The Next Dean of Stanford Business School The Next Dean of Stanford Business School To Provost John Etchemendy, professor Mary Barth, and members of the GSB search committee, My name is David Siegel. I understand that, since the resignation of dean Garth Saloner, you have the task of selecting the next dean of the GSB. You may be aware that I have been accepted as a candidate. This is my statement. Despite his current situation, Saloner put the school on a more agile footing. Business is on the edge of a precipice. This short essay will lay out the argument for change, propose a new framework that may help, and suggest an alternative way to design the school to meet the needs of the 21st century. Failure is the SystemAs an entrepreneur, I’ve spent about seventy percent of the last thirty years of my life trying things that haven’t worked. As Otis Brawley says in his book on medicine, “The System isn’t failing. The Value of an MBAThe MBA degree is now a commodity, little more than an expensive signal with no proven value.
Management Tools & Trends 2013 The same dynamic is forcing business leaders to reassess the investments they must make to grow revenues, in areas ranging from information technology, hiring, healthcare and taxes, to sustainability, price reductions and product differentiation. Having maximized the benefits of such cost-cutting tools as Downsizing and Outsourcing, many are now scouting for new and creative approaches to cost reduction to help them fund investments or meet earnings targets. Survey results show that the need is felt most acutely by leaders of large companies in North America and Europe. Twenty years ago we launched our first global survey of Management Tools & Trends to track executives’ behaviors and attitudes through a full range of economic cycles (see Figure 2 and below, “A history of Bain’s Management Tools & Trends survey”). The results this year, as in the past, provide instructive insights into what is working and what is not, as well as what is on the minds of executives around the globe.
9 Interesting TED Talks on Breaking Bad Habits & Forming Better Ones Some habits, like brushing your teeth, you've done so many times that they feel automatic. In fact, it's probably true that every time you brush your teeth, you do so in pretty much the exact same way every time. Other habits, like exercising for even twenty minutes a day, can feel nearly impossible to pick up. But why? Why are some habits so easy to fall into, while others are so darn hard? And why are those "bad habits" so difficult to break? There's a lot of scientific and behavioral research out there about habits -- from creating new ones and breaking bad ones, to why some people find it harder than others to find motivation. Ready to form better habits? 1) Judson Brewer: "A Simple Way to Break a Habit" Length: 9 min. 24 sec. Why do we overeat, smoke, or give in to other cravings when we know they're bad for us? 2) Matt Cutts: "Try Something New For 30 Days" Length: 3 min. 27 sec. 3) Emily Balcetis: "Why Some People Find Exercise Harder Than Others" Length: 14 min. 8 sec.
La leçon de management de l’entrepreneuse la plus étonnante de notre époque A 30 ans, Elizabeth Holmes “pèse” déjà 4,5 milliards de dollars. Enfant, elle avait une phobie des aiguilles. Elle a résolu son problème en fondant à 19 ans Theranos, une start-up valorisée à 9 milliards de dollars en raison de son potentiel à permettre la réalisation d’analyses de sang sans seringue. Aujourd’hui, Elizabeth Holmes dirige toujours Theranos dont elle détient plus de 50% du capital. The New Yorker lui consacre un passionnant article qui a notamment été repris par Business Insider. Theranos, qui compte 700 collaborateurs, est en passe de révolutionner un marché de 75 millards de dollars aux seuls Etats-Unis et pourrait le porter à 200 milliards de dollars en incitant les consommateurs à commander des tests sanguins de leur propre chef afin, par exemple, de surveiller leur diabète. Elizabeth Holmes a recueilli 400 millions de dollars de financement auprès d’investisseurs tels que le redoutable Larry Ellison, PDG d’Oracle. Elizabeth Holmes est toujours sortie de l’ordinaire.
How May I Help You? The Genius of the Reciprocity Ring There’s a very powerful exercise created by Wayne Baker at the University of Michigan and his wife Cheryl Baker at Humax Networks. What they do is they assume that there are actually a lot of people who would enjoy helping others but they don’t know what other people need. And at the same time there are other people who have requests that they would love to make but they don’t know where to go. The reciprocity ring is a solution to both of these problems. What you often do is bring a group of people together – it might be as few as eight or as many as 30. And you ask each person to make a request. I’ve seen some very diverse requests over the years. I think it’s a great opportunity for people to number one, figure out how they can act like givers because you actually get to see all these needs and requests and figure out how you can help.
The Limits of Scale Idea in Brief The problem We all know that winning in markets with network effects is about moving first and getting big fast, right? Wrong. All too often, a strategy of rapid scaling can be dead wrong. Why it happens Companies trip up when they try to attract large volumes of customers without understanding (1) the strength of mutual attraction among various customer groups and (2) the extent of asymmetric attraction among them. Solutions New entrants should focus on customer groups not currently being served by incumbents, either by targeting customers they are uniquely positioned to serve or by appealing to the most attractive customers in a set. Incumbents pursuing growth in adjacent markets or new geographies should consider the levels of mutual and asymmetric attraction between new and existing customers. The value of many products and services rises or falls with the number of customers using them. Two Dimensions of Difference Things turned out rather differently. Mutual attraction.
Virginia’s Public Colleges, Universities Gather to Share Innovations in Higher Education Representatives from Virginia’s two- and four-year public colleges and universities met Wednesday in Charlottesville to exchange ideas and share best practices about educational innovations, administrative efficiencies and redesigning services for higher quality. “Leading Change through Innovation and Collaboration,” held at the University of Virginia’s John Paul Jones Arena, showcased 85 poster exhibits, several panel and roundtable discussions and a keynote address from William “Brit” Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland. “We face daunting challenges requiring our institutions to be more innovative, flexible and nimble, while remaining true to the education and research mission that defines us,” Kirwan said. In the face of increasing demands for quality and productivity in higher education, the forum provided a space for institutions to share ideas and explore collaborative solutions to some of the most urgent challenges they face.
Building an Ecosystem of Higher Education Innovation | Rahul Choudaha, Ph.D. The confluence of cost and funding pressures, technology-enabled learning innovations and new paradigms of quality and teaching will continue to force higher education institutions to redefine their value. However, higher education institutions are unwilling to embrace new definitions of value and quality "as valid, even when they can see that customers increasingly prefer the new value offerings," notes a report from TIAA-CREF Institute. At its basic level, the innovation process focuses on "doing new things and doing existing things better," according to the European Commission's Study on Innovation in Higher Education. From operations management, we know that the design of the service or product drives its performance, as it influences the cost structures and delivery constraints. Outsiders accelerating the innovation All the recent innovations like adaptive learning, competency-based learning and MOOCs are putting pressure on institutions to define what learning is.
engineering culture (part 1) | Spotify Labs Here’s part 1 of short animated video describing our engineering culture (here’s part 2). This is a journey in progress, not a journey completed, and there’s a lot of variation from squad to squad. So the stuff in the video isn’t all true for all squads all the time, but it appears to be mostly true for most squads most of the time :o) Here’s the whole drawing: (Tools used: Art Rage, Wacom Intuos 5 drawing tablet, and ScreenFlow) Here’s Part 2. Related Spotify engineering culture (part 2) Here's part 2 of the animated video describing our engineering culture. In "Labs" Squad Health Check model - visualizing what to improve (Download the cards & instructions as PDF or PPTX) (Translations of this article: Chinese, French) What is a squad health check model? Spotify Technology Career Steps This is part two of a three part series on how we created a technical career path for individuals at Spotify and what we learned in the process.
9 Things That Make Good Employees Quit | Dr. Travis Bradberry It’s pretty incredible how often you hear managers complaining about their best employees leaving, and they really do have something to complain about—few things are as costly and disruptive as good people walking out the door. Managers tend to blame their turnover problems on everything under the sun, while ignoring the crux of the matter: people don’t leave jobs; they leave managers. The sad thing is that this can easily be avoided. All that’s required is a new perspective and some extra effort on the manager’s part. First, we need to understand the nine worst things that managers do that send good people packing. Nothing burns good employees out quite like overworking them. If you must increase how much work your talented employees are doing, you’d better increase their status as well. 2. It’s easy to underestimate the power of a pat on the back, especially with top performers who are intrinsically motivated. 4. Good, hard-working employees want to work with like-minded professionals.