The Mae West attributed quote “flattery will get you everywhere” may be good advice. Sometimes. Research published in the Journal of Marketing Research demonstrates flattery leaves a lasting and positive impression of the flatterer, even when people believe it is insincere. In the experiment, participants were shown a flyer from a fictitious clothing store complimenting…
In the Harvard Business Review article Can You Say What Your Strategy Is?, David Collis and Michael Rukstad claim most executives cannot summarize their company’s strategy. Of course, if executives can’t, no one else in the organization will be able to. And those organizations that don’t understand their strategy are unlikely to execute them successfully. In their words:…
One of the first articles we had to read during my recent HBS class was “Control in an Age of Empowerment” by Robert Simons. Even though the article was published in Harvard Business Review more than 10 years ago, I had never read it before and a quick poll of my classmates suggests very few…