While most organizations still rely on traditional methods such as räsumä screenings, job interviews, and psychometric tests to find the right people and match them with the right roles, three new approaches to talent identification are quickly gaining traction. Gamified assessments, digital interviews, and candidate data mining have the potential to make hiring more precise and less biased, as long as they're used responsibly.
Leaders and managers must inevitably consult the analysis, advice, and research of people whose expertise exceeds their own in a variety of domains. Getting the most from that perspective means understanding precisely how to question the experts'wisdom, no matter what form it takes. Eight specific lessons can help leaders and managers use others'expertise to the greatest possible advantage in everyday business decisions.
What if, instead of perpetuating harmful biases, AI helped us overcome them? What if our systems were taught to ignore data about race, gender, sexual orientation, and other characteristics that aren't relevant to the decisions at hand? They can do all that -with guidance from the human experts who create, train, and refine them.
Many people don't trust decisions, answers, or recommendations from artificial intelligence. To address that problem, makers of AI applications and systems should stop overpromising, be more transparent about how systems are used, and consider third-party certification.
Connecting devices and collecting data via the internet of things (IoT) gives companies more data than ever about how their products are being used -and could be used. This collection of articles from MIT Sloan Management Review examines the opportunities and risks that this rich layer of connectivity presents.
Companies are looking to artificial intelligence to create business value. This collection of articles from MIT Sloan Management Review examines how early implementers are positioning themselves to reap the benefits of AI at scale -while managing the human side of using the technology.
How are organizations using social media most effectively? This collection of articles from MIT Sloan Management Review examines the value of devising a clear strategy, offering incentives for participants, and preparing for social media disasters.
Digital strategies must tackle two questions that are shrouded in uncertainty: What can data and digital technologies do to help us solve customer problems? And, what solutions will customers find valuable? This collection of articles from MIT Sloan Management Review examines the ways in which organizations should experiment and engage with customers to find the best way forward.
Blockchain technology offers businesses a secure platform, ledger, and database where buyers and sellers can store and exchange value without the help of traditional intermediaries. It could transform how businesses are organized and managed. This collection of articles from MIT Sloan Management Review examines the new world of blockchain technology.
The global robotics market is projected to reach $135 billion in 2019. This collection of articles from MIT Sloan Management Review looks at how robots can and will move into the workplace, and examines the best ways for both businesses and individuals to prepare.
Additive manufacturing -also known as 3-D printing -was developed in the 1980s and began moving beyond costly industrial manufacturing applications in the late 2000s when it was taken up by the open-source and do-it-yourself movements. This collection of articles from MIT Sloan Management Review takes a closer look at this disruptive technology, which is on the verge of going mainstream.
Letting employees work from home or at drop-in work centers can be beneficial to both employees and companies. But managing communication can be a challenge from both directions. This collection of articles from MIT Sloan Management Review looks at how organizations are navigating the challenges of a dispersed workforce.
Most companies are still learning how to design their digital selves for efficiency. This collection of articles from MIT Sloan Management Review examines how organizations are thinking about designing their processes, systems, and data in ways that discipline their core operations.
Big data can support smarter operations, but only when companies embrace the basics of understanding what it is they want to measure, how they want to measure, and how they can keep the data secure. This collection of articles from MIT Sloan Management Review examines how companies are forging new business processes with the use of data and analytics.
Formula E's season three is nearly complete. CEO Alejandro Agag needs to examine his business model to ensure the racing series is positioned to grow sustainable in the years to come.
At the end of 2016, the leadership team of Commonwealth Joe Coffee Roasters-Robert Peck, Chase Damiano, and Jeremy Martin-had begun an ambitious retail expansion strategy in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area for their specialty coffee business. That October, they had opened their first custom-designed store in a brand-new luxury apartment building. The new store was an immediate success, even though a Starbucks had recently opened across the street. At the same time, a separate business line-selling cold brew coffee in kegs to office customers-had grown unexpectedly. Many new office accounts were added, even as the team promoted the new retail store. Now, as Peck, Damiano, and Martin prepared for the next capital raise, targeted for February 2017, they evaluated their strategy going forward. Should Commonwealth Joe stay with retail, or should they shift their strategy to focus on the office business?
The ongoing U.S.-China trade war had lifted South American soybean prices to 20% higher than the CBOT price. Domestically, a severe drought had undermined Argentina's 2018 soybean production, leaving Argentine soy crushing plants extremely undersupplied. Pressed by the country's economic emergency, Argentina´s President Macri had imposed new tariffs on farming exports. With these and other factors in mind, Enrique and Alejandro Duhau had to decide what to plant the following year and whether to lease additional land for agriculture. Should they prioritize the market opportunity for soybeans over technical factors such as crop rotation? What risks would increasing the amount of leased land entail? Would it prove convenient to pay a higher-than-usual price to secure more leases? Was their hedging strategy appropriate or should it be revised based on the current context?
In late 2017, the leader of the implementation circle at iQmetrix, a software firm based in Vancouver, Canada, was reviewing her company’s progress with Holacracy. This radical new organizational design was centred on employee self-management and based on a philosophy that focused “on roles (accountabilities for work), not souls (people).” All parts of the organization were now arranged in circles, which were the basic building blocks of the Holacratic organizational design, and all employees had completed their initial training and were now meeting in circles to fulfil the work of the organization. But was it enough? Could iQmetrix truly consider that it was now fully Holacratized? Nearly one year after the launch of Holacracy, the implementation leader looked back over the past year and assessed whether the implementation of Holacracy was now complete, whether the process had been a success, and what to do next.