Daniel McGinn

Among human rights activists, he’s often compared to Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., but Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu demurs at those comparisons. The South African cleric jokes that he won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize mostly because the Nobel Committee was looking for an anti-apartheid figure whose last name was easy to pronounce. “What […]

For more than three decades, Andris Zoltners, now an emeritus professor at Northwestern, has been studying the best ways to organize and pay salespeople. The pioneer of sales analytics, he is the founder of one of the world’s largest sales consulting firms and the author of six books on sales management. In this interview, he shares some of his insights with HBR. Companies make several common mistakes with sales compensation, Zoltners notes: over- or underincentivizing key products, setting quot…

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;…

A conversation with Joe Tripodi

Lessons from history and the present

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

Spirit AeroSystems’ Tom Gentile shares what he learned from tracking his hourly activity for 13 weeks.

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.