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Teamwork is difficult at any level, but for top teams, the challenges expand exponentially. They are responsible for addressing their organization's weightiest and most complex problems, so their struggles are almost existential. Highly effective top teams share key five behaviors: direction, discipline, drive, dynamism, and collaboration. These traits are collective: They characterize the behaviors of the team as a whole, not those of its individual members. In this article, the authors lay out a four-step process to help you promote those behaviors to boost the effectiveness of your own team. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accelerated pace of technological change and, most recently, the advent of AI are reshaping jobs and organizations in ways that call for constant career reinvention. So we all need to learn how to get better at making the most of the frequent transitions that will constitute a long working life. But no matter how often people change careers, they will probably experience the transition as an emotionally fraught process—one that involves confusion, loss, insecurity, and struggle. Big changes can be exhilarating, but they’re also terrifying. For more than two decades, Ibarra, of London Business School, has been studying the process of career reinvention: what prompts people to do it, how they go about it, and how it affects them. In this article, drawing on new research, she explains why such transitions are still so hard for so many people, despite their growing frequency and prevalence. She also offers some ideas for managing them more intentionally and successfully. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interpersonal conflicts are common in the workplace, and it’s easy to get caught up in them. But that can lead to reduced creativity, slower and worse decision-making, and even fatal mistakes. So how can we return to our best selves? Having studied conflict management and resolution over the past several years, the author outlines seven principles to help you work more effectively with difficult colleagues: (1) Understand that your perspective is not the only one possible. (2) Be aware of and question any unconscious biases you may be harboring. (3) View the conflict not as me-versus-them but as a problem to be jointly solved. (4) Understand what outcome you’re aiming for. (5) Be very judicious in discussing the issue with others. (6) Experiment with behavior change to find out what will improve the situation. (7) Make sure to stay curious about the other person and how you can more effectively work together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A role transition, whether it’s a promotion, a move to a new organization, or a fresh challenge in an existing job, can be a huge boost to one’s career. But in today’s hyper-collaborative and dynamic workplaces, successful moves aren’t as easy as they once were, even for the most qualified, hardworking people. After analyzing employee relationships and communication patterns across more than 100 diverse companies, and interviewing 160 executives in 20 of them, the authors discovered an overlooked prerequisite for transition success: the effective use of internal networks. That involves five practices: surging rapidly into a broad network by asking a lot of questions and discovering boundary-spanning, innovative people across the organization; generating pull by understanding, energizing, and adjusting to new connections; identifying how to add value, where one falls short, and which people in the broad network can help fill any gaps; creating scale by using the network to engage other key opinion leaders, expand the scope and impact of one’s projects, and more efficiently deliver outsize results; and shaping the network for maximum thriving by making connections that enhance one’s workplace experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A case study is presented that explores harassment and discrimination in the workplace. Topics discussed include how ambiguous criteria can lead to bias in promotions, hiring and development, judging what makes a comment inappropriate and different promotion rates between men and women. Corresponding comic strips are also offered. INSET: Case Study Classroom Notes.

Leaders are well aware of the central role that cross-group collaboration plays in business today. So in planning for collaborative initiatives, they think carefully about logistics and processes, incentives and outcomes. And that makes perfect sense. But in doing so they forget to consider how the groups they’re asking to work together might experience the request—especially when they are being told to break down walls, divulge information, sacrifice autonomy, share resources, or even cede responsibilities. All too often, groups feel threatened by such demands: What if the collaboration is a sign that they’ve become less important to the company? What if they give up important resources and responsibilities and never get them back? This is the “collaboration blind spot.” To make sure collaborative initiatives are successful, leaders must first identify threats to group security and take steps to minimize them and discourage defensive behaviors. Only then should they focus on process and outcomes. INSET: THREAT WARNINGS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By pooling their know-how and resources across internal boundaries, organizations can solve problems more creatively, increase their productivity, and reap higher profits. But collaboration is not easy, given how time-pressed managers are, how reluctant they are to cede control over projects and relationships, and how tough it is for them to stop working in silos when they’ve been doing it for ages. About 10 years ago, leaders at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute realized that the growing complexity of the problems its experts were charged with solving meant their fiefdoms couldn’t last forever. In developing a case study about Dana-Farber, Gardner saw firsthand how difficult it was for the organization to move away from a star-based system to one that got researchers working together across specialties and facilities. She demonstrates that its story has clear parallels with business and outlines how executives can pull the levers of change in a wide range of companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a case study concerning an employee who left a company and then asked to be rehired. Topics discussed include the impact on the business of the rehiring of this employee, how employees who took new roles in the company may be affected by the rehiring, and the opinions of two business leaders on this case study. INSET: Case Study Teaching Notes..

A case study is presented which deals with various aspects of an office romance involving a company's male chief financial officer (CFO) and a female salesperson, and it mentions the potential impacts of such as relationship on other co-workers and business management professionals. Decision making in business is assessed, along with the social aspects of a work environment, company policies, and the possible impact that an office relationship might have on an individual's career development.

Companies today increasingly rely on teams that span many industries for radical innovation, especially to solve “wicked problems.” So leaders have to understand how to promote collaboration when roles are uncertain, goals are shifting, expertise and organizational cultures are varied, and participants have clashing or even antagonistic perspectives. HBS professor Amy Edmondson has studied more than a dozen cross-industry innovation projects, among them the creation of a new city, a mango supply-chain transformation, and the design and construction of leading-edge buildings. She has identified the leadership practices that make successful cross-industry teams work: fostering an adaptable vision, promoting psychological safety, enabling knowledge sharing, and encouraging collaborative innovation. Though these practices are broadly familiar, their application within cross-industry teams calls for unique leadership approaches that combine flexibility, open-mindedness, humility, and fierce resolve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“It is almost impossible to progress through a career untouched by incivility,” the author writes. Over the past 20 years she has polled thousands of workers: 98% have experienced uncivil behavior, and 99% have witnessed it. In 2011 half said they were treated rudely at least once a week—up from a quarter in 1998. Rude behavior ranged from outright nastiness and undermining to ignoring people’s opinions to checking e‑mail during meetings. Observing or experiencing rude behavior impairs short ‑ term memory and thus cognitive ability, and has been shown to damage the immune system, put a strain on families, and produce other deleterious effects. Porath has identified some tactics to minimize the effects of rudeness on performance and health. The most effective remedy, she says, is to work holistically on your well ‑ being, rather than trying to change the perpetrator or the relationship. She suggests a two ‑ pronged approach: Take steps to thrive cognitively, which includes growth, momentum, and continual learning; and take steps to thrive affectively, which means experiencing passion, excitement, and vitality at work. INSET: If You Choose Confrontation.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaboration is taking over the workplace. According to data collected by the authors over the past two decades, the time spent by managers and employees in collaborative activities has ballooned by 50% or more. There is much to applaud about these developments—but when consumption of a valuable resource spikes that dramatically, it should also give us pause. At many companies, people spend around 80% of their time in meetings or answering colleagues’ requests, leaving little time for all the critical work they must complete on their own. What’s more, research the authors have done across more than 300 organizations shows that the apportionment of collaborative work is often extremely lopsided. In most cases, 20% to 35% of value-added collaborations come from only 3% to 5% of employees. The avalanche of demands for input or advice, access to resources, or sometimes just presence in a meeting causes performance to suffer. Employees take assignments home, and soon burnout and turnover become real risks. Leaders must start to manage collaboration more effectively in two ways: (1) by mapping the supply and demand in their organizations and redistributing the work more evenly among employees, and (2) by incentivizing people to collaborate more efficiently. INSET: Why Women Bear More of the Burden.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A rise in collaborative workplaces and dynamic teams over recent years has heightened the demand for "authenticity" and "instant intimacy," and managers are supposed to set an example. But sharing thoughts, feelings, and experiences at work can backfire if it's hastily conceived, poorly timed, or inconsistent with cultural or organizational norms. Getting it right can be challenging for leaders at any stage of their careers. The authors draw on four decades' worth of research in social and organizational psychology to look at common mistakes executives make when they're trying to be authentic and to offer a five-step plan for moving toward more-effective self-disclosure. 1. Build a foundation of self- knowledge. The best approach is to solicit honest feedback from coworkers and follow it up with coaching. 2. Consider relevance to the task. Before sharing personal information, ask yourself if it's germane to the situation. 3. Keep revelations genuine. Making up or exaggerating stories is easily discovered and can damage credibility. 4. Understand the organizational and cultural context. Some societies are more inclined than others to disclose personal a information. 5. Delay or avoid very personal disclosures. First take note of how open others are. The authors include a tool to help you assess when--and when not--to share. INSET: When-and When Not-to Share. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Change is hard, especially in a large organization. Yet some leaders succeed-often spectacularly-at transforming their workplaces. What makes them able to exert this sort of influence when the vast majority can't? The authors tracked 68 change initiatives in the UK's National Health Service, an organization whose size, complexity, and tradition can make reform difficult. They discovered several predictors of change agents' success-all of which emphasize the importance of networks of personal relationships: • Change agents who were central in the organization's informal network had a clear advantage, regardless of their position in the formal hierarchy. • People who bridged disconnected groups or individuals were more effective at implementing dramatic reforms. The resisters in their networks did not necessarily know one another and so were unlikely to form a coalition. Change agents with cohesive networks, in which all individuals were connected, were better at instituting minor changes. Their contacts rallied around the initiative and helped convince others of its importance. • Being close to people who were ambivalent about a change was always beneficial. In the end, fence-sitters were reluctant to disappoint a friend. But close relationships with resisters were a double-edged sword: Such ties helped push through minor initiatives but were a hindrance when attempting major change. INSETS: Idea in Brief;Diagnose Your Network;HOW WE CONDUCTED THE STUDY. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We've all heard of (or experienced) the "boss from hell." But that's just one form that incivility in the workplace can take. Rudeness on the job is surprisingly common, and it's on the rise. Whether it involves overt bullying or subtle acts of thoughtlessness, incivility takes a toll. It erodes productivity, chips away at morale, leads employees to quit, and damages customer relationships. Dealing with its aftermath can soak up weeks of managerial attention and time. Over the past 14 years the authors have conducted interviews with and collected data from more than 14,000 people throughout the United States and Canada in order to track the prevalence, types, causes, costs, and cures of incivility at work. They suggest several steps leaders can take to counter rudeness. Managers should start with themselves-monitoring their own behavior, asking for feedback on it, and making sure that their actions are a model for others. When it comes to managing the organization, leaders should hire with civility in mind, teach it on the job, create group norms, reward good behavior, and penalize bad behavior. Lest consistent civility seem an extravagance, the authors caution that just one habitually offensive employee critically positioned in an organization can cost millions in lost employees, lost customers, and lost productivity. INSET: TAKING CIVILITY GLOBAL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As life expectancy in the West increases and companies can no longer promise lifelong security, many businesspeople will need to make major changes during middle age, embarking on a second life and a second career. They must start by getting beyond two pervasive and opposing myths. The first is that midlife marks the onset of decline. Problems do arise during middle age -- concerns about health and finances, for instance -- but one's life force does not expire at 65, nor do possibilities vanish. In fact, by middle age, most executives have gained a freedom that only self-knowledge can impart, and they relish unprecedented opportunities for personal growth. Midlife transitions, however, must be rooted in realism, not driven by the second myth, which paints middle age as a time of magical transformation. Contrary to what self-help books and inspirational speakers proclaim, such transformations do not happen. A 50-year-old with little musical training, for instance, will not suddenly become a concert pianist. People who buy into this myth find that their inevitable disappointment can be debilitating. Paradoxically, the doctrine that aims to encourage change actually stifles it. To make successful transitions, executives must stay open to the possibilities their experience qualifies them for but remain realistic about what they can achieve. For companies, employees' midlife transitions represent both a challenge (senior managers seemingly on track to become CEO may instead leave) and an opportunity (other midlife executives, with different perspectives and experiences, may knock on the door). Organizations must help middle-aged executives through this difficult period, not just by offering a workshop or two but by providing ongoing coaching and opportunities for personal and professional development. INSET: The Risk of Not Managing Midlife. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professional service firms (PSFs), like so many other companies, are juggling the modern challenges of global competition, increased regulation, and rapid employee turnover. In a people-oriented industry, attrition has special import. DeLong and Gabarro, of Harvard Business School, along with former Morgan Stanley and Ernst & Young executive Lees, argue that a PSF can gain a much-needed competitive edge by renewing its focus on mentoring. The authors' in-depth interviews with professionals from more than 30 PSFs have yielded four principles for firms to heed as they rediscover this lost art. First, mentoring is personal. Rather than relying on standardized programs, mentors must frequently -- and fairly -- provide authentic advice and nurturing. Partners at PSFs know how to use their ample people skills effectively with clients; the benefits of using them with junior colleagues are even greater. Second, not everyone is an A player. A small dose of attention given to a B player goes at least as far as a large one offered to an A player. Since B players constitute about 70% of PSF staff, that's time well spent. Third, choice assignments are in short supply, which limits the number of learning opportunities available for associates. Good alternatives include shadowing senior professionals on assignments and taking on research or other projects that are not client-related but that nonetheless build expertise. Finally, mentoring is a two-way street. Protégés should not only learn from their senior counterparts, but also be taught to attract mentors -- and to co-mentor one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Executing complex initiatives like acquisitions or an IT overhaul requires a breadth of knowledge that can be provided only by teams that are large, diverse, virtual, and composed of highly educated specialists. The irony is, those same characteristics have an alarming tendency to decrease collaboration on a team. What's a company to do? Gratton, a London Business School professor, and Erickson, president of the Concours Institute, studied 55 large teams and identified those with strong collaboration despite their complexity. Examining the team dynamics and environment at firms ranging from Royal Bank of Scotland to Nokia to Marriott, the authors isolated eight success factors: (1) "Signature" relationship practices that build bonds among the staff, in memorable ways that are particularly suited to a company's business. (2) Role models of collaboration among executives, which help cooperation trickle down to the staff. (3) The establishment of a "gift culture," in which managers support employees by mentoring them daily, instead of a transactional "tit-for-tat culture." (4) Training in relationship skills, such as communication and conflict resolution. (5) A sense of community, which corporate HR can foster by sponsoring group activities. (6) Ambidextrous leadership, or leaders who are both task-oriented and relationship-oriented. (7) Good use of heritage relationships, by populating teams with members who know and trust one another. (8) Role clarity and task ambiguity, achieved by defining individual roles sharply but giving teams latitude on approach. As teams have grown from a standard of 20 members to comprise 100 or more, team practices that once worked well no longer apply. The new complexity of teams requires companies to increase their capacity for collaboration, by making long-term investments that build relationships and trust, and smart near-term decisions about how teams are formed and run. INSETS: Collaboration Conundrums;Eight Factors That Lead to Success;How Complex Is the Collaborative Task?;The Research [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anyone in management knows that employees have their good days and their bad days and that, for the most part, the reasons for their ups and downs are unknown. Most managers simply shrug their shoulders at this fact of work life. But does it matter, in terms of performance, if people have more good days than bad days? Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer's new stream of research, based on more than 12,000 diary entries logged by knowledge workers over three years, reveals the dramatic impact of employees' inner work lives their perceptions, emotions, and motivation levels--on several dimensions of performance. People perform better when their workday experiences include more positive emotions, stronger intrinsic motivation (passion for the work), and more favorable perceptions of their work, their team, their leaders, and their organization. What the authors also found was that managers' behavior dramatically affects the tenor of employees' inner work lives. So what makes a difference to inner work life? When the authors compared the study participants' best days to their worst days, they found that the single most important differentiator was their sense of being able to make progress in their work. The authors also observed interpersonal events working in tandem with progress events. Praise without real work progress, or at least solid efforts toward progress, had little positive impact on people's inner work lives and could even arouse cynicism. On the other hand, good work progress without any recognition or worse, with criticism about trivial issues could engender anger and sadness. Far and away, the best boosts to inner work life were episodes in which people knew they had done good work and their managers appropriately recognized that work. INSETS: The Reality Management Never Sees;How We Studied State of Mind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The desire to achieve is a major source of strength in business, and it is on the rise. The authors' consulting firm has seen a steady increase in the extent to which achievement motivates managers. There's a dark side to the trend, however. By relentlessly focusing on tasks and goals, an executive or company can damage performance. Overachievers tend to command and coerce, stifling subordinates. Psychologist David McClelland identified three drivers of behavior: achievement, meeting a standard of excellence; affiliation, maintaining close relationships; and power, having an impact on others. He said the power motive comes in two forms: personalized, in which the leader draws strength from controlling people, and socialized, where the leader derives strength from empowering people. Studies show that great charismatic leaders are highly motivated by socialized power. To look at how motives and leadership style affect a group's work climate and performance, the authors studied 21 senior managers at IBM. The leaders who created high-performing and energizing climates got more lasting results by using a broad range of styles, choosing different ones for different circumstances. Rather than order people around, they provided vision, sought buy-in and commitment, and coached. If you're an overachiever seeking to broaden your range, you can study your actions and ask your team, peers, and manager to give you honest feedback. You can adopt specific new behaviors, such as engaging your team in a discussion of how to achieve goals, rather than issuing a set of directives. The company as a whole can play a part, too: Organizations must learn when to draw on the achievement drive and when to rein it in. INSETS: The Right Leadership Style...;Creates a Strong Work Climate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

When Bob Carlton decided to expand Opti-Motors, the Alabama engine-parts manufacturer he had founded, he knew he'd have to take on a lot of debt. So he followed a headhunter's advice and hired Galen McDowell to bring new energy to sales. No question, Galen knew how to sell. He quickly hooked a big-league outfit, Kinan Motors, as a potential customer. He invited their representatives to come take a tour of the company and, while they were in town, visit the Red Ruby Club. The Red Ruby? That's a strip club. Galen assured Bob it was upscale and full of business people. He said his reps had often made use of the club to woo important accounts away from rivals. As if to prove his point, Kinan quickly signed a multimillion-dollar contract with Opti-Motors after the visit. Then April Hartley, Bob's first salesperson, quit. She had been trying to build relationships with customers, but the really big accounts, it seemed, were looking for "more exciting stuff" than she could give them. Now Joan Warren--another saleswoman, and one who would happily close a deal anywhere she got the chance--is complaining because Galen won't let her go to the Red Ruby with him. "I won't stand by and be disadvantaged simply because I'm a woman," she says. When does client entertainment cross the line? Four experts discuss this fictional case study: John Brown, the director of institutional sales and customer relations at Fortis Investments; Katherine Frank, a former dancer who is now an author and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Das Narayandas, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School; and Denise Rousseau, a professor at Carnegie Mellon's Heinz School of Public Policy and Tepper School of Business. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

When employees believe they are being treated fairly – when they feel heard, when they understand how and why important decisions are made, and when they believe they are respected – their companies will benefit. Research shows that practicing process fairness reduces legal costs from wrongful-termination suits, lowers employee turnover, helps generate support for new strategic initiatives, and fosters a culture that promotes innovation. What's more, it costs little financially to implement. Yet few companies practice it consistently. Joel Brockner examines this paradox, exploring psychological and other reasons that cause managers to resist embracing process fairness. The fact that it's relatively inexpensive to implement, for instance, may be why some numbers-oriented executives undervalue it. Many managers believe that they practice process fairness, but 360-degree feedback tells another story. Some corporate policies actually undermine it – such as when the legal department won't let managers fully explain decisions for fear that disclosure could expose the firm to lawsuits. And, frequently, managers simply follow the all-too-human tendency to avoid uncomfortable situations. But the good news is that organizations can take concrete steps to promote greater process fairness. Many studies have shown that training programs make a big difference, and the author describes the most effective format. In addition, warning your managers that they may experience negative emotions when practicing fair process will help prepare them to cope with those feelings. Finally, role modeling fair process on the executive level will help spread the practice throughout the organization. The fact is, process fairness is the responsibility of all executives, at all levels and in all functions; it cannot be delegated to HR. The sooner managers realize that and work to make it a company norm, the better off the organization will be. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The single greatest cause of corporate underperformance is the failure to execute. According to author Ram Charan, such failures usually result from misfires in personal interactions. And these faulty interactions rarely occur in isolation, Charan says in this article originally published in 2001. More often than not, they're typical of the way large and small decisions are made (or not made) throughout an organization. The inability to take decisive action is rooted in a company's culture. Leaders create this culture of indecisiveness, Charan says--and they can break it by doing three things: First, they must engender intellectual honesty in the connections between people. Second, they must see to it that the organization's social operating mechanisms--the meetings, reviews, and other situations through which people in the corporation transact business--have honest dialogue at their cores. And third, leaders must ensure that feedback and follow-through are used to reward high achievers, coach those who are struggling, and discourage those whose behaviors are blocking the organization's progress. By taking these three approaches and using every encounter as an opportunity to model open and honest dialogue, leaders can set the tone for an organization, moving it from paralysis to action. INSETS: Dialogue Killers;GE's Secret Weapon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All companies value leadership--some of them enough to invest dearly in cultivating it. But few management teams seem to value one engine of leadership development that is right under their noses, churning out the kind of talent they need most. lt's the complicated, overburdened but very rich lives of their minority managers. Minority professionals--particularly women of color--are called upon inordinately to lend their skills and guidance to activities outside their jobs. Sylvia Ann Hewlett, who heads the Center for Work-Life Policy, and her coauthors, Carolyn Buck Luce of Ernst & Young and Cornel West of Princeton, present new research on the extent to which minority professionals take on community service and other responsibilities outside the workplace and more than their share of recruiting, mentoring, and committee work within the workplace. These invisible lives, argue the authors, can be a source of competitive strength if companies can learn to recognize and further cultivate the cultural capital they represent. But it's hard to convince minority professionals that their employer respects and values their off-hours responsibilities. A lack of trust keeps many people from revealing much about their personal lives. The authors outline four ways companies can leverage hidden skills: Develop a new level of awareness of minority professionals' invisible lives; appreciate the outsize burdens these professionals carry and try to lighten them; build trust by putting teeth into diversity goals; and, to finish the job of leadership development, help minorities reflect on their off-hours experiences, extract and generalize the lessons,and apply what's been learned in other settings. INSET: Invisible Lives in the Global Context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managing a traditional team seems pretty straightforward: Gather up whoever's available, give them time and space to do their jobs, and make sure they all play nicely together. But these teams produce results that are often as unremarkable as the teams themselves. When big change and high performance are required, a virtuoso team is far more likely to deliver outstanding and innovative results. Virtuoso teams are fundamentally different from the garden-variety workgroups that most organizations form to pursue more modest goals. They comprise the top experts in their particular fields, are specially convened for ambitious projects, work with frenetic rhythm, and emanate a discernible energy. Not surprisingly, however, the superstars who make up these teams are renowned for being elitist, temperamental, egocentric, and difficult to work with. As a result, many managers fear that if they force such people to interact on a high-stakes project, the group just might implode. In this article. Bill Fischer and Andy Boynton put the inner workings of highly successful virtuoso teams on full display through three examples: the creative group behind West Side Story, the team of writers for Sid Caesar's I950s-era television hit Your Show of Shows, and the high-powered technologists who averted an investor relations crisis for Norsk Hydro, the Norwegian energy giant. Each of these teams accomplished enormous goals and changed their businesses, their customers, even their industries. And they did so by breaking all the conventional rules of collaboration--from the way they recruited the best members to the way they enforced their unusual processes, and from the high expectations they held to the exceptional results they produced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When looking for help with a task at work, people turn to those best able to do the job. Right? Wrong. New research shows that work partners tend to be chosen not for ability but for likability. Drawing from their study encompassing 10,000 work relationships in five organizations, the authors have classified work partners into four archetypes: the competent jerk, who knows a lot but is unpleasant; the lovable fool, who doesn't know much but is a delight; the lovable star, who's both smart and likable; and the incompetent jerk, who...well, that's self-explanatory. Of course, everybody wants to work with the lovable star, and nobody wants to work with the incompetent jerk. More interesting is that people prefer the lovable fool over the competent jerk. That has big implications for every organization, as both of these types often represent missed opportunities. Because they are liked by a disproportionate number of people, lovable fools can bridge gaps between diverse groups that might not otherwise interact. But their networking skills are often developed at the expense of job performance, which can make these employees underappreciated and vulnerable to downsizing. To get the most out of them, managers need to protect them and put them in positions that don't waste their bridge-building talents. As for the competent jerks, too often their expertise goes untapped by people who just can't put up with them. But many can be socialized through coaching or by being made accountable for bad behavior. Others may need to display their competence in more isolated settings. Intriguingly, managers aren't limited to leveraging people that others like and changing those that others loathe. They also can create situations in which people are more apt to like one another, whatever their individual qualities. INSETS: Who Is Good? Who Is Liked?;Who Is Good? Who Is Liked?. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nearly all areas of business--not just sales and human resources--call for interpersonal savvy. Relational know-how comprises a greater variety of aptitudes than many executives think. Some people can "talk a dog off a meat truck," as the saying goes. Others are great at resolving interpersonal conflicts. Some have a knack for translating high-level concepts for the masses. And others thrive when they're managing a team. Since people do their best work when it most closely matches their interests, the authors contend, managers can increase productivity by taking into account employees' relational interests and skills when making personnel choices and project assignments. After analyzing psychological tests of more than 7,000 business professionals, the authors have identified four dimensions of relational work: influence, interpersonal facilitation, relational creativity, and team leadership. This article explains each one and offers practical advice to managers--how to build a well-balanced team, for instance, and how to gauge the relational skills of potential employees during interviews. To determine whether a job candidate excels in, say, relational creativity, ask her to describe her favorite advertising campaign, slogan, or image and tell you why she finds it to be so effective. Understanding these four dimensions will help you get optimal performance from your employees, appropriately reward their work, and assist them in setting career goals. It will also help you make better choices when it comes to your own career development. To get started, try the authors' free online assessment tool, which will measure both your orientation toward relational work in general and your interest level in each of its four dimensions. INSET: Matching Functions with Interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an ideal world, a subordinate would accept critical feedback from a manager with an open mind. He or she would ask a few clarifying questions, promise to work on certain performance areas, and show signs of improvement over time. But things don't always turn out that way. Such conversations can be unpleasant. Emotions can run high; tempers can flare. Fearing that the employee will become angry and defensive, the boss all too often inadvertently sabotages the meeting by preparing for it in a way that stifles honest discussion. This unintentional-indeed, unconscious-stress-induced habit makes it difficult to deliver corrective feedback effectively. Instead professor Jean-Francois Manzoni says that by changing the mind-set with which they develop and deliver negative feedback, managers can increase their odds of having productive conversations without damaging relationships. Manzoni describes two behavioral phenomena that color the feedback process-the fundamental attribution error and the false consensus effect-and uses real-world examples to demonstrate how bosses' critiques can go astray. Managers tend to frame difficult situations and decisions in a way that is narrow (alternatives aren't considered) and binary (there are only two possible outcomes-win or lose). And during the feedback discussion, managers framing of the issues often remains frozen, regardless of the direction the conversation takes. Manzoni advises managers not to just settle on the first acceptable explanation for a behavior or situation they've witnessed. Bosses also need to consider an employee's circumstances rather than just attributing weak performance to a person's disposition. In short, delivering more effective feedback requires an open-minded approach, one that will convince employees that the process is fair and that the boss is ready for an honest conversation. INSET: Making Feedback More Acceptable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On September 11, 2001, in the space of a few horrific minutes, Americans realized the fragility of trust. The country's evident vulnerability to deadly terrorism rocked our faith in the systems we rely on for security. Our trust was shaken again only a few months later with the stunning collapse of Enron, forcing us to question many of the methods and assumptions underpinning the way we work. These two crises are obviously very different, yet both serve as reminders of the perils of trusting too much. The abiding belief that trust is a strength now seems dangerously naive. This new doubtfulness runs contrary to most management literature, which has traditionally touted trust as an organizational asset. It's an easy case to make. When there are high levels of trust, employees can fully commit themselves to the organization because they can be confident that their efforts will be recognized and rewarded. Trust also means that leaders don't have to worry so much about putting the right spin on things. They can act and speak forthrightly and focus on essentials. In short, trust is an organizational superglue. Nevertheless, two decades of research on trust and cooperation in organizations have convinced social psychologist Roderick Kramer that--despite its costs--distrust can be beneficial in the workplace. Kramer has observed that a moderate form of suspicion, which he calls prudent paranoia, can in many cases prove highly beneficial to the distrustful individual or organization. In this article, he describes situations in which prudent paranoia makes sense and shows how, when properly deployed, it can serve as a powerful morale booster--even a competitive weapon--for organizations. INSETS: Keeping Paranoia Prudent;Paranoia@Work. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

All of us struggle from time to time with the question of personal meaning: "Am I living the way I want to live?" For millions of people, the attacks of September 11 put the issue front and center, but most of us periodically take stock of our lives under far less dramatic circumstances. This type of questioning is healthy; business leaders need to go through it every few years to replenish their energy, creativity, and commitment--and their passion for work. In this article, the authors describe the signals that it's time to reevaluate your choices and illuminate strategies for responding to those signals. Such wake-up calls come in various forms. Some people feel trapped or bored and may realize that they have adjusted to the frustrations of their work to such an extent that they barely recognize themselves. For others, the signal comes when they are faced with an ethical challenge or suddenly discover their true calling. Once you have realized that it's time to take stock of your life, there are strategies to help you consider where you are, where you're headed, and where you want to be. Many people find that calling a timeout--either in the form of an intense, soul searching exercise or a break from corporate life--is the best way to reconnect with their dreams. Other strategies include working with a coach, participating in an executive development program, scheduling regular time for self-reflection, and making small changes so that your work better reflects your values. People no longer expect their leaders to have all the answers, but they do expect them to try to keep their own passion alive and to support employees through that process. INSET: Tools for Reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An employee is diagnosed with cancer or loses a family member unexpectedly. An earthquake destroys an entire section of a city, leaving hundreds dead, injured, or homeless. At times like these, managerial handbooks fail us. After all, leaders can't eliminate personal suffering, nor can they ask employees who are dealing with these crises to check their emotions at the door. But compassionate leadership can facilitate personal as well as organizational healing. Based on research the authors have conducted at the University of Michigan and the University of British Columbia's Compassion Lab, this article describes what leaders can do to foster organizational compassion in times of trauma. They recount real-world examples, including a story of personal tragedy at Newsweek, natural disasters that affected Macy's and Malden Mills, and the events of September 11, 2001. During times of collective pain and confusion, compassionate leaders take some form of public action, however small, that is intended to ease people's pain and inspire others to act By openly demonstrating their own humanity, executives can unleash a compassionate response throughout the whole company, increasing bonds among employees and attachments to the organization. The authors say compassionate leaders uniformly provide two things: a "context for meaning"--creating an environment in which people can freely express and discuss how they feel--and a "context for action"--creating an environment in which those who experience or witness pain can find ways to alleviate their own and others' suffering. A leader's competence in demonstrating and fostering compassion is vital, the authors conclude, to nourishing the very humanity that can make people--and organizations--great. INSET: Measuring Organizational Compassion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Annette Innella is just coming into the lunchroom at Concord Machines when Bob Dunn starts screaming at her. After throwing his lunch tray against the wall, he stomps out, leaving Annette stunned. Naturally, Annette, the new senior VP for knowledge management, is beside herself. She knows her proposal to establish a cross functional knowledge management committee is progressive thinking for this old line manufacturer, but Bob's reaction is totally over the line. If Bob stays, she goes--that's all there is to it. Bob is contrite, but he's under a lot of pressure. The general manager of the Services Group, he's just returned from a two week trip around the globe to gear up his troops to beat revenue targets again, despite shrinking budgets and hiring freezes. And what does he see when he gets back? An e-mail from Annette requesting that two of his best people devote half their time to what he calls her "idiotic" Knowledge Protocols Group. He's carrying the company on his back, and she's throwing this nonsense at him. Graphics specialist Paula Chancellor is surprised. Sure, Bob's gruff, but his staff loves him, and he's the only one of the big shots who ever talks to her. But HR director Nathan Singer is incensed; Bob's never been a team player, Singer complains, and it's time he learned a lesson. CEO Jay Nguyen is in a bind. Bob is his top manager; he brings in all the money. And even though future revenues are going to have to come from somewhere else. Jay is not totally behind Annette's initiative in the current business climate. He can't afford to lose Bob. But if he reins in Annette, it will look like he's condoning Bob's outburst. What should he do? Four commentators offer advice in this fictional case study. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

You wouldn't think of Brady Corporation as an obvious place in which to find a fun culture. This traditional Midwestern company, a manufacturer of industrial signs and other identification products, didn't even allow employees to have coffee at their desks until 1989, But when Katherine Hudson became CEO in 1994, she and her executive team determined that injecting some fun into the company's serious culture could create positive effects within the organization and contribute to increased performance and sales. In this article, Hudson distills her approach to overhauling Brady's culture into six principles of serious fun: More people than you might think are comfortable having fun at work; used with an awareness of cultural sensitivities, fun and laughter really are well-understood international languages; humor can help companies get through tough times; fun can be embodied in formal programs; spontaneous efforts at humor can also be effective; and encouraging fun should begin at the top. She richly illustrates each principle with examples. At Brady, getting people to loosen up and enjoy themselves has fostered a company esprit de corps and greater team camaraderie. It has started conversations that have sparked innovation, helped to memorably convey corporate messages to employees, and increased productivity by reducing stress, among other benefits. And the company has doubled its sales and almost tripled its net income and market capitalization over the past seven years. Brady's experience suggests that promoting fun within the workplace can lead not only to a robust corporate culture but also to improved business performance. INSETS: Doing the Packarena;From No to Yo;When the Camel Died. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Companies all across the economic spectrum are making use of teams. They go by a variety of names and can he found at all levels. In fact, you are likely to find the group at the very top of an organization professing to be a team. But even in the best of companies, a so-called top team seldom functions as a real team. Real teams must follow a well-defined discipline to achieve their performance potential. And performance is the key issue-not the fostering of "team values" such as empowerment, sensitivity, or involvement. In recent years, the focus on performance was lost in many companies. Even today, CEOs and senior executives often see few gains in performance from their attempts to become more teamlike. Nevertheless, a team effort at the top can be essential to capturing the highest performance results possible--when the conditions are right. Good leadership requires differentiating between team and nonteam opportunities, and then acting accordingly. Three litmus tests must be passed for a team at the top to be effective. First, the team must shape collective work-products--these are tangible performance results that the group can achieve working together that surpass what the team members could have achieved working on their own. Second, the leadership role must shift, depending on the task at hand. And third, the team's members must be mutually accountable for the group's results. When these criteria can be met, senior executives should come together to achieve real team performance. When the criteria cannot be met, they should rely on the individual leadership skills that they have honed over the years. INSETS: The Myths That Hamper Team Performance;The "All My Direct Reports" Fallacy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While Freud and countless other social commentators of the past wrung their hands at the "mysterious" needs of women, they never questioned what men wanted, especially in the realm of work. After all, a man's profession and his ability to bring home a paycheck have traditionally defined who that man was. And given that most American men grew up believing in the conventional symbols of manhood--wealth, power, status--there are still clear emotional and financial costs involved in making other choices. Yet unlike the man in the gray flannel suit of the 1950s or the fast-tracker of the 1970s and 1980s, today's organization man faces an economy in which corporations are laying off thousands of employees. And though many wives of male chief executives still stay at home, spouses of most other men now work. These two trends are forcing men to redefine themselves. A new organization man has indeed emerged, one who wants to be an involved father with no loss of income, prestige, and corporate support--and no diminished sense of manhood. But since many companies still deem dedication to career the sole marker of professional success, this new man may believe he has to hide his participation at home. Instead of taking advantage of his company's parental leave policies, for instance, he's likely to use sick days to watch over a new baby. Not surprisingly, the compromises made by the new organization man bear a striking resemblance to those of the new organization women. And just as many senior managers now recognize that they'll lose their most ambitious women if they don't develop strategies to accommodate family needs, corporations may also lose their best and brightest men if they don't address the needs of the 1990s man. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

"When we first wrote this article late in 1979, the idea of managing your boss was an illegitimate notion," recalls author John Gabarro. "Except for one article that Peter Drucker had written about 20 years earlier, there was nothing in management literature on the idea." At the time, Gabarro and coauthor John Kotter were working together on organizational behavior at Harvard Business School. Doing very different kinds of field research on effective managers, both found that managing one's own boss was crucial to success. In fact, effective managers handled lateral, upward, and downward relationships equally well. As Gabarro and Kotter developed more data, the value of boss-managing became more and more clear to them. Their focus on what works, or effective behavior, led them to an insight that still cuts through the folklore. Forget ambition. Forget promotion, Forget raises. Just think of the job and how to be effective in it. How do you get the resources you need--the information, the advice, even the permission? The answers always point toward whoever has the power, the leverage, that is, the boss. To fail to make that relationship one of mutual respect and understanding is to miss a major factor of effectiveness. When they realized they were on to something basic, Gabarro and Kotter took their notes to an HBR editor, who immediately agreed to work with them on this landmark article. Published 13 years ago in January-February 1980, "Managing Your Boss" is one of HBR's best-selling reprints. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Distorted Western views of Soviet management techniques are a danger to the success of joint ventures. Most of us believe that the Soviets know little about management and seek only to copy Western methods, but in fact the managers of many Soviet enterprises have overcome the burdens of a command economy to manufacture useful products, care for employees, and even give workers a voice in management. The core of Soviet hierarchy is the structural task unit or STU--basically any group with a specified assignment. The largest STU is the enterprise itself; the smallest is the work brigade, which may have only half a dozen members. Whatever its size, each STU is contained within a larger STU. More important, each STU leader has direct and complete authority over every subordinate STU and its members. Soviet managers, unlike Western ones, can leapfrog subordinate leaders and interact with any member of any STU contained within their own. This system produces excellent vertical integration. Its weakness is that the inner solidarity of STUs greatly inhibits horizontal communication. A second feature of Soviet management that Westerners need to understand is modern democratic centralism, which, at its best, reconciles the centralization of one-person leadership and the decentralization of collectivism. In practice, this is achieved by passing each decision process from leader to workers and back to the leader: the leader poses an issue; the workers debate and formulate a solution; the leader reviews their proposal and makes a decision. The authors show democratic centralism at work in an STU by recounting the selection of a new manager at a large Soviet truck factory. INSETS: A day in the life of a SovTruck factory manager.;Soviet Management Structure: the STU in the STU in the STU;The Written and Unwritten Rules of STU Behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article mentions psychological factors involved in executive succession that could impact the new chief executive officer's ability to manage during the leadership transition period. The CEO, board members, and other top managers might have to cope with negative reactions from the departing CEO during the transition process. There is a discussion of the psychological forces called denial of death, loss of power, fear of reprisal, wish for a perfect solution, romancing the past, and unacceptability of reality.

Anyone who has organized a team knows the importance of getting key members to agree on goals and on what each person must do. The authors have developed a technique used by IBM and its customers that, in an intensive one- or two-day planning session, gets management teams to: Identify their mission. Agree on what they must do to achieve it. Accept individual responsibility for the tasks deemed most important to success. Organizations facing new challenges or opportunities find the technique (called PQM, for process quality management) particularly useful. The heart of PQM is a matrix that reflects the organization's unique goals and needs. To develop the matrix, the team goes through four levels of consensus building that often spur new ideas to improve basic procedures. The authors take the reader through PQM, giving clear guidelines each step of the way. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Most great organizations are great because of the way they recruit and groom good people. The author says you must muscle-build the organization: institute tough, aggressive, companywide upgrading. You start with some frank questions. What are your hiring standards? Do you have a nucleus of excellent talent to draw from? How are you identifying high-potential people? Do you know what the organization's performance problems are? Then you adopt an ambitious five-step improvement program. The heart of the process is setting higher performance standards--and raising them continually. Developing people is the priority--fresh assignments and job rotation keep everyone learning. You change every facet of the work environment--corporate culture, organizational structure, policies--to facilitate and reward your managers' growth. Every company level gets new talent. The most important advocate is the CEO, with the personnel department as a partner. In the most successful organizations, at some point company executives go very tough, very aggressive, and very hard-boiled in cutting away deadwood and bringing in live wires. If you want sweeping improvements in your enterprise, here, says the author, is a method that really works. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In South Africa, white managers and black workers may use the same words when they talk about incentives and motivation, but careful listening reveals that they often mean very different things. That may explain why the productivity of South African black workers is among the lowest in the world. For most black workers, the workplace seems merely an extension of apartheid. The problem becomes clearer when you find out what black workers in South Africa want from their jobs versus what white managers think they want. Out of ten inducements to work harder, black employees interviewed ranked "interesting work" second only to "good pay." Revealingly, white managers expected blacks to rank interesting work much lower. There is a vast gulf of mutual misunderstanding behind this finding. As some blacks ask, what is the point of "equal pay" if they can't buy a house outside a black township? What does "job security" mean to someone who is constantly threatened with imprisonment or worse, away from the job? South African blacks will work more willingly--and productively--for companies that join the struggle against apartheid: companies that pay the legal expenses of blacks picked up on "whites only" beaches, for example, or that go out of their way to negotiate with black union leaders. In South Africa, for now, workers see themselves as a political force first and an industrial force second. White managers may have no choice but to accept their view. INSET: The Sullivan Principles.. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Managers are strongly biased toward action and often unable to be introspective about work relationships. They don't appreciate how differences in workplace power can disturb relations between subordinates and superiors--and undermine organizational effectiveness. When workers withdraw commitment to their jobs or allow resentments toward bosses, subordinates, and others to grow and fester, it isn't because bosses are power hungry or subordinates naturally rebellious. Nor are personality traits at fault. Rather, conflict and misunderstanding arise because of power differences. Although all managers know that power is an inherent part of organizational life, many can't see how their behavior toward subordinates and superiors alike is distorted by hierarchical differences. Because they are masters and servants of power--occupying two roles simultaneously--you might expect that they could easily transfer their experience from one role to the other. They ought to be more sensitive about the way their behavior affects subordinates because they're very aware of how they're affected by their own superiors. In reality, few managers either link their experience as superiors and subordinates or change their behavior in response. Managers can improve work relations by consciously relating these two roles. In dealing with their subordinates, they should ask: "How would I feel if my boss behaved this way or imposed these demands on me?" And they should look at whether the things they ask subordinates to do are critical needs or just ritualistic demands motivated by a need to demonstrate that "rank has its privileges." [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In today's fast-paced, fiercely competitive world of commercial new product development, speed and flexibility are essential. Companies are increasingly realizing that the old, sequential approach to developing new products simply won't get the job done. Instead, companies in Japan and the United States are using a holistic method--as in rugby, the ball gets passed within the team as it moves as a unit up the field. This holistic approach has six characteristics: built-in instability, self-organizing project teams, overlapping development phases, "multilearning," subtle control, and organizational transfer of learning. The six pieces fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, forming a fast and flexible process for new product development. Just as important, the new approach can act as a change agent: it is a vehicle for introducing creative, market-driven ideas and processes into an old, rigid organization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

When a foreman at Tampa Electric Company blew up at a lineman and earned a suspension from work, the company's labor relations manager knew it was time for a change in the discipline system. Tampa Electric's switch to a nonpunitive approach is only one example of a growing trend to a disciplinary method that is now winning broad acceptance. In part, a nonpunitive approach simply fits the times. Shifting attitudes toward corporate culture, new competitive requirements, a changing work force, and reforming views on the importance of discipline all add a new relevance to an issue that was first broached in HBR 20 years ago by John Huberman, who introduced a nonpunitive system of discipline at a Canadian pulp mill. But most important is the qualitative difference of the nonpunitive approach. It simply represents a more realistic, more adult, and more positive way to encourage a disciplined work force. The nonpunitive system recognizes that workers themselves must be the real source of discipline and sets up a workable program that reinforces self-discipline. To be effective, the new system must be linked in a consistent manner with the rest of a company's human resource management programs. In this way discipline becomes part of the company's philosophy, reflecting management's view of itself and its work force. INSET: Similar results in dissimilar organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How can smaller companies get their managers and supervisors to focus on operational problems and business opportunities in a nonthreatening and interesting way? One means is by using a modified version of the case method, which many business schools have employed successfully. Because the cases start and end within the company, the author calls the approach the "closed-loop" case method. Top managers ask other officials for suggestions about company situations needing attention. Then the top executives pick out the most frequently mentioned areas and gather information necessary to write cases. Assembled in small groups, managers discuss the cases and ways for resolving them--all the time avoiding placing blame and seeking scapegoats. The author says that once the cases' nonthreatening nature becomes clear, participants often become quite involved in the discussions. More important, he argues, the solutions generated by case discussions can improve operations and profits. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Multiple letters to the editor are presented in response to articles from previous issues. Titles include "Quality Circles After the Fad," by Edward E. Lawler III and Susan A. Mohrman, "Turnaround for the Public Schools?," by Fred M. Hechinger, from the January-February 1985 issue, and "Yesterday's Accounting Undermines Production," by Robert S. Kaplan, from the July-August 1984 issue.

In the past few years, many "experts" on Japanese management have isolated distinctive practices that seemingly account for Japan's remarkable economic success. The often-unstated implications of such analyses are that American companies might do well to adopt some Japanese techniques. In this article, however, an American who occupies an unusual position as a senior executive with a Japanese company in Japan exposes a different side of the vaunted Japanese style of management. There are drawbacks as well as advantages to such well-known practices as consensus management and lifetime employment. Indeed, Japanese managers are as eager to learn from the West as western managers are to learn from Japan. INSET: The cultural underpinnings of Japanese management. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It looks like there's no solution. A supervisor unjustly gives a poor performance rating and threatens a worker with termination. The employee feels he's been wrongly criticized but worries that if he goes over the supervisor's head to complain, he will lose in the final confrontation. He fears that personnel will listen only to the supervisor and he sees no way out. Ultimately, the situation becomes too much, and finally, in frustration the employee quits. Not all employees are treated unjustly and not all supervisors are unjust, but in too many companies, the authors maintain, nonunion employees feel they have no safe, credible, and accessible route to take to have their concerns and complaints heard. The authors describe what nonunion employees go through when they don't have secure complaint channels and then discuss the structures and functions that best protect the rights of employees and managers while dealing with conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When men began wearing longer hair on the streets it was only a short time before neck-length locks appeared on the factory floor. The same phenomenon is true for drugs. Here an expert on the subject describes the rise in drug use in the nation, the inevitable rise in use that followed in the workplace, and its effects. He lists steps that a concerned management can take to deal with the drug problem, from establishing and enforcing a strong company policy to maintaining a good relationship with the local police. The most important part of the program, however, is attitude. Management needs to see the drug abuse problem not only as dangerous and illegal, but as something it must address. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]