AI Is Reshaping Cyber Risk. Boards Need to Manage the Threat.
AI‑enabled cyber attacks now cost an average $4.88 million per breach and have surged 44% in a single year, while 77% of organizations still lack basic AI security practices. The article argues that traditional VUCA thinking no longer fits; instead, a BANI lens—brittle, anxious, nonlinear, incomprehensible—captures the volatile reality. To survive, boards must adopt the ACTS framework: assume breaches are inevitable, build AI fluency across leadership, tie AI projects to core operations, and strengthen governance. Real‑world cases like NotPetya and MGM Resorts illustrate how preparedness can limit damage.
Decision-Making by Consensus Doesn’t Work in the AI Era
AI is forcing companies to abandon the consensus‑driven decision model that dominated the last half‑century. Traditional committees slow action and filter reality, creating “Success Theater” where leaders make choices on sanitized data. The article proposes autonomous scrums—small, cross‑functional teams with...
The Case for Designing Work Around Circadian Rhythms
In a recent HBR IdeaCast, professor Stefan Volk explains how human circadian rhythms—natural 24‑hour cycles that create distinct chronotypes—shape alertness, mood, and decision‑making. He argues that traditional nine‑to‑five schedules ignore these variations, causing productivity dips and heightened conflict when employees...
When Silos Hinder Innovation—And When They Can Help
Recent research of 294 studies shows that collective innovation outcomes hinge on how a group is structured, not merely on the amount of collaboration. The authors identify three collective types—convergence‑based, divergence‑based, and attention‑based—defined by search dependence and goal alignment. Real‑world...
Boards Are Falling Short on Cybersecurity
Boards increasingly recognize the need for cybersecurity investments, yet their oversight is lagging. A 2024 FBI report shows cybercrime losses jumped 33% year‑over‑year, underscoring the growing threat. The authors identify three core weaknesses: insufficient expertise on boards, superficial risk conversations,...
When You’re Worn Down—And Your Team Is Too
Harvard Business Review’s April 1 podcast hosted by Alison Beard and Curt Nickisch features workplace strategist Daisy Auger‑Domínguez, who shares concrete ways for managers to rediscover joy amid growing burnout. She advises leaders to reconnect with purpose, adopt a beginner’s mindset,...
How to Onboard a New Member of the Executive Team
The article outlines a systematic approach to onboarding new C‑suite members, arguing that informal briefings are insufficient. It presents a playbook that combines structured briefings, sponsor assignments, and cultural immersion to accelerate executive ramp‑up. The author emphasizes measurable performance goals...
Don’t Let AI Destroy the Skills That Make Your Company Competitive
Executives are warned that unchecked AI adoption can hollow out the unique skills that give firms a competitive edge. While AI delivers speed and data‑driven insights, it also encourages cognitive offloading, causing employees to rely on algorithmic outputs instead of...
Boards Need to Rethink How They Advise CEOs
Boards are full of seasoned talent, yet 72% of CEOs feel unable to set priorities amid disruption. A recent AlixPartners survey shows 85% of CEOs want more personal and professional support, highlighting a gap between board expertise and CEO needs....
A Better Strategy for Location-Based Advertising
Location-based advertising is evolving as marketers move beyond simple radius targeting. A new study of millions of U.S. retail visits shows that customers who are relatively closer to a store than to its competitor respond far more to ads, even...
Should Wasabi Technologies Make the Move From Direct Sales to a Channel Strategy?
Wasabi Technologies, a fast‑growing cloud storage startup, has built its revenue engine on a pure direct‑sales model. Founder David, a serial entrepreneur with a music‑tech background, now faces a go‑to‑market dilemma: whether to preserve the simplicity of direct relationships or...
3 Ways to Supercharge Your Company’s Sales Organization
In today’s uncertain market, executives are pushing sales teams to increase activity, assuming volume will translate into growth. The article argues that merely boosting call counts stalls once efficiency peaks, and that the quality of seller‑prospect interactions—accounting for up to...
How Successful Retailers Prosper in Tough Times
U.S. retailers that navigated three life‑cycle stages—store expansion, digital growth, and cost discipline—outperformed the market between 2016 and 2024, delivering an average 19.8% stock return versus the S&P 500's 12.5%. Costco’s focus on low prices, bulk formats, and employee retention generated...
Strategy Summit 2026: Inventive Strategy and the ‘Unbossed’ Organization
Harvard Business Review’s Strategy Summit 2026 highlighted a fundamental shift from a physical‑asset, mass‑production economy to one driven by intangibles, digital products and services. Rita McGrath argued that sustainable competitive advantage now requires firms to define a clear strategic “center” and...
Overcoming Self-Doubt When Launching Your Own Business
Founders today operate in heightened uncertainty, with tighter funding and rapid change. Nearly 88% report mental‑health issues, and self‑doubt is a pervasive barrier that can stall action and erode team confidence. The article outlines practical steps—recognizing doubt, identifying triggers, separating...
Our Favorite Management Tips on Leading with AI
Harvard Business Review outlines how leaders can harness AI without overloading staff. It stresses redesigning work for human‑AI collaboration, setting clear expectations, and measuring outcomes rather than tool usage. The article also highlights managing employee anxiety, preventing low‑quality "workslop," and...
What It Takes to Execute a Successful Company Turnaround
Peter Cuneo, former Marvel CEO, outlines a repeatable playbook for rescuing underperforming businesses. He stresses that cultural misalignment is often the hidden cause of failure and that diagnosing problems requires listening to insiders. Successful turnarounds hinge on assembling a decisive...
Research: How the “Accent Penalty” Determines Who Gets Heard
A new study of over 5,000 TED Talks and a 2024 experiment shows that speakers with non‑native English accents receive significantly fewer views, likes, and intended shares than native‑accented peers. The engagement gap remains even after adjusting for topic, expertise,...
How Software Startup InsightSquared Wrestled with Creating an Optimal Sales and Marketing Strategy
Harvard Business School lecturer Mark Roberge uses the InsightSquared case to illustrate why SaaS startups often stumble when they rush to scale sales after a Series A. He argues that founders rely on superficial Excel forecasts instead of bottom‑up revenue models,...
How to Deliver on ESG Initiatives in Emerging Market
Multinational corporations face mounting ESG pressure as institutional investors target nearly $34 trillion and 90 % of large U.S. firms now publish ESG reports. In East African frontier markets, glossy impact statements often fail to earn local trust, leading to protests and...
4 Capabilities that Drive Operational Improvement
A multi‑year study of four global banks and three top hospitals identified four cumulative capabilities—Discover, Improve, Align, and Transform—that separate operational excellence leaders from laggards. Firms that built these capabilities in sequence consistently outperformed peers on customer satisfaction and financial...
Researchers Asked LLMs for Strategic Advice. They Got “Trendslop” In Return.
Researchers evaluated leading large language models on classic strategic trade‑offs and discovered a systematic bias toward trendy, buzzword‑heavy recommendations—a phenomenon they label “strategy trendslop.” Across thousands of simulations, the models consistently favored differentiation over cost leadership, augmentation over automation, and...
AI and the Entry-Level Job
Harvard Business Review highlights how generative AI is reshaping entry‑level employment, automating routine tasks while creating new hybrid roles that blend human judgment with machine output. The article notes a rapid rise in demand for data‑literacy, prompt‑engineering, and AI‑assisted problem‑solving...
The Map of U.S. Prosperity Is Changing. Here’s Where Companies Should Invest.
The Geography of Prosperity Index, covering 250 U.S. metros, reveals a shifting map of economic resilience driven by five interlinked systems—population renewal, climate resilience, automation readiness, social cohesion, and governance. Unexpected entrants like Ann Arbor and Frederick rank in the...
Developing Employees Who Thrive Through Continuous Change
Gartner’s 2026 survey reveals employees endured ten organization‑wide strategy shifts in 2022, up from two in 2016, while willingness to support change fell from 74% to 43%. The article argues that leaders must redesign change programs so workers help shape...
How to Turn Individual Talent Into Organizational Excellence
At the start of 2026 a financial‑services CEO used Stephen Curry’s buzzer‑beater to illustrate that elite performance stems from systematic practice, not luck. The article argues that organizations treat excellence as a design problem, weaving talent development, team dynamics, and...
How to Solve One of the Most Expensive Problems in Employer Healthcare
Employers are turning to diagnostic‑first centers of excellence, such as the Mayo Clinic Complex Care Program, to address costly, undiagnosed conditions among high‑spending employees. By consolidating multidisciplinary evaluations into days rather than months, the model has generated average Year‑1 savings...
Looking Back on Nike’s Evolution From Startup to Global Enterprise
Phil Knight recounts Nike’s journey from a Stanford entrepreneurship class and a partnership with coach Bill Bowerman to a global sports‑wear empire. He highlights early breakthroughs such as the waffle‑iron sole and the Onitsuka partnership that set the brand apart....
Research: Using AI Can Stifle Innovation. But It Doesn’t Have To.
A new Management Science study shows that effortless AI‑generated answers boost short‑term productivity but suppress independent exploration, causing firms to converge on a few "good‑enough" solutions. The model predicts, and empirical work confirms, that when reuse is frictionless, the diversity...
What Successful Corporate Venture Capital Funds Do Differently
Corporate venture capital (CVC) units are proliferating as firms chase digital disruption, yet many dissolve within a few years despite solid investment performance. Research shows the primary cause is internal tension—balancing strategic insight, financial returns, speed, and risk compliance—rather than...
The “Last Mile” Problem Slowing AI Transformation
Enterprises are awash with AI pilots, yet most struggle to turn them into enterprise‑wide operating models. The Frontier Firm Initiative (FFI) at Harvard identified seven structural frictions that stall this "last‑mile" transition, ranging from governance gaps to fragmented platform stacks....
How Gen AI Can Turn Reams of Text Into Actionable Insights
Generative AI now turns dense, unstructured corporate text—especially 10‑K Item 1 disclosures—into structured, decision‑ready metrics. Researchers fine‑tuned a GPT model on 3,500 labeled sentences and applied it to nearly 10 million sentences from 39,710 filings, creating a climate‑solution intensity score for 4,483...
How to Get Ahead in the Age of AI
In a March 5 2026 HBR Executive Live, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky discussed how AI is reshaping work. He argued executives must decide whether to use AI merely to optimize existing processes or to reinvent their business models for the future. Roslansky...
How to Lead When You Can’t See the Way
Harvard Business School professor Linda A. Hill hosted an Executive Masterclass on March 4, 2026, addressing how senior leaders can navigate persistent uncertainty. The session framed today’s “fog” of geopolitics, rapid technology change, and evolving stakeholder expectations as a structural condition rather...
When AI Challenges Strategy
Artificial intelligence is reshaping corporate strategy, turning static roadmaps into dynamic, real‑time plans. Executives face heightened volatility as AI accelerates decision cycles and market signals shift faster than traditional forecasts. In a candid HBR interview, chief strategy officers from Penske...
Why Storytelling Matters When Changing Company Culture
Harvard Business Review’s IdeaCast with professor Jay Barney reveals that successful culture change hinges on leaders creating authentic, action‑driven stories rather than issuing top‑down mandates. By deliberately breaking old norms—such as a CEO using the same helpline as front‑line staff—leaders generate...
How “Deep Industry Research Agents” Can Change Your Organization
Corporate AI investments often chase new products, but immediate gains lie in service‑productivity. Deep Industry Research Agents (DIRAs) are domain‑specific, end‑to‑end AI analysts that diagnose and resolve exception cases, as demonstrated with asset manager PIMCO. Over eight months the agents...
Peer Influence Can Make or Break Your AI Rollout
Microsoft researchers surveyed 557 U.S. information workers on AI usage. They found that peer influence is the strongest driver of heavy generative AI adoption, increasing the likelihood of daily use by 8.9 percentage points, surpassing formal training and leader messaging....
AI’s Big Payoff Is Coordination, Not Automation
AI’s most powerful economic effect is lowering the cost of translating disparate data and workflows, not merely automating prediction or creation. By extracting structure from unstructured sources, AI creates a shared, real‑time view that lets teams coordinate without agreeing on...
Close Your Workforce’s AI Skills Gap by Designing an Adaptive Organization - SPONSOR CONTENT FROM SLALOM
The 2026 Slalom AI Research Report shows a paradox: 68 % of leaders feel they can keep pace with AI, yet 93 % cite underdeveloped skills and inadequate training as major barriers. Deploying AI tools alone isn’t delivering results; the capability gap...
Are You Leveraging the Diverse Talent on Your Board?
Harvard Business School Working Knowledge surveyed 30 veteran directors—half Black and 40% women—who collectively serve on boards valued at $18 trillion. The research shows that while board diversity promises richer problem‑solving, many committees lack psychological safety, limiting the impact of varied...
6 Ways to Make Strategy Resonate with Skeptical Leaders
Leaders often dismiss formal strategy as bureaucratic, yet the article argues that this skepticism creates a "strategy deficit"—a gap between the choices an organization makes and the clarity it communicates. Drawing on 30 years of advisory work, the author outlines...
Leaders, Consider Pausing Before Acting on Employee Feedback
Recent research in the Academy of Management Journal shows that the speed of a leader’s response to employee feedback shapes perceptions of authenticity. Rapid behavioral changes are often judged as insincere, while gradual adjustments are seen as genuine growth. The...
Why Some Companies Grow Rapidly While Others Stall
A global survey of over 500 senior revenue leaders shows that while 72 % of companies grew year‑over‑year, only 29 % achieved rapid, double‑digit growth. Smaller firms outperformed larger ones, but the key differentiator is functional alignment across marketing, sales, product and...
How Designing with Disability in Mind Sparks Innovation
The article argues that designing products and services with disability in mind catalyzes broader innovation. It cites early examples like the Safety Tub walk‑in bathtub, showing how solutions for seniors sparked new market categories. The authors, a mix of academic...
