A $27 million investment by Andreessen Horowitz fueled Pinterest’s explosive rise on the startup scene. A partnership with Starbucks elevated the mobile payment company Square to a whole new level. Every high-growth enterprise can name a moment of affirmation that changed everything – that first big win that established credibility and created the launching pad… Read More »
Imagine you’ve been offered a way to purchase $1 lottery tickets for a penny each. How many would you buy? If you were operating based on rational self-interest one could argue that you would buy as many tickets as possible. How could you refuse an opportunity with so much upside and so little downside? Similarly,… Read More »
Most of us cringe when we think about office politics. It’s a disgusting, immoral mess that we try to avoid. After all, who wants to participate in backstabbing, lying, cheating, blaming, sucking up, and playing people against each other? Or maybe you take a slightly less offensive view of office politics and see it as… Read More »
Elon Musk is seemingly obsessed with innovation and breaking new ground in key areas of technology. Tesla is trying to advance the cause of electric vehicles, SpaceX is attempting to reinvent space transport, and SolarCity wants to establish the United States as the central hub of solar power. But there’s one thing that has Musk… Read More »
Visitors staying at Starwood’s Aloft Hotel in Cupertino, California, not only have the luxury of humans greeting them and toting around their luggage. They also may be taken care of by a robot bellhop, named Botlr, who is mainly charged with delivering toiletries to guests’ rooms and eliciting smiles along the way. Of course, by… Read More »
The Internet has become the world’s Sorting Hat: it identifies, and increasingly defines, the subculture(s) to which people belong. Does your Facebook feed feature Mother Jones or Fox News? The Guardian or The Telegraph? GamerGate vs Social Justice Warriors. Civil libertarians vs. terror-thumping authoritarians. r/parenting vs. r/childfree. Second Life vs. Digital Detox. Such distinctions existed… Read More »
When Mohamed El-Erian abruptly resigned from his high-profile, and highly lucrative, position as Pimco’s co-chief investment officer a year ago, most observers were shocked. I wasn’t. As a researcher and consultant to executives across diverse industries, I know how common it is for successful, high-performing people to lose their passion for work — and their… Read More »
If you’re in business, you negotiate–every day of the week. While you may not be negotiating multimillion-dollar deals with customers or vendors, chances are you’re negotiating all sorts of things–from a hoped-for raise, to a flexible work schedule, to a plum assignment on a product development team. Negotiation is a skill that gets better with… Read More »
Is your team stressed out? These days, everyone seems overwhelmed and way too busy. But even when your team members have a lot on their plates, they don’t have to sacrifice their health or happiness. What can you do to reduce your team’s stress? How can you help them focus on what really needs to… Read More »
It’s been almost 10 years since HBR published John Kotter’s classic article,”Why Transformation Efforts Fail.” And although his suggestions for how to improve the odds have been widely accepted, the success rate of major corporate change programs remains essentially unchanged — it still hovers at 30%. Given the amount of research that business schools have… Read More »