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December 2008
Although even the highest levels of uncertainty don’t prevent businesses from analyzing predicaments rationally, says author Hugh Courtney, the financial crisis has shown us the limits of our tools—and minds.
The range of possible futures confronting business is great. Companies that nurture flexibility, awareness, and resiliency are more likely to survive the crisis, and even to prosper.
September 2008
The gender gap isn’t just an image problem: our research suggests that it can have real implications for company performance. Some companies have taken effective steps to achieve greater parity.
July 2008
Filippo Passerini is bringing the back office into the boardroom.
Some Asian companies are better at executing capital projects than are rivals elsewhere. What lessons can others learn from them?
May 2008
In an interview, the Nobel Laureate says organizations should think of decisions like any other product, and apply quality controls.
Gary Hamel and The Management Lab explore improving performance by rethinking organizational structure.
April 2008
Although they draw together widely dispersed information, prediction markets face organizational and legal challenges.
January 2008
The celebrated author of Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk explores the history of risk and how it works in real-world markets and in our lives.
November 2007
Formalizing a company’s ad hoc peer groups can spur collaboration and unlock value.
Forward-looking executives must respond to the growing need for a new managerial model.
September 2007
The founder and chairman of Satyam details the philosophy that has underpinned the company’s rapid ascent through the ranks of the world’s top IT services providers.
August 2007
Leaders used to have few options for changing their companies, except focusing on financial performance and walking the halls. That’s no longer true.
McKinsey research indicates that organizational and financial performance are strongly related.
July 2007
Executives are most positive about the outcomes of strategy formulation for their companies’ business units when they work at companies that use a collaborative approach. And while they say following best practices yields better results, they use those practices less often than they think they should.
May 2007
How can business leaders embed “healthy” thinking in the organization?
Redesigning an organization to take advantage of today’s sources of wealth creation isn’t easy, but there can be no better use of a CEO’s time.
Nasty people don't just make others feel miserable; they create economic problems for their companies.
There are two types of complexity. Understanding where to intervene is the key to managing them to create value.
Creating value from the challenges complexity presents is a major challenge confronting today’s companies.
April 2007
Executives see opportunities as well as risks in the global business landscape, yet many are not addressing them.
Companies shouldn’t focus so much on formal structures that they ignore the informal ones.
January 2007
Public companies will need to raise their governance game if they are to compete with private firms.
November 2006
The company's CEO from 1973 to 2000 explains how it transformed itself from a local manufacturer of simple components into a global technology giant.
September 2006
Executives say their companies could be a lot more effective at developing a strategy and implementing strategic plans, and they suggest some areas for improvement.
August 2006
An organization is much more likely to improve its current performance and underlying health by using a combination of complementary practices rather than any one of them alone, according to new McKinsey research.
As collaboration within and among organizations becomes increasingly important, companies must improve their management of the networks where it typically occurs.
July 2006
Executives see an urgent need to increase the agility and speed of their organization and are trying in various ways to do so.
May 2006
Tacit interactions are becoming central to economic activity. Making those who undertake them more effective isn't like tweaking a production line.
A 21st-century company should put as much effort into developing its talented employees as it puts into recruiting them.
To survive, organizations must execute in the present and adapt to the future. Few of them manage to do both well.
April 2006
Executives report an accelerating pace of change in an increasingly competitive business environment, driven by knowledge and information trends and the forces of globalization.
February 2006
Companies are vulnerable to misconceptions, biases, and plain old lies. But not hopelessly vulnerable.
Executives should recognize and compensate for cognitive biases and agency problems.
Focus on the interactions that are important to customers—and on the way frontline employees handle those interactions.
As products evolve into commodities, services become more important. But companies that play this new game must understand its rules.
Restructuring doesn't always lead to improved performance.
January 2006
Macroeconomic factors, environmental and social issues, and business and industry developments will all profoundly shape the corporate landscape in the coming years.
November 2005
Economic activity in developed economies is again undergoing a broad and deep shift.
The world's biggest companies are learning to manage complexity.
Successful efforts to exploit the growing importance of complex interactions could well generate durable competitive advantages.
August 2005
It is difficult—but vital—for managers to strike a balance between the short and long terms.
The world's largest companies are more successful than ever, but scale brings its own challenges.
Big corporations must make sweeping organizational changes to get the best from their professionals.
Companies that rely on IT governance systems alone will come up short.
July 2005
Confidence is down, distractions are up.
May 2005
Developing economies have become an invaluable springboard for companies looking to compete successfully abroad.
April 2005
Markets may expect solid performance over the short term, but they also value sustained performance over the long term. How can companies manage both time frames?
February 2005
Even the best strategy can fail if a corporation doesn’t have a cadre of leaders with the right capabilities at the right levels of the organization.
November 2004
Traditional public-sector organizations can be redesigned to perform more successfully—even when market forces are lacking.
August 2004
For companies and their employees alike, knowledge is power—and profit.
Companies should treat a customer-relationship-management solution as a product or service and its users as internal customers—by making it valuable, pricing appropriately, advertising, and providing after-sales support.
July 2004
To ensure that IT investments have the greatest impact, CIOs must involve business-unit leaders and concentrate on the big picture.
May 2004
The federation structure remains a viable model for nonprofit organizations—if managements transform themselves and affiliates collaborate more closely.
March 2004
Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia’s head of mobile phones and a former CFO, discusses strategic organization, performance measurement, and the value of financial transparency.
August 2003
Generating great performance requires a more dynamic approach to building and adapting a company’s capabilities than merely squeezing its operations.
Executives in France are taking a more proactive approach to ensure their IT investments bear fruit.
June 2003
Foundations are endowed with intellectual as well as financial capital. Now is the time to use it.
In even the largest and best-managed companies, hundreds of organizational muddles take place every day. Throughout the economy, they add up to a staggering waste of our national resources.
Teach For America learned the importance of building organizational capacity the hard way.
CEOs must now be more architect than general: the job is to design working environments where thousands of people know what to do, cooperate to get it done, and experience it as personally fulfilling.
Even a corporate revamping inspired by state-of-the-art design principles won’t succeed if not driven by a powerful, well-timed business idea adapted to social realities.
December 2002
Business leaders—that’s who.
June 2002
Uncertainty and rising levels of risk make it impossible for companies to determine the future. But a portfolio-of-initiatives approach to strategy can help ensure that companies take full advantage of their best opportunities without taking unnecessary risks.
August 2001
A new business model may forever change the way companies compete.
Many companies hard-pressed to maintain their margins through products alone are turning to ’solutions.’ But to succeed, they must not only embrace competitors but also often turn away existing customers.