Daniel McGinn

Why we love employee tell-alls

Life’s Work: An Interview with Jimmie Johnson

The comedian on innovation, sustaining popularity, and humor as a leadership tool

The ability to deliver an energizing pep talk is a prerequisite for any business leader. But few managers receive formal training in how to give one. Instead, they learn mostly by emulating inspirational bosses, coaches, or even fictional characters. However, research shows there is a science to psyching people up for better performance. According to motivating language theory, most winning formulas include three key elements: direction giving, or describing precisely how to do the task at hand;…

Lessons from history and the present

A conversation with Niraj Shah, Bijan Sabet, and Jennifer Lum

John Doerr, the venture capitalist who’s funded companies including Google, Intuit, and Amazon, describes a system he calls “Objectives and Key Results,” or OKR, the subject of his new book. He learned it from Intel CEO Andy Grove in the 1970s, and has taught it to hundreds of organizations since then. He views it as a significant improvement over traditional methods of setting goals. In the OKR system, the objective is what you want to have accomplished. The key results are how you’re going to get it done. Doerr says this transparency helps organizations be more focused, aligned, and committed in their work.

The boxer won world titles in five weight classes.

Jeremy King has spent much of the past three decades helping firms such as eBay, Walmart, and his current employer, Pinterest, use experimentation and data to improve decision-making. In this article he shares what he’s learned about the need to balance precision with serendipity, how to promote “data democracy,” and the importance of investing in the right training for employees.

Driven partly by the pandemic, dozens of retailers filed for bankruptcy in 2020. As the year comes to a close, HBR spoke with Marc-Andre Kamel, a partner who heads the global retail practice at Bain & Co., about what retailing trends he sees emerging in 2021.