Business management

New research on default settings.

Managers have to lead the charge.

John and Peter are two salesmen for the XYZ corporation. John sells twice as much as Peter. John earns twice as much as Peter, right? Wrong. John may even earn less. The XYZ corporation’s sales compensation plan is not unique in the modern business world. In the past decade many companies have turned to sophisticated […]

A channel manager.

The CEO wants to increase collaboration and cut costs with an open-plan work space, but the knowledge workers say they need their walls, their doors, and their privacy.

What do the Burroughs Corporation, Crown Cork & Seal Co., Inc., and the Union Camp Corporation have in common? Although none of them enjoys a dominant market share, all three earn quite respectable returns on their equity, have healthy profit margins, and continue to maintain strong sales growth year after year. In this article, the […]

Three key factors to consider, based on more than 100 interviews with global executives.

A close look at ad campaigns from Hillary Clinton and Apple.

Your organization needs to change too.

It’s disaster in the desert. Late last week, Dubai World quasi-defaulted — and took the Emirate’s credibility with it. Will Dubai meet its obligations? It’s the question the beancounters of the universe are nervously asking. As usual, it’s the wrong question. Dubai was a mini-America: finance and real estate made up the lion’s share of […]

In addition to product costs and supplier choices, today's managers need to consider geopolitics, logistics, sustainability, and suppliers' health.

But well-rounded leaders might be able to.

Lessons from the Special Forces and Blockbuster.

Try not to take it personally.

How successful pitches at Disney spoke to visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners.

The key is knowing what your top price is—and having the discipline to stick to it.

Few activities in a workplace polarize like performance reviews. Some see them as subjective and ungrounded, one-sided and boss-dominated and something we should do away with entirely, an opinion put forth most recently in a Wall Street Journal article. Others find them an invaluable tool to develop employees and move the company forward. Our view? […]

In 1970, Citibank’s services rated poorly when compared with other banks’. In response, management ordered an overhaul of the services area and brought in managers with experience in manufacturing environments to make the services more efficient. That program succeeded in ensuring new processing efficiency and management control; yet it did not go far enough in […]

But CEOs increasingly do.