The last few years have brought real change. Balance sheets today have significantly more nontangible assets—intellectual property and digital capability, for example—than ever before. And a series of ...

A few years ago, leaders at the Gates Foundation reached out to see if I could help them improve their culture. They already had a strong culture of performance: They hired world-class scientists and ...

A version of this article appeared in the Autumn 2020 issue of strategy+business. Senior executives, accustomed to annual performance reviews and 360-degree assessments, can be quick to acknowledge ...

It was Confucius who said that “life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” I’m going to explain why achieving simplicity matters, and how organizing strategy around the number six ...

A version of this article appeared in the Autumn 2020 issue of strategy+business. As companies all over the world reel from the effects of the novel coronavirus, a multitude of challenges, including ...

In 2013, when Aileen Lee, founder of Cowboy Ventures, coined the term unicorn to refer to technology startups with valuations over US$1 billion, there were 39 unicorns in the United States. India had ...

A large auto manufacturer asked a consulting firm to evaluate its competitive position in relation to ride-sharing startups building autonomous vehicles. Instead of viewing this as a classic strategy ...

In the last few years, business leaders have turned their search for creative, innovative talent into something of an arms race. They understand the competitive advantage of being a highly rated place ...

A version of this article appeared in the Summer 2019 issue of strategy+business. A profound but mostly unrecognized demographic and economic trend is unfolding around the world right now. The average ...

A version of this article appeared in the Spring 2019 issue of strategy+business. By now, the idea of business as a force for good has taken hold, and the discussion around poverty has changed, too.

Achieving high performance requires having the confidence to take risks, especially in a knowledge-intensive world. When an organization minimizes the fear people feel on the job, performance — at ...

Every February for the last 35 years, the National Football League has run a scouting camp, called a combine, to assess the skills of college players before its annual draft. With scientific precision ...