The Employee-Customer-Profit Chain at Sears
Behind “the softer side of Sears” is a set of rigorous leading indicators that measure attitudes, impressions, and future performance.| Harvard Business Review
What a behavioral scientist learned from 10 weeks of comedy classes.| Harvard Business Review
More and more companies today are facing adaptive challenges: Changes in societies, markets, and technologies around the globe constantly force businesses to clarify their values, develop new strategies, and learn new ways to operate. The most important task for leaders in the face of such challenges is mobilizing people throughout their organizations to do adaptive work. In this HBR article from 1997, the authors suggest that the prevailing notion that leadership consists of having a vision ...| Harvard Business Review
E-mail and voice mail are efficient, but face-to-face contact is still essential to true communication.| Harvard Business Review
What is the best way to motivate employees to do creative work? Help them take a step forward every day. In an analysis of knowledge workers’ diaries, the authors found that nothing contributed more to a positive inner work life (the mix of emotions, motivations, and perceptions that is critical to performance) than making progress in meaningful work. If a person is motivated and happy at the end of the workday, it’s a good bet that he or she achieved something, however small. If the pers...| Harvard Business Review
For many employees, the key motivator is a sense of purpose—and yet more than half of those surveyed say they’re not even “somewhat” passionate about their jobs. If organizations want to inspire their workers, they must clearly communicate why they’re in business and what value they provide. When employees understand and embrace those things, their companies thrive: Survey results show that more than 90% of companies with a well-defined purpose deliver growth and profits at or above...| Harvard Business Review
How do business executives make crucial decisions? Often by relying on their keen intuitive skills, otherwise known as their “gut.” But what exactly is gut instinct and how does it work? Scientists have recently uncovered some provocative clues that may change the way you work.| Harvard Business Review
Social belonging is a fundamental human need, hardwired into our DNA. And yet, 40% of people say that they feel isolated at work, and the result has been lower organizational commitment and engagement. U.S. businesses spend nearly $8 billion each year on diversity and inclusion (D&I) trainings that miss the mark because they neglect our need to feel included. Recent research from Betterup shows that if workers feel like they belong, companies reap substantial bottom-line benefits: better job ...| Harvard Business Review
The highest-performing teams have one thing in common: psychological safety — the belief that you won’t be punished when you make a mistake. Studies show that psychological safety allows for taking moderate risks, speaking your mind, being creative, and sticking your neck out without fear of having it cut off — just the types of behavior that lead to market breakthroughs. So how can you increase psychological safety on your own team? First, approach conflict as a collaborator, not an ad...| Harvard Business Review
Behind “the softer side of Sears” is a set of rigorous leading indicators that measure attitudes, impressions, and future performance.| Harvard Business Review
Reprint: F0606C Offering customers too many product choices may decrease their sense of well-being.| Harvard Business Review
Although most great managers want to recognize their people, the challenge, which has only been made more difficult in the hybrid world, is finding meaningful things to recognize them for. The limitation to our typical approach to praise is that we can only recognize what we see, observe, or learn about from others and our recognition focuses on what we appreciate, which is not always what others want to be appreciated for. This is why it is important for leaders to add a new technique to the...| Harvard Business Review
The news headlines about what perks or elements of office design make for a great employee experience seem to be dominated by fads — think treadmill desks, nap pods, and “bring your dog to work day” for starters. But in a recent poll of 1,614 North American employees, access to natural light and views of the outdoors was the number one attribute of the workplace environment outranking stalwarts like onsite cafeterias, fitness centers, and premium perks including on-site childcare. Ther...| Harvard Business Review
What exactly is psychological safety? It’s a term that’s used a lot but is often misunderstood. In this piece, the author answers the following questions with input from Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson, who coined the phrase “team psychological safety”: 1) What is psychological safety? 2) Why is psychological safety important? 3) How has the idea evolved? 4) How do you know if your team has it? 5) How do you create psychological safety? 6) What are common misconceptions?| Harvard Business Review
A year and a half into the pandemic, employees’ mental “surge capacity” is likely diminished. Managers must take proactive steps to increase employee engagement, or risk losing their workforce. Engaged employees perform better, experience less burnout, and stay in organizations longer. The authors created this Employee Engagement Checklist: a distilled, research-based resource that practitioners can execute on during this critical period of renewed uncertainty. Use this checklist to boo...| Harvard Business Review
Nearly every company in the world gives lip service to the idea that “our people are our greatest asset.” Yet when the Conference Board Survey came out earlier this year, employees were the unhappiest they have been in their 22 years of tracking job satisfaction rates. Around the same time, CNNMoney reported a survey that […]| Harvard Business Review
