Power and Influence →
- 06 Sep 2011
- Research & Ideas
The Power of Leadership Groups for Staying on Track
Twenty-first-century organizations are breaking with traditional command-and-control hierarchies to develop a new generation of values-centered leadership, argues Professor Bill George, author of True North. The best way to get there? True North Groups. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 06 Jul 2011
- Research & Ideas
Are You a Level-Six Leader?
Asking the question, whom do you serve? is a powerful vector on which to build a useful typology of leadership. Visiting professor Modesto Maidique offers a six-level Purpose-Driven Model of Leadership ranging from Sociopath to Transcendent. Key concepts include: The most telling question to ask a leader is, whom do you serve? Yourself? Your group? Society? The answer to this question often reveals more about leaders than knowing their personality traits, level of achievement, or whether they were "transformational" or "transactional" leaders. The six levels of leadership are Sociopath, Opportunist, Chameleon, Achiever, Builder, and Transcendent. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 27 Jun 2011
- Research & Ideas
Recovering from the Need to Achieve
In his new book, Flying without a Net: Turn Fear of Change into Fuel for Success, HBS professor Thomas J. DeLong explores the world of "high-need-for-achievement professionals" or HNAPs—those for whom the constant, insatiable need to achieve can lead to anxiety and dysfunction. Plus: book excerpt. Key concepts include: Instead of happiness or well-being, high-need-for-achievement professionals seek "relief in the accomplishment of tasks." This creates a vicious cycle marked by a lack of a real sense of purpose. Four characteristics define an HNAP: comparing, busyness, worrying, and blaming. DeLong calls for HNAP readers to take the following steps toward recovery: stop and reflect with self-awareness, let go of the past, create a vision or specific goal with an agenda, seek support through mentors and a network, don't blink (or fall back on old behaviors), and purposefully expose themselves to vulnerability. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 20 Jun 2011
- Lessons from the Classroom
Fame, Faith, and Social Activism: Business Lessons from Bono
Many executives struggle to balance work, family, and community, but for rock star Bono the effort is spread across the globe. In the HBS case "Bono and U2," professor Nancy F. Koehn discusses key business lessons to be learned from the famous band. Key concepts include: Take stock of how you are using your funds, your authority, and your people. A leader's mission and purpose isn't static; it evolves. The mission of the CEO should be related to the organization's performance. Who you are and what you stand for as an organization have great relevance to the people who buy your product. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 06 Jun 2011
- Research & Ideas
Why Leaders Lose Their Way
Bill George discusses how powerful people lose their moral bearings. To stay grounded executives must prepare themselves to confront enormous complexities and pressures. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 09 May 2011
- Research & Ideas
Moving From Bean Counter to Game Changer
New research by HBS professor Anette Mikes and colleagues looks into how accountants, finance professionals, internal auditors, and risk managers gain influence in their organizations to become strategic decision makers. Key concepts include: Many organizations have functional experts who have deep knowledge but lack influence. They can influence high-level strategic thinking in their organizations by going through a process that transforms them from "box-checkers" to "frame-makers." Frame-makers understand how important it is to attach the tools they create to C-level business goals, such as linking them to the quarterly business review. Frame-makers stay relevant by becoming personally involved in the analysis and interpretation of the tools they create. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 25 Apr 2011
- Research & Ideas
What CEOs Do, and How They Can Do it Better
A CEO's schedule is especially important to a firm's financial success, which raises a few questions: What do they do all day? Can they be more efficient time managers? HBS professor Raffaella Sadun and colleagues set out to find some answers. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 01 Apr 2011
- Working Paper Summaries
When Power Makes Others Speechless: The Negative Impact of Leader Power on Team Performance
History has shown that possessing a great deal of power does not necessarily make someone a good leader. This paper explores the idea that power actually has a detrimental effect on leadership, especially with regard to how it affects open communication within a team. Research was conducted by Leigh Plunkett Tost of the University of Washington, Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School, and Richard P. Larrick of Duke University. Key concepts include: Members of teams with high-power leaders are likely to keep quiet in meetings, both because high-power leaders talk a lot, meaning there's not much time for others to talk, and because of the perception—fair or not—that powerful people aren't interested in anyone else's ideas. This can result in a dearth of ideas during brainstorming sessions. Leader power has a negative effect on team members' perceptions of the leader's ability and desire to engage in open communication. Because open communication is vital to any project, these perceptions can hurt team performance. These negative effects of leader power can be virtually eliminated simply by clearly communicating the idea that every team member is individually instrumental to any given task at hand. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 10 Mar 2011
- What Do You Think?
To What Degree Does the Job Make the Person?
Summing Up: Jobs shape us as much as we shape our jobs, Jim Heskett's readers suggest. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 29 Oct 2010
- Research & Ideas
Will I Stay or Will I Go? How Gender and Race Affect Turnover at ‘Up-or-Out’ Organizations
Gender and racial inequalities continue to persist at "up-or-out" knowledge organizations, making it difficult for women and minorities to advance to senior levels, Kathleen McGinn says. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 06 Oct 2010
- Research & Ideas
John Kotter: Four Ways to Kill a Good Idea
Every visionary knows the frustration of pitching a great idea, only to see it killed by naysayers, say HBS professor emeritus John P. Kotter and University of British Columbia professor Lorne A. Whitehead. In an excerpt from their new book, Buy-IN: Saving Your Good Idea from Getting Shot Down, the authors reveal strategies used by your critics—and how to defend against them. Key concepts include: Fear mongering involves creating infectious anxiety, scaring others into believing that a good idea is far too risky to pursue. Death by delay entails stalling an idea with never-ending questions, straw polls, and meetings—until the idea eventually loses momentum and peters out. Confusion consists of peppering a conversation with a stream of irrelevant facts and convoluted questions, making it nearly impossible for the innovator to keep the discussion on track. Ridicule is a direct attack on the character of the person who proposed the idea, creating indirect doubts about the idea itself. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 27 Sep 2010
- Research & Ideas
Customer Experts Lose Influence When Teams are Pressured
Group dynamics can take a bad turn when a team feels heightened pressure from stakeholders. In this Q&A, HBS professor Heidi K. Gardner explains why performance pressure makes team members do what seems irrational: defer to high-status "generalist" experts while ignoring colleagues close to the client. Key concepts include: Despite mutual respect initially, team dynamics can take a counterproductive turn when the group feels heightened pressure from external and internal stakeholders. When teams experience performance pressure, they usually listen more to high-status "generalist" experts in the group and unintentionally ignore members who know the client organization best. As team members privilege general expertise over customer-specific expertise, they miss out on key information that would improve how they customize and adapt the work for clients—a significant aspect of maintaining ongoing client relationships. Although it is tempting to blame certain individuals when this happens, Gardner's evidence shows that these processes are the responsibility of every team member. Managers can recognize the problem and take concrete steps to avoid it. Ultimately, soliciting everyone's contribution means little unless it is incorporated into the final deliverable for clients. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 20 Sep 2010
- Research & Ideas
Power Posing: Fake It Until You Make It
Nervous about an upcoming presentation or job interview? Holding one's body in "high-power" poses for short time periods can summon an extra surge of power and sense of well-being when it's needed, according to Harvard Business School professor Amy J.C. Cuddy. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 15 Sep 2010
- Working Paper Summaries
From Bench to Board: Gender Differences in University Scientists’ Participation in Commercial Science
Does gender affect whether a university scientist will be invited to work with for-profit companies? Indeed it does. A new paper finds that male professors receive more opportunities than their female counterparts to join scientific advisory boards and start new companies. Research, focusing on the biotechnology field, was conducted by Haas School of Business professor Waverly W. Ding, MIT Sloan professor Fiona Murray, and HBS professor Toby E. Stuart. Key concepts include: University-employed scientists helped to found at least half of the publicly traded biotech firms in existence today. Women scientists receive far fewer invitations than men to join scientific advisory boards, and so male scientists are more than twice as likely as female scientists to become formal board advisors. When female scientists do receive invitations to join boards, they generally come from small start-ups with limited financial backing, rather than from high-profile companies backed by high-status venture capitalists. The corporate gender gap increases among scientists employed at elite universities or academic departments. However, the gender gap decreases at schools with formal technology transfer offices, indicating that institutional support can help women overcome obstacles to entry into commercial science. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 23 Aug 2010
- Research & Ideas
The Drive to Acquire’s Impact on Globalization
Humans have evolved four priorities or "drives," according to HBS professor emeritus Paul R. Lawrence: the drive to acquire, to defend, to bond, and to comprehend. In an excerpt from his new book, Driven to Lead: Good, Bad, and Misguided Leadership, Lawrence describes how the four drives impact globalization. Key concepts include: Humans have evolved four priorities or "drives": the drive to acquire, to defend, to bond, and to comprehend. Most U.S. corporations are built to fulfill the drive to acquire. Transnational outsourcing can thus be a win-lose exchange between nations of unequal power. A sense of fulfillment in each person's drive to acquire is relative to that of other people to whom one compares oneself. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 16 Dec 2009
- Working Paper Summaries
The End of Chimerica
Economic historians Niall Ferguson and Moritz Schularick of Freie Universität Berlin consider the problem of global imbalances and try to set events in a longer-term perspective. First published in 2009. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 03 Dec 2009
- Working Paper Summaries
Walking the Talk in Multiparty Bargaining: An Experimental Investigation
Talk can unite, but it can also divide. In multiparty bargaining, communication can focus parties on a fair distribution of resources, but it can also focus parties on a competitive distribution of resources. As HBS professor Kathleen L. McGinn and coauthors Katherine L. Milkman and Markus Nöth show through experiments, at the onset of interaction the dominant logic in discussions—be it fairness or competition—strongly influences the equality of payoffs even in complex, full-information multiparty bargaining. Increases in the relative frequency of talk about fairness are associated with payoffs closer to an equal split. Talk about competitive reasoning has the opposite effect, driving payoffs away from an equal division, though these effects are less consistent than fairness talk effects. The researchers' results add critical insights to our understanding of the role of communication in multiparty bargaining. Key concepts include: In multiparty bargaining, as in two-party bargaining, communication may work in part through social awareness and in part by allowing players to threaten to walk away. Communicating the willingness to walk away, in conjunction with loss aversion by stronger players, may help weaker players convince stronger players to move toward a more equal split of the available surplus, but it also permits strong players to threaten weak players. In a competitive, multiparty game, communication may play a more nuanced role than observed in simpler bargaining contexts. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 05 Aug 2009
- Working Paper Summaries
Authority versus Persuasion
In directing employees, managers often face a choice between invoking authority and persuasion. In particular, since a firm's formal and relational contracts and its culture and norms are quite rigid in the short term, a manager who needs to prevent an employee from undertaking the wrong action has the choice of either trying to persuade the employee or relying on interpersonal authority. In choosing between persuasion and authority the manager makes a cost-benefit trade-off. This paper studies that trade-off, focusing in particular on conflicts that originate in open disagreement. Key concepts include: Persuasion and authority can be both substitutes and complements. In particular, authority and persuasion are substitutes when authority is highly effective but complements when authority is not very effective. Persuasion is attractive on projects where effort or motivation is more important. The reason is that (under the assumption that executing a good project is more valuable than executing a bad project) the employee will exert extra effort if he or she believes more in the project. The manager also relies more on persuasion (without authority) when employees have higher pay-for-performance incentives. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 21 May 2009
- Working Paper Summaries
Do Friends Influence Purchases in a Social Network?
In spite of the cultural and social revolution in the rise of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace (and in South Korea, Cyworld), the business viability of these sites remains in question. While many sites are attempting to follow Google and generate revenues from advertising, will advertising be effective? If friends influence the purchases of a user in a social network, it could potentially be a significant source of revenue for the sites and their corporate sponsors. Using a unique data set from Cyworld, this study empirically assesses if friends indeed influence purchases. The answer: It depends. Findings are relevant for social networking sites and large advertisers. Key concepts include: There is a significant and positive impact of friends' purchases on the purchase probability of a user. However, there are significant differences across users. Specifically, this social effect is zero for 48 percent of the users, negative for 12 percent of the users, and positive for 40 percent of the users. "Moderately connected" users exhibit "keeping up with the Joneses" behavior. On average, this social influence translates into a 5 percent increase in revenues. Highly connected users tend to reduce their purchases of items when they see their friends buying them. This negative social effect reduces the revenue for this group by more than 14 percent. This finding is consistent with the typical fashion cycle wherein opinion leaders or the elite in the fashion industry tend to abandon one type of fashion and adopt the next in order to differentiate themselves from the masses. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
Earnings Management from the Bottom Up: An Analysis of Managerial Incentives Below the CEO
Many studies as well as anecdotes document a link between the structure of chief executive officer (CEO) compensation and various measures of earnings manipulation. In this paper, HBS professors Oberholzer-Gee and Wulf analyze all components of compensation packages for CEOs and for managers at lower levels in a large sample of firms over more than 10 years, between 1986 and 1999. Results suggest that the effects of incentive pay on earnings management vary considerably by both type of incentive pay and position. Overall, it appears that the primary focus of compensation committees on equity incentives for CEOs overlooks a critical component in curbing earnings manipulation. If one wanted to weaken incentive pay to get more truthful reporting, diluting bonuses-particularly that of the chief financial officer (CFO)-would be the place to start. This may be the first study to analyze the relationship between CEO, division manager, and CFO compensation and earnings management. Key concepts include: It is important to look at positions below the CEO because it is unclear if all or even most financial misreporting is decided at the top. In addition to division managers, the importance of the CFO's role in financial reporting and the numerous recent corporate fraud cases suggest that CFOs can significantly affect accounting quality. Companies report significantly higher discretionary accruals and excess sales and have a higher incidence of future lawsuits when CFOs are paid larger bonuses. Importantly, the magnitudes of these effects are much larger for CFOs in comparison to both CEOs and division managers. Since the quality of financial reporting is difficult to assess, the researchers have used various measures of earnings manipulation in this study, including discretionary accounting accruals, end-of-year excess sales, and class action litigation. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.