Harvard Business School Press

“Executives are doers; they execute. Knowledge is useless to executives until it has been translated into deeds. But before springing into action,…

— Harvard Business School Press

“The use of “war games” is a powerful antidote to the lack of thinking about competitors’ reactions to proposed moves. 11.”

— Harvard Business School Press

“If thinking is an intellectual response to a problem, then the absence of a problem leads to the absence of thinking.”

— Harvard Business School Press

“Business-unit managers should remain involved in corporate-level strategy planning that affects their units. But a focus on issues rather than business units…

— Harvard Business School Press

“More than anything else, this disconnect—between the way planning works and the way decision making happens—explains the frustration, if not outright antipathy,…

— Harvard Business School Press

“Uhlaner put in place a Growth and Performance Planning Process that starts with agreement by Ballmer’s leadership team on a set of…

— Harvard Business School Press

“Stockdale Paradox This finding is named after Admiral James Stockdale, winner of the Medal of Honor, who survived seven years in a…

— Harvard Business School Press

“Management must think of itself not as producing products but as providing customer-creating value satisfactions. It must push this idea (and everything…

— Harvard Business School Press

“Worried that you’re not a born leader? That you lack charisma, the right talents, or some other secret ingredient? No need: leadership…

— Harvard Business School Press

“Is that not what consumer research is for—to find out before the fact what is going to happen? The answer is that…

— Harvard Business School Press

“By embracing decision-focused planning, companies will almost certainly find that the quantity and quality of their decisions will improve.”

— Harvard Business School Press

“they’ve also changed the nature of top management’s discussions about strategy—from “review and approve” to “debate and decide,”

— Harvard Business School Press

“When is the urgency rate high enough? From what I have seen, the answer is when about 75% of a company’s management…

— Harvard Business School Press

“In short, a customer feedback program should be viewed not as “market research” but as an operating management tool.”

— Harvard Business School Press

“Executives also owe it to the organization and to their fellow workers not to tolerate nonperforming individuals in important jobs. It may…

— Harvard Business School Press

“We needed a greater sense of urgency.” So the management team decided that field managers would not be eligible for promotion unless…

— Harvard Business School Press

“In both small and large organizations, a successful guiding team may consist of only three to five people during the first year…

— Harvard Business School Press

“Ultimately, the CCO is accountable for increasing the profitability of the firm’s customers, as measured by metrics such as customer lifetime value…

— Harvard Business School Press

“In 2002, after acquiring and integrating gum-maker Adams—a move that significantly expanded Cadbury’s product and geographic reach—the”

— Harvard Business School Press

“By contrast, those with leadership potential are motivated by a deeply embedded desire to achieve for the sake of achievement.”

— Harvard Business School Press

“The history of every dead and dying “growth” industry shows a self-deceiving cycle of bountiful expansion and undetected decay.”

— Harvard Business School Press

“When the 75 members of Stanford Graduate School of Business’s Advisory Council were asked to recommend the most important capability for leaders…

— Harvard Business School Press

“every job people need or want to do has a social, a functional, and an emotional dimension. If marketers understand each of…

— Harvard Business School Press

“They determine that effective marketing calls for people skilled in segmentation, targeting, and positioning. Once companies hire marketers with those skills, Marketing…

— Harvard Business School Press

“A useful rule of thumb: If you can’t communicate the vision to someone in five minutes or less and get a reaction…

— Harvard Business School Press