Harvard Business Review Press publishes the best thinking in the areas of business strategy, general management, technology, leadership, human resources, and innovation. Intelligent business readers turn to them for answers to the questions they face every day, and for the guidance and debate that will have a profound impact on their lives — both personally and professionally.
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Five smart moves that will help, by Peter Cappelli Summary. Complaints against Human Resources (HR), which are nothing new, have a cyclical quality. They’re driven largely by the business context. When companies are struggling with labor issues, HR is seen as a valued leadership partner. When things are smoother all around, managers wonder what the function…
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Summary. The pursuit of individual productivity is healthy and worthwhile. However, unless you work independently outside of an organization, the benefits of most “tricks” will be limited. To make a real impact on performance, you have to work at the system level. The author recommends four ways to improve productivity and efficiency by making changes…
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The case for—and against—digital employees Summary. All companies want to provide their customers with richer and more engaging experiences. The challenge is how to scale the experiences in a way that does not depersonalize or commodify them. Enter the digital human. Rapid progress in computer graphics, coupled with advances in AI, is putting humanlike faces…
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Summary. Perfectionism is often driven by striving for excellence, but it can be self-sabotaging. There are three big mistakes that tend to kill perfectionists’ productivity. First, they are often unable to designate any decision as unimportant which prevents them from quick action or delegation. Second, they feel morally obligated to overdeliver. Third, they rigidly cling to…
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Summary. Visionary leadership is widely seen as key to strategic change. That’s because visionary leadership does not just set the strategic direction — it tells a story about why the change is worth pursuing and inspires people to embrace the change. But research finds that the positive impact of visionary leadership breaks down when middle managers…
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Summary. Surveys are a pain to complete and, as a result, most people don’t invest much thought in filling them in, which means the information they give is low-quality and unlikely to provide strategic insight. Talking to customers and asking open-ended questions yields better results and in most cases your managers will not need to conduct…
