190 Posts found for Source_type: Article

Managers of a product team at Microsoft offered employees the chance to pick their next assignment, rather than having the leaders hand down those decisions. In this case, to retain top talent in a competitive market and to boost employee satisfaction, team leaders pitched their projects to employees, allowing them to evaluate the opportunities and chart their own course. Some managers worried that participants would … [ Read more ]

Source: Listening to employees: The ‘Beyond Bureaucracy’ M-Prize winners | Original Publication: The McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

Consider adding a frequency opt-out option to the standard “fine print” at the bottom of every electronic mailing. Instead of just seeing an unsubscribe link, recipients can take their choice between that and an option to reduce frequency, which reads: “If you would like us to decrease the frequency of the emails sent to you, click here. This will reduce the number of mailings by … [ Read more ]

Source: How to Reduce Email Unsubscribes by 35% & Boost Holiday Sales | Original Publication: MarketingSherpa | Subjects: Customer-Related, Marketing / Sales

Instead of asking, “Are we all on the same page?” or, “What am I missing?” and accepting predictable responses, one should conclude a meeting by going around the room and asking each person to say aloud what she is committing to do and by what date. If you establish a pattern of asking people at the end of a meeting to explicitly state everything to … [ Read more ]

Author: Jeff Grimshaw | Source: There Must Be Some Misunderstanding | Original Publication: The Conference Board Review | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Simple resource allocation decision rules can help minimize political infighting because they change the burden of proof from the typical default allocation (“what we did last year”) to one that makes it impossible to maintain the status quo. For example, a simple harvesting rule might involve putting a certain percentage of an organization’s portfolio up for sale each year to maintain vibrancy and to cull … [ Read more ]

Author: Dan P. Lovallo | Source: How to Put Your Money Where Your Strategy Is | Original Publication: The McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Finance

When you do [customer satisfaction] surveys, it usually screams out that you know nothing about that customer or their purchase history, and you’re giving them a mixed message on whether you listen to them. Although you’re asking them to take time to fill out the survey, they never hear back from you about what you’re going to do in response to the results. So in … [ Read more ]

Author: Frederick F. Reichheld | Source: Loyalty: It’s Worth More Than You Think | Original Publication: LOMA | Subject: Customer-Related

The CEO of Insituform made raising the productivity of his work force a key goal of his three-year turnaround plan. So he and his executive team decided to set up a national competition. The work crew with the best productivity improvement in the first quarter would get a week off, and be replaced by the executive team, which would work however many hours were necessary … [ Read more ]

Source: CEO in the Ditch | Original Publication: Chief Executive | Subject: Management

A technique for avoiding decision bias is to request that managers show more of their cards: some companies, for instance, demand that investment recommendations include alternatives, or “next-best” ideas. This approach is useful not only to calibrate the level of a manager’s risk aversion but also to spot opportunities that a manager might otherwise consider insufficiently safe to present to senior management.

Author: Dan P. Lovallo | Source: Distortions and deceptions in strategic decisions | Original Publication: The McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Finance, Management

Formerly, when operational people in the business units at Devon Energy did a search for a new employee, HR would hand them a list of candidates. It would be their job to decide which candidates to see and to sell the candidates on Devon.

Now, we in HR sit down with the business leader and talk about the need, and the strategy to fill the need. … [ Read more ]

Source: Talent Is a Strategic Asset: A Virtual Roundtable | Original Publication: strategy+business | Subjects: Best Practices, Human Resources

Rio Tinto institutes checks and balances to manage internal lobbying. We have something called the Investment Committee, which approves sizable investments of any kind and consists of the CEO, CFO, the head of technology and innovation, and the head of business services. In other words, it does not contain any of the divisional heads. The plan is that this committee has enough data to have … [ Read more ]

Author: Guy Elliott | Source: Breaking Strategic Inertia: Tips from Two Leaders | Original Publication: The McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Finance, Management, Strategy

I would have a policy like Hewlett-Packard had when I worked there, before starting Apple. They encouraged you to work on little inventions of your own, and you would get some financial support from the company to build them. The company benefits in two ways. You’re becoming better at designing things for the company because you’ll force yourself to learn ways to solve your own … [ Read more ]

Author: Steve Wozniak | Source: Creating Great Products with Apple’s Steve Wozniak, Inventor of the Personal Computer | Original Publication: Babson Insight | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

Borealis (the Danish based international plastics business) split their management requirements into four distinct agendas. They had a need to forecast, set direction, manage costs and control capital expenditure. They then set up four distinct systems to deliver each of these requirements. Forecasting was done centrally using a financial model that collected basic data from key points within and outside the company. As a result … [ Read more ]

Author: Mike Bourne | Source: Six Steps to Improving your Planning and Budgeting System | Original Publication: Think: Cranfield | Subject: Management

Retailers need to find ways to get customers to share complaints with management, not friends and family. One way is for retailers to ask customers to check a box on their credit card slip indicating they had a problem at the store. Retailers could then attempt to follow up, or give the customer a phone number or web address to make their complaints directly. If … [ Read more ]

Source: Beware of Dissatisfied Consumers: They Like to Blab | Original Publication: Knowledge@Wharton | Subject: Customer-Related

At one well-known energy company, the five executives of a top team were asked to list the company’s 10 highest priorities. Alarmingly, they listed a total of 23 priorities; only 2 appeared on every executive’s list and only 7 on the lists of more than three members; indeed 13 of the 23 priorities appeared on only one list. In other cases, the team doesn’t agree … [ Read more ]

Author: Erika Herb | Source: Teamwork at the Top | Original Publication: The McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

That’s how firefighters in the town of Toluma got a badly-needed but expensive piece of equipment, a deluge gun, without asking their cash-strapped city council for a single dime.

Here’s how. Business was slow all over their town. The firefighters were getting nowhere when they asked for donations from business owners experiencing a weak economy.

Yet when they approached the manager of a Pizza Hut he said … [ Read more ]

Author: Kare Anderson | Source: Attract and Delight More Customers While Spending Less – by Forging Smart Partnerships | Original Publication: The CEO Refresher | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Social Responsibility

When Halliburton Energy Services Group, a leading oil field services company, revamped its strategic planning process, senior managers decided that these two processes were in fact one and they designed their strategic planning accordingly. Halliburton now has one owner of strategy and capital allocation, with clear accountability for ensuring alignment between the two. This senior manager owns the corporate-wide strategic managing process and chairs a … [ Read more ]

Author: Phyllis Rothschild | Source: Strategic Planning Redux | Original Publication: Mercer Management Journal | Subjects: Finance, Strategy

Superquinn awards shoppers “goof points” for pointing out problems such as an out-of-stock item, a dirty floor or a checkout line longer than three people. The goof points, which provide discounts off future purchases, have proved a good way to get customers talking about their experience.

SAS Institute, the North Carolina–based software company, creates a “SASware Ballot” every year, giving customers a chance to vote … [ Read more ]

Author: James Allen | Source: Closing the delivery gap | Original Publication: Bain | Subject: Customer-Related

Send out a Friday email with “good news” from the week, highlighting the achievements of each of your team members. If he/she is willing, go even further and have the CEO speak to the team every Friday on hot topics, concerns, achievements.

Author: Suzanne Bates | Source: New, Innovative, Low-Cost Ways to Motivate Employees Your Company Has Survived; Now, How Can You Energize People? | Original Publication: Bates Communications | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Organizational Behavior

At McKinsey mentoring is regarded as a vital part of the development culture but is still not as common as it should be. To encourage it, several McKinsey offices now ask all associates at regular intervals which partners they view as mentors. Although a small number of partners were named by as many as a dozen associates, most partners were surprised to find that fewer … [ Read more ]

Author: Helen Handfield-Jones | Source: How Executives Grow | Original Publication: The McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Human Resources, Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior

One of the most effective ways to improve your team dynamics is to dialogue as often as possible. Books, DVDs and even magazine articles are a great way to get your teams talking. And you might learn a thing or two about yourself in the process! Once a month, pick a relevant business book and purchase them for your team. Give them a deadline to … [ Read more ]

Author: Jim Jenkins | Source: Cost-Effective Team Building Exercises | Original Publication: The CEO Refresher | Subject: Management

Retirement represents the loss of a worker with the skills needed to perform a specific job. It may also represent the loss of crucial knowledge whose value to the organization extends far beyond the worker’s individual position.

Freightliner, a large truck manufacturer based in Portland, Oregon, has anticipated this dual risk. It set about assessing the extent and severity of the risk, focusing on employees who … [ Read more ]

Author: Rainer Strack | Source: Managing Demographic Risk | Original Publication: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Human Resources, Knowledge Management, Organizational Behavior