned space, Catalano says, "it was hard to argue with real data that the old space was underutilized." Employees have a locker where they put their personal belongings, and then they set up in the morning where they want to work. There are sanitized wipes on every desk so that the shared workstations are left clean. The entire space is "green" so the window shades, lights and temperature are programmed to respond to usage and conditions, such as the amount of sunlight streaming into the space.

Despite the beautiful space, old habits die hard. Karyn Likerman, Head of Inclusion Programs and Work-Life Strategies, admits, "Even though the space is completely unassigned seating, I typically sit in the same place each day and so do most of my colleagues."

The color-coded "neighborhoods" are in smaller sections of the larger space, enabling a sense of belonging, and also fostering a healthy sense of identity.

One of the biggest benefits of the more-open space is innovation. People talk to others whom they might not have known before and as a result, are coming up with new ideas. Likerman relays one example:

We have a new colleague, who came in thinking his job would be mostly focused on affirmative action reporting and auditing. A conversation with someone who sits on the other side of the floor in recruiting got him thinking about how to involve our employee networks in diversity recruiting. After that conversation, he rolled his chair over to me, since I oversee our networks and we came up with a new, innovative, and more formal recruiting approach to expand the network's involvement.

 Other benefits include a greater sense of fun and camaraderie. Now more people eat lunch together, instead of alone at their desks. The office neighborhoods have started planning fun, informal events — breakfasts or Friday afternoon mixers. "Many of these are people I have worked with for years but I never met them in person. Now, we get a chance to connect on a more personal level, and it's fun," says Likerman. And the smaller footprint has saved millions of dollars in Citi's HR budget.

To be clear, the new space alone didn't create these results. The workspace has to be carefully managed — as does the transition to it. Here are some of the lessons learned from Citi's experience:

Use technology that supports the space. Among the most important features is a white noise machine that evens out the sounds so that the workspace is quiet enough for people to be able to concentrate. In addition, everyone is given headsets to allow for hands-free talking. When employees log in to their computers, their desktops and phone numbers follow them.

Create new norms. Susan Catalano and the CitiWorks team are working on a playbook that lays out guidelines for how to best work in the new space. At the same time, they know that the playbook will evolve and change, as people get used to the space.

Allow people to personalize. When groups wanted to personalize their neighborhoods, Catalano didn't stand in their way. One neighborhood showcases a collection of snow globes that an employee has gathered from colleagues' travels. The Diversity team displays the awards Citi has received, which is a great source of pride for the group.

Emphasize problem solving. When issues arise, Catalano emphasizes that everyone, not just leaders, are involved in addressing the kinks. For example, Likerman says that people used to call or email each other even if their offices were next door. Now they simply turn around and talk. Despite the white noise machines, booming voices can sometimes cause problems. "We need to enable people to feel comfortable to remind others that they are speaking too loudly," she says.

While neighborhoods have helped the HR group, the new setup is a work in progress. Catalano and her team remain focused on creating neighborhoods that give different groups a sense of belonging while ensuring they don't inhibit a fully open and collaborative workspace. "I think," Catalano surmises, "over time people will continue to come together as the neighborhood lines blur."

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/why-citi-got-rid-of-assigned-desks/ Setting the Record Straight on Job Interviews tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.49739 2014-11-14T20:39:56Z 2014-11-11T20:39:06Z "Always wear a suit" is just one of the bad pieces of advice out there. Amy Gallo http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/80-amy-gallo.jpg?w=80
You scored a job interview, and now it's time to get ready. Before you start prepping, you have to consider whose advice to take. Should you believe your colleague when she says that you have to wear a suit even though you're interviewing at a tech start-up? Or do you trust your friend who says, "Just be yourself"? There's so much conflicting advice out there, it can be hard to decide on the best approach for you. So we asked readers (and our own editors) what advice they hear most often and then talked with two experts to get their perspectives on whether the conventional wisdom holds up in practice and against research.

 1. "Always wear a suit."

"In some ways, Britain is more formal but this advice has gone out the window even in the UK," says John Lees, a UK-based career strategist and author of How to Get the Job You Love and Job Interviews: Top Answers to Tough Questions. Wearing a suit when everyone at the office is dressed more casually sends the message: I don't understand your culture. This is especially true in laid-back Silicon Valley, says John Sullivan, an HR expert, professor of management at San Francisco State University, and author of 1000 Ways to Recruit Top Talent. "If you go to an interview at Facebook in a suit, you're going to look like an idiot," he says.

You want to overdress but only by a little. "Wear one or two notches smarter than what people wear in the office," says Lees. It's much easier now than it's ever been to find out how formal or informal an office is. Go to the company's website. Look on glassdoor.com or vault.com. Sullivan says you can even go as far as calling the receptionist or an intern and asking how people dress. "If necessary, bring an extra set of clothes and then walk in and ask the receptionist, 'Is this going to embarrass me?' If he or she says yes, then go out to your car and change."

This is just one part of better understanding your potential employer. "You shouldn't go near a job interview without decoding the organization, the people you're talking to, the hidden agenda of what the job is about. Definitely don't go into an interview without having spoken to someone who works there and finding out what kinds of people they like to hire," says Lees.

2. "Be yourself."

This one is particularly irksome to Lees: "The is a useless piece of advice. It's like saying, 'sit there and look handsome'." Sullivan agrees: "That's a good way to not get hired."

It's important to remember that "a job interview isn't a natural slice of life, it's a performance," says Lees. Sullivan says you should demonstrate that you can give the company what it needs: "You want apples, I've got apples. You want oranges, I've got oranges."

That doesn't mean you shouldn't be authentic, nor should you lie. But it's your job as the candidate to figure out what the hiring manager is looking for and tell a story that shows you meet those requirements. Sullivan encourages candidates to figure out in advance what questions the interviewer will ask (again this can be easy using the internet and social media) and what answers they're looking for. Then write scripted responses. "Don't memorize them but know what you'll say," he advises. He also suggests that you practice by videotaping yourself to see how you come across.

The first 90 seconds of the interview are particularly crucial. "The myth is that you have 45-60 minutes to get to know each other. The reality is that first impression matters most. And it's almost content free. It doesn't have to do with skills and experience and knowledge; it's about whether you look like a good colleague," says Lees. Studies have shown over and over (see this one and this one and Malcolm Gladwell's findings in Blink) how quickly we make judgments about people and how important it is to make a good first impression. So don't fool yourself into thinking you can just be who you are. You need to nail those first few seconds by carrying the right props (think sleek briefcase or purse, not disheveled backpack), sitting in the right place (across from the interviewer not next to her), and handling the handshake properly (make it firm). And don't forget that you need to be good at small talk too. As you walk from reception to the interview room, you want to be sure you "talk naturally, in a normal speed of voice, look someone in the eye, and exchange pleasantries," says Lees. "You are trying to create the impression of someone who is comfortable with themselves."

3. "Remember they're not just interviewing you. You're also interviewing them."

Generally speaking, this doesn't really hold up. "It's not a conversation. One side is scared to death," says Sullivan. And Lee concurs: "I see this piece of advice a lot and I really don't like it. It encourages lack of preparation and passivity. When you're in the interview room you should act and behave as if the is the only job you want."

But Sullivan also says that the approach can sometimes work in certain settings. "I call it the Joe Montana interview where you ask, 'Why should I play for your team?' And it's ok to say 'I'm in demand' but then you have to be able to back it up." This is a tricky thing to pull off though so it's probably better to focus on demonstrating what you can give the employer rather than expecting them to sell you on the role. Generally, that's the power dynamic in the room. Though it can shift, depending on the industry, the region, and the health of the economy. Recent surveys show that power has slipped to the applicant." In fact, a 2014 survey of recruiters showed that 81% felt that today's job market is driven by candidates, not employers.

4. "When asked what your greatest weakness is, give one that's really a strength."

"Don't admit you have weaknesses" is bad advice. Claiming that you're "too much of a perfectionist" or "too passionate" has become a cliché – your interviewer has probably heard this many times. This not only means you may come across as not 100% genuine; it also means you're missing an opportunity to demonstrate self-awareness and a willingness to adapt. Sullivan says that you want your answer to follow this logic: "I, like everyone else, have weaknesses. But unlike everyone else, I find them, recognize them, and fix them." Of course you don't want to admit a weakness that would really count against you. Avoid saying something like, "I really don't read people well." But point out something that you're genuinely working on. "That will show that you're able to learn and develop," says Lees.

5. "Don't talk about money until you have an offer in hand."

You don't want to start talking about money until the time is right. "Companies don't hire people who put money — or vacation time — first," says Sullivan. "They want to know what you're going to contribute not what you want." If you can, delay asking or talking about money or benefits until you have an offer. "The best time to talk salary is when you have leverage, and you have leverage when they've fallen in love with you," says Lees.

Of course, the hiring manager or recruiter may ask you about salary requirements. This is not an easy question to dodge, even though that might be in your best interest. Lees advises candidates to prepare short, professional responses and several lines of defense. First, have a general answer ready, something like "My requirements are negotiable". If pushed, be prepared to go deeper and say something along the lines of: "This is roughly what I'm currently making but the job you're interviewing me for is obviously different." And, then, have a third answer ready if the interviewer pushes you further. Lees likes this kind of answer: "Well, I'm being interviewed for jobs paying…" He says it's effective because "it's a projection of where you see yourself in the marketplace."

6. "Don't ever admit you've been fired before."

The good news is that employers' attitudes toward switching jobs has changed. In fact, 55% of employers in a recent survey said they have hired a job-hopper and 32% said they have come to expect candidates to move jobs frequently. The bad news is that hiring managers still don't want another manager's rejects. So if you were fired or laid off, Sullivan advises avoiding the "f-word" if you can. "Your response should be short, uncomplicated, and as positive as possible," says Lees. You can say "I didn't expect to be there forever" or "I learned a lot on that job and then I moved on to the next opportunity". And be sure not to criticize your former employer. That just reflects badly on you. Of course, if you're asked directly if you've been fired, you have to be truthful. "The trick is to move on to the present by saying something like, 'I was lucky because it gave me a chance to…' and then bring the focus back to the present," says Lees.

Interviews are rarely fun for anyone involved. Hiring managers don't like to conduct them, candidates don't like going to them, and in reality, they don't seem to help to either side. "Interviews are horrible predicting devices," says Sullivan, pointing to research by Google and academics that shows that interview performance wasn't linked to job performance. That's why many firms are moving toward testing candidates by giving them actual work to perform. "It's like hiring a chef. Do you want to talk to him or taste his cooking?" says Sullivan.

But unfortunately, the interview is probably here to stay — at least until someone comes up with a better alternative. In the meantime, it's your job as an applicant to recognize the process is flawed but do your best to shine anyway.

For more on interviewing, see:

Stand Out in Your Interview

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/setting-the-record-straight-on-job-interviews/ Signs That You're a Micromanager tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.50586 2014-11-14T20:33:52Z 2014-11-11T20:32:01Z And four strategies to help you reform. Muriel Maignan Wilkins http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/80-muriel-maignan-wilkins.png?w=80

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/signs-that-youre-a-micromanager/ Finding the Money in the Internet of Things tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.50635 2014-11-19T16:41:47Z 2014-11-11T16:38:51Z How to spot opportunities. John Hagel III http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/80-hagel-1.jpg?w=80

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/finding-the-money-in-the-internet-of-things/ How to Spend the Last 10 Minutes of Your Day tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.50098 2014-11-14T20:31:28Z 2014-11-10T20:16:58Z Create a pre-sleep ritual. Ron Friedman http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/80-ron-friedman.jpg?w=80
How much sleep did you get last night? If the answer is "not enough" you're hardly alone. According to Gallup's estimates, almost half the people you'll run into today are suffering from some level of sleep deprivation.

We often dismiss a little morning fatigue as an inconvenience, but here's the reality. Missing sleep worsens your mood, weakens your memory, and harms your decision-making all day long. It scatters your focus, prevents you from thinking flexibly, and makes you more susceptible to anxiety. (Ever wonder why problems seem so much more overwhelming at 1:00am than in the first light of day? It's because our brains amplify fear when we're tired.)When we arrive at work sleepy, everything feels harder and takes longer. According to one study, we are no more effective working sleep-deprived than we are when we're legally drunk.

It's worth noting that no amount of caffeine can fully compensate for lack of sleep. While a double latte can make you more alert, it also elevates your stress level and puts you on edge, damaging your ability to connect with others. Coffee can also constrain creative thinking.

To perform at our best, our bodies require rest—plain and simple. Which underscores an important point: on days when we flourish, the seed has almost always been planted the night before.

Since most of us can't sleep later in the morning than we currently do, the only option is to get to bed earlier. And yet we don't. Why? The reason is twofold. First, we're so busy during the day that the only time we have to ourselves is late in the evening – so we stay up late because it's our only downtime. Second, we have less willpower when we're tired, which makes it tougher to force ourselves into bed.

So, how do you get to bed earlier and get more sleep? Here are a few suggestions, based on goal-setting research.

Start by identifying an exact time when you want to be in bed. Be specific. Trying to go to bed "as early as possible" is hard to achieve because it doesn't give you a clear idea of what success looks like. Instead, think about when you need to get up in the morning and work backwards. Try to give yourself 8 hours, meaning that if you'd like to be up by 6:45am, aim to be under the covers no later than 10:45pm.

Next, do a nighttime audit of how you spend your time after work. For one or two evenings, don't try to change anything—simply log everything that happens from the moment you arrive home until you go to bed. What you may discover is that instead of eliminating activities that you enjoy and are keeping you up late (say, watching television between 10:30 and 11:00), you can start doing them earlier by cutting back on something unproductive that's eating up your time earlier on (like mindlessly scanning Facebook between 8:30 and 9:00).

Once you've established a specific bedtime goal and found ways of rooting out time-sinks, turn your attention to creating a pre-sleep ritual that helps you relax and look forward to going to bed. A major impediment to getting to sleep on time is that when 11:00pm rolls around, the prospect of lying in bed is not as appealing as squeezing in a quick sitcom or scanning tomorrow's newspaper headlines on your smartphone. Logically, we know we should be resting, but emotionally we'd prefer to be doing something else.

To counteract this preference, it's useful to create an enjoyable routine; one that both entices you to wind down and enables you to go from a period of activity to a period of rest. The transition is vital. Being tired simply does not guarantee falling asleep quickly. First you need to feel relaxed. But what relaxes one person can exasperate another. So I'll offer a menu of ideas to help you identify a bedtime ritual that's right for you:

Read something that makes you happy. Fiction, poetry, graphic novels. Whatever sustains your attention without much effort and puts you in a good mood. (Warning: Never read anything work-related in bed. Doing so will make it more difficult for you to associate your bed with a state of relaxation.)

Lower the temperature. Cooler temperatures help us fall asleep and make the prospect of lying under the covers more appealing. The National Sleep Foundation recommends keeping your thermostat between 60 and 67 degrees overnight.

Avoid blue light. Exposure to blue light – the kind emanating from our smartphones and computer screens – suppresses the body's production of melatonin, a hormone that makes us to feel sleepy. Studies show that reducing exposure to blue light, either by banishing screens before bedtime or by using blue light-blocking glasses, improves sleep quality.

Create a spa-like environment. Create a tranquil environment with minimal stimulation. Dim the lights, play soothing music, light a candle.

Handwrite a note. One of the most effective ways of boosting happiness is expressing gratitude. You can experience gratitude while writing a thank-you note to someone you care about, or privately, by listing a few of your day's highlights in a diary.

Meditate. Studies show that practicing mindfulness lowers stress and elevates mood.

Take a quiet walk. If the weather's right, an evening walk can be deeply relaxing.

Experts recommend giving yourself at least 30 minutes each night to wind down before attempting to sleep. You might also try setting an alarm on your smartphone letting you know when it's time to begin, so that the process becomes automatic.

However you choose to use the time before bed, do your best to keep this time free of negative energy. Avoid raising delicate topics with your spouse, and don't even set your morning alarm right before going to bed – it will just get your mind thinking about the stresses of the next day. (Instead, re-set your alarm for the following morning right when you wake up.)

And finally, keep a notepad and a light-up pen nearby. If you think of something you need to do the next day, jot it down instead of reaching for your smartphone. Do the same for any important thought that pops into your head as you are trying to fall asleep. Once you've written it down, you'll find it's a lot easier to let go.

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/how-to-spend-the-last-10-minutes-of-your-day/ Tactics for Asking Good Follow-Up Questions tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.50362 2014-11-14T20:38:35Z 2014-11-08T01:41:05Z How to really get a read on someone. Richard Davis http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/80-richard-davis.jpg?w=80
Whether you are looking to hire someone, decide whether to trust someone, or enter a business partnership, the better you are at judging people, the better off you will be. Unfortunately, most people are just plain bad at reading others. Several decades of research among psychologists has indicated all sorts of blind spots, biases, and judgment errors we make in assessing people. Much of that research has focused on the mental processes we use to interpret what we see or hear. But errors also occur way before that – the problem can begin with the questions we ask to understand people in the first place.

When you want to get a read on someone, what questions do you ask? Most people have go-to questions. The ones I hear most often are open-ended questions like, "What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?" "What do you want to be doing in five years?" and "What motivates you?" Some savvier questioners ask behavior-based questions, like "Tell me about a time when you….". Sounds great, right? Now, ask yourself if you have ever once actually learned the truth about someone by their responses to these questions. How many times have you relied on people's responses to these questions only to see later that those responses meant nothing at all? Most people ask a question like this and then move onto another topic, seemingly satisfied that they heard what they needed to hear. In reality, they learned nothing about the other person.

In my experience conducting interview-based assessments for the last 12 years, I have found that this is because the first answer to one of these questions is only marginally helpful and may even be irrelevant. Yet most askers simply accept what they hear (good or bad) and, without asking any follow-ups, move on to the next topic on their list.

But the key to understanding people lies in the follow-up question. In my experience, there are two major reasons people don't ask good (or any) follow-up questions. First, many interviewers aren't actually paying close enough attention to ask detailed follow-up questions. To ask a good follow-up, you need to pay very close attention to how the interviewee responds to your initial question, and then build on his or her answer. The second reason most people are hesitant to probe is out of fear of offending the other person. But being polite isn't the same thing as letting the other person off the hook.

Ask a follow-up that will help you really uncover what you are seeking to learn. Be curious, and you will be amazed what you uncover. Here are three types of follow-up questions that will enable you to understand more about a person:

1. Ask your original question again, slightly differently. Don't be afraid to ask the same question twice. If I am interviewing someone and the person either deflects my first question or doesn't give a real response, I will often say, "Let me ask you this another way…". It is effective because you communicate that you are not letting the person off the hook, but you're allowing them to save face by at least implying that maybe your initial question just wasn't clear enough. It is a highly effective method of extracting a real response that will actually be predictive of behavior.

Caution: just make sure you change the way you phrase this second question, otherwise it can seem adversarial. The key is to ask the question another way, and declare that you are doing so.

2. Connect their answers to each other. One of my favorite strategies to understand people better is to link their responses to something they said earlier. I'm not talking about an attempt to catch someone in a lie, but instead connecting the dots between their answers. Good judges of character do this naturally – they listen intently, and tie what they hear to something said earlier in the conversation. Ask something like, "Oh, that's like the time you…?" or, "Is that what you meant earlier when you said…?". Beyond allowing you to understand the person better, it communicates that you are really listening, and actually provides meaningful insight to the person by pointing out a connection that he or she may have not even seen. It allows you to synthesize information rather than just hear it.

Caution: Overusing this can make you seem like a police detective seeking a "gotcha" moment. Avoid saying things like, "But that's not what you said earlier…" What I am suggesting is to synthesize rather than interrogate.

3. Ask about the implications of their answer. When people answer a question without being particularly revealing, or by giving a very safe answer, what do you do? For instance, when asked about greatest weakness, someone says, "I'm a perfectionist" or "I work too hard." Rather than accept answers like that at face value, seek to really understand the person by asking about the implications of their answers. With a self-proclaimed perfectionist, you might ask, "How does your perfectionism play out in the workplace?" or "What are the consequences of your detail orientation?" And don't stop there – keep asking implication questions until you are satisfied you know what you need to know about the person.

Caution: When asking about implications, avoid being a litigator and turning them into leading questions. Instead, truly be curious about the behavior and what its effects are.

Coming up with a great list of questions is only the first step in conducting an in-depth interview. It's the follow-up questions that will really tell you who you're dealing with.

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/tactics-for-asking-good-follow-up-questions/ What Makes Someone an Engaging Leader tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.49021 2014-11-14T20:44:57Z 2014-11-07T16:05:53Z And how organizations can develop more of them. Ken Oehler http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/80-ken_oehler.jpg?w=80 Lorraine Stomski http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/80-lorraine_stomski.jpg?w=80 Magdalena Kustra-Olszewska http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/80-magda_kustra-olszewska.jpg?w=80
"How can we have the highest profitability in five years and still have gaps in employee engagement?" asks an executive at a large industrial products company. The reality is that the two don't necessarily go together. This management team, like many others, has fought to increase profitability through business transformation, restructuring, and cost-cutting, without devoting much thought to keeping employees engaged and connected. As a result, the company may find it hard to sustain the gains, much less drive future growth. Organizational agility, innovation, and growth are really difficult without engaged employees.

The research team at AON Hewitt has made it a priority to understand what is going on in enterprises where both financial performance and employee engagement levels are soaring. Our ongoing study of the companies we've labeled Aon Hewitt Best Employers – firms that achieve both top quartile engagement levels and better business results than their peers – finds that they do have something in common. It's the prevalence of a certain kind of leader, not just at the top, but throughout the ranks of the organization. These individuals – we call them engaging leaders – are distinguished by a certain set of characteristics.

What do these leaders of highly engaged teams have in common? Through extensive interviews we learned that they tend to have had early stretch experiences that shaped them; tend to share a set of beliefs about leading; and tend to exhibit certain behaviors that help to engage those around them.

Formative early experiences. Engaging leaders don't just start out this way. "I started in the call center," a CEO from a financial services business unit told us. "I know what it's like and I still like to go sit with agents and listen." We often heard in our interviews, as Warren Bennis and Bob Thomas did in their crucibles of leadership research, about early experiences that leaders felt had shaped them. They were not always of the unpleasant, mettle-testing sort; sometimes the person had a caring, attentive mentor; a stretch assignment that "chose the leader" instead of the leader's choosing it; an assignment that required them to win over people who used to be their peers. The common thread is the reflection on the early experience that allows a leader to learn something, and gain self-confidence, humility, and empathy.

Guiding beliefs. Underneath an engaging leader's behaviors are a powerful set of beliefs. They feel it is their responsibility to serve their followers, especially in times of crisis and change. Many expressed core beliefs about the importance of personal connection. For example, a CEO of a beverage company, asked to name the most important responsibility of a leader, said it was "to create the emotional bond between our people and the organization." Another CEO declared that "Leadership is a contact sport." When we talked to a leader in an engineering department about why he thought he was regarded as an engaging leader, his thoughtfulness about human relationships came through. "People won't remember what I did," he said, "but they will remember how I made them feel."

Engaging behaviors. We also noted a set of common behaviors, no doubt driven by the beliefs we've just been discussing, and clustering around five themes. Engaging leaders step up, opting to proactively own solutions where others cannot or do not. They energize others, keeping people focused on purpose and vision with contagious positivity. They connect and stabilize groups by listening, staying calm, and unifying people. They serve and grow, by empowering, enabling, and developing others. And they stay grounded, remaining humble, open, candid, and authentic in their communication and behavior. These behaviors are continually validated in our leadership workshops, where we see people in action and hear about recent challenges they have worked to overcome.

These are the hallmarks, then, of engaging leaders – and almost every company has at least some of them. Few workforces, however, enjoy the general condition of having engaging leadership. That's a systemic belief in the power of engagement that transcends the personal strengths and discretionary actions of individual managers. The organizations trying to make engaging leadership part of their culture are figuring out how to do four things on an ongoing basis:

Measure engagement levels. You can't manage what you don't measure. The CEO needs to own the engagement survey and follow-through. Enough said.

Develop engaging leaders. Workshops and coaching are required to help leaders reflect on their early experiences, find their own beliefs and purpose, and make engaging behaviors more habitual. When the number of engaging leaders amounts to a critical mass, their energy and mutual support can change the engagement culture of the organization.

Assess and select engaging leaders. Filling a lot of high-impact roles with engaging leaders should be the objective. Now that we have a good understanding of the experiences, beliefs, and behaviors that typify engaging leaders, it should be possible to use personality instruments, structured interviews, and 360 instruments to predict whether someone is likely to be engaging or not in a leadership role.

Measure and reward engagement achieved. Tying incentives to engagement survey scores is tricky and can lead to unintended consequences. However, we are seeing more organizations get serious about recognizing leaders who are engaging and holding those who are not accountable.

Engagement is a leadership responsibility – but by and large, with only , leaders are failing in this regard. Our research suggests that, for most companies, the turnaround won't happen quickly. The fact that the most engaging leaders are the products of early experiences and deeply held beliefs means that new ones can't be minted overnight. It will never be a matter of running through some behavioral checklist. But there are steps that employers can take to give more teams the benefit of engaging leadership – and, over time, to reach the levels of innovation, quality, and productivity that can only come from highly engaged people.

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/what-makes-someone-an-engaging-leader/ 5 Examples of Great Health Care Management tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.49980 2014-11-06T16:30:50Z 2014-11-06T16:30:47Z Where health care providers are working brilliantly together. Thomas H. Lee, MD http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/80-thomas-lee-md.jpg?w=80
I may not be in touch with all my emotions, but there is one I know all too well — jealousy. I have worked my entire career in great health systems with fabulous people. And yet, when I go "outside," I constantly see health care providers working brilliantly together in innovative ways that I had not even imagined. It makes my chest ache with envy. This type of jealousy is the deepest and most sincere expression of respect of which I am capable.

Here are just five examples of the dozens of innovations out there that make my head and my heart hurt. I hope they make you feel envious, too — and that you will send us your own examples so that we might learn from them as well.

1. Transparency at University of Utah Health Care

In December, 2012, the University of Utah health care system started posting on its "Find-a-Doctor" sites all patient comments received after office visits. It wasn't easy for Utah to reach this decision – its physicians had plenty of misgivings, but they were also irritated by the negative comments made by small numbers of patients on existing social media sites.

The logic was that trying to get data from all patients would lead to a much higher volume of comments, and they would paint a more accurate picture of the quality of care that the University of Utah offered. So, after a period of "internal transparency" during which only Utah personnel could see the data, Utah went public with all the ratings and comments – good, bad, and ugly.

As it turns out, the vast majority of comments have been extremely positive, the kind of praise that would make one's mother blush. And the relatively few negative comments have had a profound impact on the physicians themselves. Physicians suddenly understand that every patient visit is a high stakes interaction, after which patients might write positive or negative comments.

The result has been so much more than a marketing ploy – it has changed the care being delivered. The Utah physicians with whom I have spoken all agree (some grudgingly) that the transparency has made them better and more compassionate caregivers.

2. Culture of shared responsibility at Mayo Clinic

When I visited the Mayo Clinic this spring I was amazed by how well everyone worked together to give patients first-rate, coordinated care. For example, if a patient is referred to a heart failure specialist because of shortness of breath, but the real problem turns out to be lung disease, the patient will be sent to a pulmonologist – but that initial heart failure specialist continues to play to role of doctor to the patient, making sure all the loose ends are tied up during and after the consultation. It's wonderful for the patients, but not the way most specialists in U.S. health care work.

I asked some Mayo physicians why they were willing to do this "extra work" beyond their specialty expertise. One said, "Look, we think we are pretty good, but we know that these patients did not come here for us as individuals. They came because we're the Mayo Clinic. So we all know that they are not really 'my' patients – they are 'our' patients."

I thought of how most organizations attract patients using the "star" system – they market the superstar cardiologist or neurosurgeon, for example. But the schedules of those superstars are often booked for months in advance. Guess which model is more likely to accommodate growth? The "star" system or the group culture?

3. Teamwork at Northwestern's Integrated Pelvic Health Program

At Chicago's Northwestern Medicine, the Integrated Pelvic Health Program provides care for patients with problems like incontinence, uterine and vaginal prolapse, anal fissures and fistulas. The specialists with the expertise needed to address these difficult issues are all concentrated in one place – gynecology, urogynecology, and colorectal surgery. And in the middle are the physical therapists, who teach the patients exercises that strengthen the muscles to get their problems under control.

When I walked around this center and saw physical therapists talking with surgeons about shared patients, it suddenly dawned on me that I could not remember the last time I had actually talked to a physical therapist taking care of one of my patients. In fact, I wasn't sure that I had ever talked to a physical therapist taking care of one of my primary care patients. There was no question that the care delivered by physicians and physical therapists who were really working like teammates was better than what I had been doing.

This is just one of dozens of examples I've seen of co-location leading to better teamwork. Hennepin County Medical Center moved dental next to the emergency department. University of Utah put case management right in the intensive care units. Teamwork is not just easy – it's natural. These organizations understand how critical co-location is to real teamwork, and how important real teamwork is to patients.

4. Addressing socioeconomic issues at Contra Costa

At Contra Costa Health, a Bay Area safety-net provider, patients in waiting rooms were asked about their most important health concerns. The number one issue, named by 62% of patients, was having enough food. That was followed by housing (58%), then jobs and utilities. Not long after, Contra Costa began working with HeathLeads, which trains college-aged "advocates" to address socioeconomic issues like the ones named by Contra Costa's patients, and places the advocates in emergency departments and practices. HealthLeads helps address problems that fall outside of what traditional health care can do, such as access to food subsidies.

Within weeks of the launch, Contra Costa physicians could see that some of their patients had better control of their chronic conditions because they had access to healthier food. In discussing one patient who had lost four pounds in eight weeks, one physician said, "I felt like I had finally been a good doctor to him and it wasn't due to anything I learned in medical school." Another doctor said, "This is the help I have needed for the past two decades to care for my patients. I now have something to offer my patients when I tell them to eat healthier and they can barely afford groceries."

Contra Costa's CEO told me that they know their job is producing health, not health care. They understand that to do so, they need to figure out who outside of traditional health care can help them make a real dent in their patients' health problems. And that required developing a collaboration focused upon their patients' socioeconomic issues — the core competency of HealthLeads.

5. Consolidating care with the London Stroke Initiative

In 2010, the city of London decided to consolidate the care of patients with strokes at just eight of its 34 hospitals. This meant that 26 hospitals, including some quite famous ones, had to close their stroke services, so that there was sufficient volume at the eight Hyperacute Stroke Centers to support care by special teams of physicians, nurses, and therapists who were completely focused upon stroke patients. As described in the HBR-NEJM insight center last year, the result was a decrease in mortality for stroke by 25%, and a reduction in total spending for stroke patients by about 6%, despite the greater number of stroke patients who survived.

Concentrating volume led to better care, better outcomes, and saved money. Most London hospitals (some kicking and screaming) gave up their ability to care for acute stroke patients in the interest of patients and society.

When I presented this case to a class at Harvard Business School last year, one student from the U.S. said, "This is phenomenal. We could never do it here."

What makes these five examples so painful for me is that none of them required much in the way of capital investment. But all of them required (and continue to demand) expenditure of social capital, changing in the way people work together. The results are impressive.

There are going to be more examples of things that make me jealous during this eight week HBR/NEJM Insight Center. As those roll out, we would like to invite you to send your own — perhaps from your own organization, or from somewhere else. Maybe even from a competitor.

The more it hurts, the better.

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/5-examples-of-great-health-care-management/ What Economists Know That Managers Don't (and Vice Versa) tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.50169 2014-11-06T16:00:10Z 2014-11-06T16:00:07Z Different explanations for why things go wrong. Pankaj Ghemawat http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/80-pankaj-ghemawat.jpg?w=80
Why did Jean Tirole win the Nobel Prize in Economics? Not for the highly-regarded work on competition between small numbers of firms with which his career began more than thirty years ago but for more recent work on how carefully structured regulation can improve performance relative to unbridled market forces. This is a reminder that serious students of market performance take market failures seriously.

But what many economists generally gloss over is a notion that I will argue is highly complementary to market failures: management failures. For policy-making purposes economists assume that all businesses act rationally in the pursuit of profits. The possibility that that might not be the case is generally ignored, or even when mentioned, quickly finessed.

Even Tirole betrays this bias. The section on the profit maximization hypothesis at the end of the introductory chapter of his classic 1988 textbook on industrial organization concludes by saying that even if a firm doesn't maximize profits, it can be treated, for the purposes of many of its interactions with the outside world, as if it does. Partly because profit maximization is a bedrock assumption and partly because maximization is a basic mathematical tool, economists have trouble dealing with firms that are not maximizing profits.

In this worldview, disasters only happen because the rules of the game in which the businesses operate must be flawed. Economists disagree about the actual incidence of these market failures and the cost-effectiveness of governmental efforts to tackle them, but they broadly agree that the only factors that prejudice performance are external to businesses.

Businesses and management experts, in contrast, tend take the opposite position. Thus, Dominic Barton, among many others, traces capitalism's current problems to capitalists who work with time horizons that are shorter than they ought to be. And Michael Porter and Mark Kramer point to a big pot of gold for businesses that properly internalize the social consequences of their decisions instead of incorrectly externalizing them. In this view, poor performance is (mostly) caused by management failures — specifically, miscalculations of various sorts — rather than inherent flaws in the workings of the marketplace. And specific prescriptions for practitioners are served up that are supposed to improve both private profits and public welfare.

Neither school of thought, though, has it quite right. In their efforts to characterize important failures as being (for one group) always market failures and (for the other group) management failures, the two groups end up missing out on each other's insights.

For an example, reconsider the financial crisis. Some, arguably including the Fed Chairman who presided over its eruption, Alan Greenspan, were utopians who thought nothing could go wrong on either front: the rules of the game or managerial responses to them. But the financial sector was clearly subject to a number of the market failures that were well known to most economists.

To begin with, quite a few parts of it are heavily concentrated at a global level (the credit ratings business, for example, or global investment banking), and many more at the national level (just six financial institutions account for 46% of all U.S. banking assets and as such are "too big to fail"). This small-numbers problem invalidates Adam Smith's "invisible hand" mechanism in which good performance is supposed to be ensured by large numbers of competitors, none controlling more than a sliver of the market and none, therefore, with the power to jack up prices.

Other aspects of the financial sector highlight some of the problems with markets that economists have added to their list since the time of Adam Smith. Because of informational imperfections (think subprime mortgages), segments within financial services have a history of provoking manias, panics, and crashes — volatility exacerbated by recent innovations such as exotic derivatives and high frequency trading. Since capital is like air to other markets, problems with the financial sector can have important effects on the rest of the economy, a version of the market failure referred to under the rubric of externalities.

But having run through those economic problems with financial market attributes, the meltdown probably shouldn't be chalked up just to them: missteps on the part of key managers also contributed. Consider Lehman Brothers, whose collapse was the trigger for broader sectorial travails. In the aftermath of Dick Fuld's refusal to agree with the terms proposed by the government to help bail it out, his net worth was estimated to have collapsed from close to $1 billion to about $100 million. Similar points could be made about Jimmy Cayne at Bear Stearns and many others.

Nor was the government — beyond Greenspan and the Fed — blameless in the run-up to the crisis. The push to expand home ownership swelled the subprime mortgages that ended up sinking large chunks of the financial sector. Bailouts — not just the ones after the crisis but also prior ones, such as that of Long Term Capital in 1998 — aggravated the problem of "moral hazard" that informational imperfections can engender. And the complexity of some of the post-crisis regulations seems, in a world of human rather than superhuman managers, to have slowed down recovery from it.

Given such realities — which could also be illustrated with other key sectors such as health care and education — the right response is to pay attention to both market and management failures. Doing so expands one's sense of both the room to improve performance and the levers that might be pulled to do so. It also helps enhance credibility — another important consideration since recent surveys suggest that Americans, at least, are similarly dissatisfied with their government and with large corporations.

Finally and most importantly, considering both management failures and market failures helps spotlight the most serious problems because of an interaction effect: market failures expand the scope for management failures to matter a lot. For instance, poor decisions by managers at a company will be of more concern if the company is one of a few or, even worse, a monopoly. Choices about how high to set investment hurdles are more likely to be an issue in highly volatile market conditions. And managers are likely to be more confused about what they should internalize and what they should ignore when there are some externalities.

But to see these complementarities you have to take both market failures and management failures seriously — and not enough people are doing that as yet.

This post is part of a series leading up to the 2014 Global Drucker Forum, taking place November 13-14 in Vienna, Austria. See the rest of the series here.

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/what-economists-know-that-managers-dont-and-vice-versa/ An Exercise to Become a More Powerful Listener tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.50354 2014-11-06T15:30:51Z 2014-11-06T15:30:48Z Inspired by a Quaker practice. Greg McKeown http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/80-greg-mckeown.jpg?w=80
Listening is often considered the softest of the soft skills. So the idea of being a powerful listener can seem like an oxymoron. And yet, my work with executives has taught me that when they really listen to discover what is essential, the impact can be astonishing. It's one of the most important ways to engage employees.

We know that engagement is a challenge. A recent Gallup survey found that 63% of the global workforce is not engaged. That adds up to waste in the range of half a trillion dollars globally. Putting it more positively, Jim Harter, the Chief Scientist for Gallup, has found that "publicly traded organizations that achieve top decile in our employee engagement database outperform their competition on earnings per share by 147%."

With both the waste and opportunity implied in these findings, it begs the question, "How can we improve engagement scores quickly and inexpensively?" Among the short list of items that really move the engagement needle is that people believe that "at work, my opinions seem to count." Listening — really listening — matters.

Many companies fall into the trap of trying to engage their employees by doing more – which is, in essence, just creating more noise. I have seen this firsthand in Silicon Valley, where managers sometimes go to extreme measures with perks like 24/7 food; show-stopping offsite events with concerts; sports competitions; clubs on every subject from hula dancing to American Idol and many other bizarre and bombastic activities. I believe in the power of play, but at their worst, such activities can completely miss the mark. They sometimes remind me of Pleasure Island in the movie Pinocchio, where the puppet almost becomes a donkey.

Such panem et circenses ("bread and circuses") may appease some employees, but I am not convinced that these types of "perks" engage people's hearts and minds in a way that enables them to give their highest and best contribution — in the end, they still treat employees like wooden puppets, and they mirror the problem described by Guy Kawaski as a "bozo explosion," a downward slide that seems inevitable after a company achieves success. Moreover, such gimmicks don't make the cut in Gallup's top twelve engagement measurements.

Deep engagement does not begin with getting people to listen to you; it begins when you really listen to them. Powerful listening is one of the rarest executive practices today, not because of a lack of skill – although that is often the case – but because it's a skill that's under attack from social media, smart phones and the ubiquitous expectation of instant reactions. Have you ever been in the middle of a conversation when the other person just started checking his phone? Of course you have. We have a listening famine going on and it's a shame, because in a knowledge age, so much value creation lies in the ability to figure out what's important—by listening.

The Quakers practice a particularly powerful way to listen. They conduct what's called a "Clearness Committee," which is founded on the belief that, as author Parker Palmer has written, "each of us has an inner teacher, a voice of truth, that offers the guidance and power we need to deal with our problems." Here is how it works:

First, a member of the Quaker community defines a key decision, personal problem or question that represents a dilemma for a member of their community, who is the "focus person." Then, they form a committee to meet with the focus person, inviting only select people (the "members"). These members must first commit to the highest levels of confidentiality: nobody can speak of the meeting afterwards, unless the focus person specifically asks to discuss it. Members can take notes, but they must be given to the focus person at the end of the committee meeting.

The committee then meets in an offsite location, where the focus person spends 10 minutes presenting a concise statement of the problem, including any relevant background information. The committee creates a safe space for the focus person to speak, prioritizing that space over the social comfort of the members. For example, there should be no talking between committee members, no loud laughter, no side conversations, no phones or computers, and no rapid-fire questions that could overwhelm the focus person.

Then, there are two hours of interaction, during which members of the committee may only speak to the focus person by asking honest questions – which are not the same as manipulative questions. Manipulative questions have answers embedded in them, such as: "Have you ever thought that this is really happening because you did X?" Honest questions are defined as questions that members couldn't possibly know the answer to, such as "Did you ever feel this way before?" Honest questions are, simply, all inquiry and no advocacy.

Before the meeting is over, the focus person can allow people to reflect back what they have heard. Again, there should be no opinions offered, just reflections. Five minutes before the end of the meeting, the members are allowed to affirm the focus person for showing strength and courage in sharing vulnerably deep insights. Even at this point there is no advice given and there are no suggestions made. The idea is that the focus person goes away and listens to his or her own inner voice for continued guidance.

The clearness committee is a fascinating listening innovation. If it seems too intense or involved for regular use, you can still apply many of its aspects in your interactions with your team. For example, you can have a rule that you and your team will only ask honest questions: in this way you can avoid the manipulative questions that complicate communication. When one of your team members comes to you with a particular challenge, you can ask her questions to define what the real dilemma is, instead of jumping in with premature, well-intended solutions that actually miss the mark. Finally, you can increase the ratio of listening to speaking by asking questions and spending at least 50% of any conversation actively listening to the other person speak.

The bottom line is this: if you want to engage your employees at a whole new level, if you want to become a person of greater influence, and if you want to discover a new kind of power—listen.

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/an-exercise-to-become-a-more-powerful-listener/ Learning Is the Most Celebrated Neglected Activity in the Workplace tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.50135 2014-11-14T16:09:51Z 2014-11-06T15:00:41Z It takes courage, as well as time. Gianpiero Petriglieri http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/80-gianpiero-petriglieri-2.jpg?w=80
When I am invited to "teach leadership" to managers in corporations, I use the first few minutes to address the issue of where and how one learns to lead—and what gets in the way. I usually begin with a confession and a question.

My confession is always the same. That I am hoping to learn something from our encounter, brief as it may be, that I will remember and use. This is what I believe good leaders and good teachers have in common—the commitment to keep learning as they practice.

I have never met a manager who disagrees. Good leaders, they tell me, like good teachers, raise tough questions and make others feel stretched, empowered, inspired. Mediocre ones issue commands and make others feel overlooked, bored, underutilized.

My question is different every time. It usually has to do with some aspect of leading that people in the room will have divergent views about. Is honesty necessary to lead, or just desirable? Or: What makes a responsible follower?

Raising a controversial question is not an unusual way to begin a presentation. It energizes the audience. But keep the debate going for more than a few minutes, and regardless of how informative it is, restlessness begins to set in. There's inevitably a challenge like, "We are spending precious time here, you are getting paid for yours, and we are no closer to a clear answer."

I have come to wait, if with some trepidation, for such remarks.

I am a professor. Learning is, broadly speaking, my job. And yet no matter how enthusiastically we agree that good teachers and good leaders are perpetual learners, and that being offered a difficult question is empowering, it does not take long before I am reminded that I am not supposed to keep questioning and learning—not so publicly at least—on the company's dime.

I am supposed to deliver.

The reminder is hardly surprising but how quickly it comes is revealing. It is a great illustration of a contradiction that affects most managers every day: learning is the most celebrated neglected activity in the workplace.

Everyone says that learning is essential for companies' success—and for your own. And yet, on a daily basis, who cares for your learning? No one. People care about what you have learned. They care about your results. Learning is great as long as you do it quietly, in your own time.

This is only fair, you may say. In business, after all, delivering is what counts. Learning matters to the extent that it helps one deliver and does not get in the way.

But learning does get in the way of delivering. Especially learning of the transformational kind—that makes us tentative, confused, and ineffective for a while. And we do not neglect it just because we lack time.

Consider the popular 70:20:10 "formula" stating that 70% of learning happens on the job, 20% through coaching and mentoring, and 10% takes place in classrooms.

While little empirical evidence supports it—the scholar to whom the formula is often attributed recently described it as "folklore"—plenty of organizations invoke it as a cornerstone of their learning strategies.

The reason we have turned folklore into a formula, I believe, is because it resonates with the safest, most efficient kind of learning—the incremental kind. We acquire an idea and we practice it with some feedback on the way. That eventually results in mastery. That kind of learning is additive—and addictive.

Transformational learning rarely builds up so smoothly. It does not just make us more knowledgeable. It reveals what mastery prevents us from knowing. It does not just refine our skills. It changes our perspective. And it is not just a matter of time.

A class, a reading, a difficult conversation with a colleague, may take 1% of our time. And yet they may radically alter how we approach the other 99%, raising questions that jolt us into learning new things from everyday experiences. A challenging assignment, conversely, may take most of our time and yield little new insights.

Take your job's design. Does it leave space for you to process your experiences and draw a few conclusions or imagine alternatives? Do you have access to people who see the world from another perspective—or just to good old feedback? How often does your team have open conversations about your work together?

And outside of work, are you getting enough sleep, time off your smartphone, idle breaks, walks, exercise, and all those other things known to make you more productive and imaginative—let alone live a more decent existence?

The question then is not whether we have time for learning, at work or elsewhere. It is what kind of learning we are encouraged, and have the courage, to pursue.

We seldom visit the periphery of our knowledge and competence—the region where transformational learning happens—without feeling threatened, exposed, or ashamed. (That is why when we meet a friendly, forgiving face out there—which makes learning easier—we cherish it. We call that a mentor.) People like failure only in inspirational speeches. In real life we endure it, at best, and come to value it only if and when its lessons become clear. Workplace pressures and norms just turn our instinct to steer clear of failure into a habit.

Look past the rhetoric and you will find signs of the neglect of transformational learning everywhere. In the workplace as well as in many business school courses, with their emphasis on tools that can be taught in a weekend and applied on Monday morning. The learning that we privilege is the safer, incremental kind. Learning that makes us better at what we do but hardly frees us up to revisit why we do it that way or what, say, we may want to do next.

No wonder innovation lags, personal change eludes us despite our best intentions, and we hesitate to make the moves that would most help us lead.

This is most true for those managers whose work is so fast and visible that the pressure to keep up and prove oneself all but overwhelms the aspiration to step back and reflect. Their stifling predicament, however, is hardly a misfortune.

Like a professor reminded to deliver rather too quickly, they are in a position that requires them to keep learning and makes it harder at the same time.

Contradictory as they may be, those are the very circumstances that, throughout history, have forged many a leader. Few may be able to keep learning despite the pull not to. But those who do become the kind of leaders who, because they care for learning, don't just attract dependent followers. They develop other leaders.

In that predicament lies, in short, the most valuable learning opportunity of all: the opportunity to recognize that transformational learning always involves defiance—of complacency, conformity, and norms. As such, it takes courage, not just time. And courage, in turn, is easier to muster and sustain with some support. Surely organizations could make it a bit easier. But it will never feel entirely safe.

In the end, good leaders are seldom spoon-fed. They are usually tempered. They pursue causes and questions that matter—even when it feels risky and no one else seems to care. When learning is too easy, it doesn't teach us to lead.

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/learning-is-the-most-celebrated-neglected-activity-in-the-workplace/ The One Thing About Your Spouse's Personality That Really Affects Your Career tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.50399 2014-11-07T15:50:07Z 2014-11-06T14:00:07Z Researchers find it predicts income, promotions, and job satisfaction. Andrew O'Connell http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/oconnell-photo-sized.jpg?w=80
Here's something that's obvious, but at the same time not: We're all a lot more than we appear to be at work.

We have other dimensions that are invisible to our companies, supervisors, direct reports, and most of our colleagues, and those invisible dimensions have a deep impact on our work.

A couple of pieces of research got me thinking about this. One is a diary study of dual-earner couples showing that people put more time in at work when their intimate relationships are going well, because the absence of drama at home gives them greater emotional, cognitive, and physical vigor to bring to the workplace.

The other shows that spouses' personalities affect employees' work outcomes — incomes, promotions, and so on. Both studies are reminders that each individual bent over each task in the office is connected to, and the product of, a social and familial context that matters a lot, and we should all be paying more attention to those contexts.

Which I'll get to in a second. But first, let me just say that I'm not advocating for more emotional sharing at the office. I really like the peaceful mutual ignorance of private matters that's the norm at my work. It's blissful. It's one of the things that make work great, honestly.

But I do believe we could all benefit from a bigger awareness of the impact — the weight — of our outside lives on our work performance, and by "we" I mean the organizational we, too: The Powers That Be.

Both of the studies I mentioned are thought-provoking, but the second is truly remarkable. Brittany C. Solomon and Joshua J. Jackson of Washington University in St. Louis realized that a rich trove of data on thousands of Australian households would lend itself to an analysis of the effect of spouses' personality characteristics on people's employment outcomes, because the database included not only survey results indicating personality dimensions but also information on incomes, promotions, and job satisfaction.

The personality data covered what are known as the "big five" dimensions — extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and openness. The researchers found that the only spousal trait that was important to an employee's work outcomes was conscientiousness, which turns out to predict employee income, number of promotions, and job satisfaction, regardless of gender.

Here you can see the relationships between spousal conscientiousness and income, promotions, and job satisfaction:

To put the income finding in dollar terms, with every 1-standard-deviation increase in a spouse's conscientiousness, an individual is likely to earn approximately $4,000 more per year, averaging across all ages and occupations, according to Solomon. And one way to frame the promotion finding is that employees with extremely conscientious spouses (two standard deviations above the mean) are 50% more likely to get promoted than those with extremely unconscientious spouses (two standard deviations below the mean).

Even more remarkable is that the data allowed the researchers to figure out why spousal conscientiousness matters.

First, conscientious spouses handle a lot of household tasks, freeing employees to concentrate on work ("When you can depend on someone, it takes pressure off of you," Solomon told me). Second, conscientious spouses make employees feel more satisfied in their marriages (which ties in to the first study I mentioned). Third, employees tend to emulate their conscientious spouses' diligent habits.

This doesn't mean your success depends on your being in a relationship. There are plenty of single people who shine at work, and there are plenty of effective business leaders who are unattached. In fact, research suggests that in certain circumstances, being single can help CEOs run their companies: firms led by unmarried chiefs invest more aggressively and take greater risks than other firms.

But as Solomon says, successful people often turn out to have strong marital relationships. "When you're in a relationship, you're no longer just two individuals; you're this entity," she says. The more solid the entity, the greater your advantage.

It's obvious, of course, that our one-dimensional work lives don't fully represent our multidimensional outside lives, that each of us is just the visible manifestation in cubeland of a sprawling existence that not only extends far and wide in the moment but has a whole history behind it. Although we may look like a collection of dots on a floor plan, each of those dots is like the intersection in space of a long line and a two-dimensional surface. The surface (the workplace) doesn't see the lines; it sees only the points of intersection, the dots.

But what isn't obvious is the extent to which so many people are parts of teams, in a sense — two-person teams that are based outside the office. Any particular colleague or boss or direct report might be supported by a truly conscientious spouse, someone who willingly — even joyfully — takes care of details that would otherwise become headaches and interfere with work. For that matter, any particular colleague or boss or report might be hampered by a spousal relationship that's a couple of standard deviations below the mean, as they say.

We can't and probably don't want to know the details about these teams, but as Solomon points out, if organizations really understood the workplace effects of strong outside relationships, they might be more receptive to policies like flextime and telecommuting that make it easier for employees to spend time with their significant others.

Maybe you don't agree that your company should get involved in trying to improve your spousal relationship. But there are things you can do on your own. You can support your spouse in supporting you. If you depend on his or her reliability, diligence, and goal orientation, don't take those traits for granted. Maybe you've been standing heroically at the bow for so long that you've forgotten how much effort it takes to row. So sit down and row for a while.

And while you're rowing, how about suggesting that your spouse get up and stand heroically in the bow for a change? Emulate his or her conscientious: Really put your back into it. You may find that your conscientious spouse has a compelling vision of his or her own that will take you into unexpected places.

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/the-one-thing-about-your-spouses-personality-that-affects-your-career/ Research: How Female CEOs Actually Get to the Top tag:blogs.harvardbusiness.org,2007-03-31:999.49703 2014-11-14T21:04:18Z 2014-11-06T13:00:51Z It's usually a long, steady climb at a single company. Sarah Dillard http://hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/80-sarah_dillard.jpg?w=80 Vanessa Lipschitz
Ambitious young women hoping to run a major business someday are often advised to take a particular career path: get an undergraduate degree from the most prestigious college you can, an MBA from a selective business school, then land a job at a top consulting firm or investment bank. From there, move between companies as you hopscotch your way into bigger roles and more responsibility.

That's what we were told as undergraduates, and later on as students at the Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School. It's what Meg Whitman did, more or less, and it's what Sally Blount, dean of the Kellogg School of Management and the only woman running a top-ten business school, recently recommended: "If we want our best and brightest young women to become great leaders…we have to convince more of them that … they should be going for the big jobs," which for her meant "the most competitive business tracks, like investment banking and management consulting."

We decided to put our expensively honed analytic skills to work testing that advice by looking at the career paths of the 24 women who head Fortune 500 companies. What we found surprised us.

Most women running Fortune 500 companies did not immediately hop on a "competitive business track." Only three had a job at a consulting firm or bank right out of college. A larger share of the female CEOs—over 20%—took jobs right out of school at the companies they now run. These weren't glamorous jobs. Mary Barra, now the CEO of General Motors, started out with the company as college co-op student. Kathleen Mazzearella started out as a customer service representative at Greybar, the company she would eventually become the CEO of more than 30 years later. All told, over 70 percent of the 24 CEOs spent more than ten years at the company they now run, becoming long-term insiders before becoming CEO. This includes Heather Bresch at Mylan, Gracia Martore at Gannett, and Debra Reed at Sempra Energy.

Even those who weren't promoted as long-term insiders often worked their way up a particular corporate ladder, advancing over decades at a single company and later making a lateral move into the CEO role at another company. This was the experience of Patricia Woertz, CEO of Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), who built her career over 29 years at Chevron. And it was the experience of Sheri McCoy, who became CEO of Avon after being passed over for the CEO role at Johnson & Johnson, where she worked for 30 years.

The consistent theme in the data is that steady focus wins the day. The median long stint for these women CEOs is 23 years spent at a single company in one stretch before becoming the CEO. To understand whether this was the norm, we pulled a random sample of their male Fortune 500 CEO counterparts. For the men in the sample, the median long stint is 15 years. This means that for women, the long climb is over 50% longer than for their male peers. Moreover, 71% of the female CEOs were promoted as long-term insiders versus only 48% of the male CEOs. This doesn't leave a lot of time for hopscotch early in women's careers.

It is hard to parse what drives the long-tenure, insider path that so many of these women took or why their experiences differ from those of the men. Optimistic interpretations could include supportive organizations, strong mentors, or something intrinsic to the women themselves. On the flip side, differences between the long stints for women and men could also result from structures that treat women less favorably, from biases that delay promotions to penalties for taking maternity leave. Regardless of the root cause, it seems important to acknowledge that the long climb is the common path for female Fortune 500 CEOs.

An immediate implication of the long climb is that for ambitious young women, company culture matters a lot. If a common pattern is to spend multiple decades advancing in a single environment, that environment had better fuel female ambition rather than stifle it. A recent Bain survey shows that while women in entry-level jobs have ambition and confidence to reach top management in large companies that matches or exceeds that of men, at mid-career, men's ambitions and confidence stay the same, while those of women drop dramatically. A company capable of maintaining the drive of its women as they progress in their careers is a better bet for a long stint than one that allows the more common diminishing trend to occur.

Let's go back to that conventional career advice. What about the prestigious college? Does that matter? While Whitman's high-prestige background may seem like it should be the norm, she is one of only two woman running a Fortune 500 company to have an undergraduate degree from an Ivy League institution. (This doesn't appear to be a gendered issue. Only four percent of the men in our sample attended an Ivy League school.)

Early stints in consulting and banking also hardly seem to be a prerequisite for either gender: about three-quarters of the men and women do not have any reference in their publically available resumes to time spent in either industry, liberally defined, at any time. Prestigious MBA programs are also hardly a requirement; only 25% of the women and 16% of the men hold an MBA from a top-ten school. In short, for both male and female Fortune 500 CEOs, collecting a single conventional badge of prestige, let alone collecting a handful of them, may help, but is hardly a gating factor.

Of course, the world may have changed since the current CEOs made the choices that led them to the top seats in corporate America. The average age of the 24 female Fortune 500 CEOs is 56, leaving room for the tide to have shifted. Yet the youngest woman in the group, Heather Bresch of Mylan, 45, still follows the insider trajectory perfectly. Starting out typing drug labels at a Mylan plant in Morgantown, West Virginia, Bresch moved to roles of increasing responsibility over the next 20 years before becoming CEO.

It may be that the playbook for advising young women with their sights set on leading large companies needs to be revised. Just as important, there is something inspiring for young women in the stories of these female CEOs: the notion that regardless of background, you can commit to a company, work hard, prove yourself in multiple roles, and ultimately ascend to top leadership. These female CEOs didn't have to go to the best schools or get the most prestigious jobs. But they did have to find a good place to climb.

 http://hbrblogs.wordpress.com/2014/11/research-how-female-ceos-actually-get-to-the-top/


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An emerging management methodology could help agencies do a better job of linking the performance of individual employees to organizational goals.
The methodology, known as cascading, focuses on translating organizational goals into performance measures at every level of an organization, from senior leaders on down.
Establishing a clear link between the organization's goals and their own performance metrics can help employees better understand how their work contributes to the organization and encourage them to do their best, said Scott Cameron, a senior vice president at R3 Government Solutions. He led an educational session titled "Cascading Excellence" at the FOSE Conference and Exposition sponsored by 1105 Media in Washington, D.C.
One of the keys is to measure outcomes — that is, improvements to the ability of agencies to carry out their missions — rather than outputs, he said.
"The typical parent of a sixth-grader doesn't care what the budget of the school is, but 'is my kid reading at a sixth-grade level?'" he said. "It's easy to measure outputs — yeah, there's data in the system — but the outcome is ideally what you get to."
Federal agencies could adopt that approach to improve compliance with the Government Performance and Results Act Modernization Act of 2010, said Cameron, former deputy assistant secretary for performance, accountability and human resources at the Interior Department.
They could begin by linking the modernization act's goals to the performance measurement requirements for the Senior Executive Service, then cascading those goals down to their subordinates and on down the chain one layer at a time.
That approach creates lines of sight between employees and the organization's larger goals, Cameron said.
"For people to feel that their job is worth putting extra effort into, they have to understand how it contributes something valuable to the organization, how it contributes something valuable to the world," he said.
But the approach can quickly grow unwieldy, so Cameron urged managers to incorporate only the organization's top priorities into standards for SES employees.
Cascading can trigger personal land mines, too, if employees believe they're being judged too harshly. Remind them that their reputation and expertise aren't dependent on their performance scores in a given time period, he said, adding that even Nobel laureates aren't at peak performance every day.
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I am glad to see this approach get broader recognition, but it is certainly not new. I implemented a corporate-wide performance measurement system tied to organizational and individual goals at multiple levels of he organiation in 1996. At the time I created this, I had not come across any similar implementation. While Balance Scorecard has in many cases become the standard approach for performance measures, typical implmentations do not include this approach of cascading down through the organization.
This is a really interesting article and summarises the thinking about performance management that's going on in a lot of organisations right now, both public and private.
To make cascading work successfully, we've found that you need to:
- Have clear outcomes and outputs
- Set clear guidelines not just for what needs to be achieved, but for how these goals will be achieved
- Make sure that line managers at each level are clear how their departmental goals are linked to the overall organisation's goals
- Train line managers to help their teams set the right goals for both individuals and teams, especially if team performance is important and rewarded
- Keep the system really simple – regular goal review and feedback by line managers and their reports are the most effective way to improve employee performance
- Incorporate multi-source and 360 Degree Feedback somewhere along the performance process as it can add a level of information and awareness that supports the cascading of goals
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