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To understand how managers can better provide the development that up-and-coming talent need, researchers at Gartner surveyed 7,300 employees and managers and interviewed and surveyed hundreds of HR executives. From this work they identified four coaching profiles-- Teacher Managers, Always-On Managers, Connector Managers, and Cheerleader Managers--and assessed their impact on performance. Surprisingly, time spent on employee development seems not to matter; it's more about quality (and in fact, hypervigilant Always-On Managers often do more harm than good). The clear winner: Connectors, whose employees are three times likelier to be high performers than are subordinates of the other types. These managers give targeted feedback in their area of expertise, but when necessary they connect their employees to others with experience in the desired skills. Encouraging managers to adopt Connector behaviors may require a shift in mindset; managers should focus less on the frequency of developmental conversations and more on depth and quality. They should open up development conversations to the team and encourage subordinates to connect with colleagues across the organization.

Design firms have long claimed that workspace reorganizations promote collaboration and creativity, and research studies back up those claims. But the financial return has been hard to prove--until now. Research at a South Korean e-commerce firm finds that relocating "merchandisers"--employees who source product deals--near employees they hadn't previously had much contact with boosted creativity among those with high deal-sourcing ability and significantly increased revenue per worker. Companies competing on knowledge sharing and innovation could find payoffs from periodic workspace reconfigurations, the researchers say.

The first rule of customer service--when something goes wrong, apologize--can backfire. New research based, uniquely, on videos of actual customer interactions shows that after a point, apologies only heighten unhappy customers' frustration. Employees should worry less about displaying empathy and instead focus on creative, energetic attempts to solve the problem at hand.

More than 15 years ago Jim Collins, the author of the management best seller "Good to Great," introduced the flywheel as a metaphor for the enduring power of strong business leadership. A company achieves excellence, he wrote, by "relentlessly pushing a giant heavy flywheel in one direction, turn upon turn, building momentum until a point of breakthrough." The power of momentum is evident in HBR's 2017 ranking of the world's best-performing CEOs--the 100 leaders who have delivered top results on both financial and ESG measures over their entire tenures, which average 17 years. Heading this year's list--his first time in that spot--is Pablo Isla of Inditex, the parent of several retail fashion chains including Zara and Pull&Bear. In an accompanying interview with HBR senior editor Daniel McGinn, Isla discusses some of the factors--a flat structure and an informal management style; "proximity sourcing," or production close to home; and a continual focus on sustainability--that have propelled the company's success.

As crowdsourcing evolves, new research finds a pitfall companies should be alert to: Consumer voting on the ideas submitted on open innovation platforms is often skewed by social bias, or people's tendency to like and vote for ideas whose progenitors have liked and voted for their own. A study of 87 crowdsourced projects suggests that when evaluating the ideas that are generated through open innovation, companies should rely less on consumer preference and more on their own evaluative criteria. And the right answer may come from tapping a small number of the right people--ones whose specialized expertise makes their views more relevant--rather than from polling a crowd of random idea generators.

When choosing a CEO, boards typically take into account the particular circumstances the company faces: Is it in need of a turnaround, say, or will it be scaling for growth? But firms don't usually pay much attention to contextual challenges when hiring for and promoting people into lower-level leadership roles, instead preferring jack-of-all-trades candidates. A new study from CEB suggests that they will be more successful if they consider the specific leadership context when hiring for every level and identifies the 27 contextual challenges that matter most.

Companies worry about employee attrition, but it's especially costly in one function: sales. Estimates of annual turnover among U.S. salespeople run as high as 27%. A new study can help managers identify good salespeople who are at risk of quitting and take steps to retain them. Researchers examined more than two years' worth of data from a telecommunications company and created a quantitative model--the first of its kind--to predict which salespeople were likely to quit. They found, as expected, that those with high ratings in historical performance and customer satisfaction were less likely to leave than average and low performers. But when it came to quota attainment, both high and low performers were less likely than average performers to quit. And the biggest surprise concerned peer effects, which proved the strongest predictor of quitting. Employees at companies with little variation in performance had a greater tendency to leave (they had little incentive to work harder or smarter, the researchers theorized). Also at risk: salespeople in settings with high turnover, whether voluntary or not, suggesting that turnover can be contagious. Drawing on these results, the researchers say, managers can use big data to identify variables that predict turnover in their own ranks and decide which members of the high-risk group warrant interventions to help them stay put.

Having worked for two VC firms before entering academia, Lakshmi Balachandra was mystified: Why did a proposal that looked so promising on paper become a nonstarter when it was actually pitched? She spent almost 10 years capturing what happens in pitch meetings and quantifying the results, and drew four broad conclusions: (1) Passion is overrated--VCs prefer a calm demeanor, which they equate with leadership strength. (2) Trust beats competence. (3) Coachability matters--most angel investors want to be hands-on mentors. (4) Gender stereotypes play a role--VCs respond poorly to high levels of stereotypically feminine behavior. Entrepreneurs should approach the pitching process less as a formal presentation and more as a give-and-take conversation in which attitude and mindset matter more than business fundamentals, she says.

New research conducted with restaurant listings on Yelp found that establishments given prime position atop search results did get better results. Still, there's an important caveat. "The value Yelp ads seem to provide is in surfacing brands to customers," the researchers point out. That isn't to say that well-known companies should never use search ads; however, they should bear in mind that the ads work best when alerting customers to aspects of the brand that they're not already aware of.

Research suggests a new way for companies to use customer satisfaction surveys: Instead of asking customers what went wrong, begin by asking what went right. This can positively influence customers' perceptions, increasing their reported levels of satisfaction, the chance that they will purchase again, the amount of money they will spend, and their loyalty over time.

New research shows that companies really are failing faster than they used to: In particular, digital companies are far more vulnerable to quick imitation than are companies that own factories, products, and supply chains. Vijay Govindarajan and Anup Srivastava, of Dartmouth's Tuck School, offer three strategies for firms looking to boost their longevity: First, companies could incorporate both technology and physical products into their business models. Second, they could strive for models that include strong network effects (think of Facebook's 1 billion users and the hassle that jumping to a rival platform would create for them, because of all the "reconnecting" they'd have to do). Third, they could increase their focus on continuous innovation--attending to the long term so that they'll still be around after the short term.

This is a challenging time to be a CEO. Around the world, economic growth is slow, political uncertainty undermines attempts to develop long-term plans, and shareholder activists have become powerful critics of business leaders. These forces help explain why the C-suite sometimes appears to have a revolving door. Is it any wonder so many CEOs focus on the short term? Against this backdrop, it's heartening to see some top executives implement long-term strategies and establish lasting track records. HBR's ranking of the world's 100 best CEOs is intended to highlight these individuals. It's based on performance on both financial and ESG measures over leaders' entire time in office--which comes to 17 years, on average, for the CEOs on the 2016 list. This group has delivered impressive results, producing an overall financial return of 2,091%, on average. But as the variety of the people on the list shows, there is no single path to success. Consider the three men at the top of the ranking: Lars Rebien Sorensen studied forestry before he joined Novo Nordisk more than 30 years ago and climbed through various operational roles to become CEO. Martin Sorrell earned an MBA and spent a decade in the ad industry before buying a stake in a shell company and building WPP--now the world's largest marketing-services firm--through a series of acquisitions. Pablo Isla studied law and worked in Spain's treasury ministry before taking the helm of the fast-fashion retailer Inditex. In this issue we feature an interview HBR editor Adi Ignatius did with the three leaders in late summer, in which they explore what it takes to fight short-termism and lead with a long view in today's turbulent environment.

In the traditional approach to venture capital, an investment firm parcels out funds to a portfolio of start-ups, knowing that most will fail but that with luck, the returns from the few winners will make the exercise profitable. For more than 40 years, another model has also existed: corporate venture capital, in which a very large company invests in start-ups, often in adjacent industries. Corporate VCs have historically been motivated by strategic payoffs: insight into new products that could affect their competitive position--and perhaps the inside track on acquiring the start-up if its innovation pans out. But a study by MIT researchers shows a recent shift in goals, with corporate VCs increasingly concerned about financial returns. The researchers explored this mission drift through in-depth interviews with the leaders of 16 corporate VC units, learning that the units often aren't pursuing opportunities that could help them maximize their role as strategic investors. Firms need better ways to measure the nonfinancial value derived from investments in start-ups, the researchers say; and by voicing support for the corporate VC's role as a strategic investor, the CEO can reduce the emphasis on financial returns.

Despite their popularity, pay-for-performance incentives haven't worked as well as proponents had expected. Research by Alexander Pepper, of the London School of Economics, identifies four reasons why: (1) Executives are more risk-adverse than financial theory suggests, so they don't see the at-risk portion of their pay packages as very valuable. (2) They discount heavily for time, so they don't assign much worth to long-term incentives. (3) They care more about relative pay--creating an arms-race mentality that drives packages higher. (4) Pay packages undervalue intrinsic, nonmonetary motivations to work--and many executives would happily take less pay in exchange for a job that was better in other respects. What should companies do in response to these findings? Pepper suggests, among other steps, eliminating long-term incentive pay, raising salaries, and using annual cash bonuses to encourage desired behaviors. "You can pay executives considerably less in total--but do it in a different way," he says.

Attrition has always been expensive for companies, but in many industries the cost of losing good workers is rising. As a result, firms are intensifying efforts to predict which workers are at high risk of leaving so that managers can try to stop them. New research by CEB looks not just at why workers quit but also at when. Danger points include work anniversaries, big birthdays, and large social gatherings such as class reunions; these are natural occasions for people to measure their progress relative to their expectations and to others. Technology also provides hints about who might be eyeing the exit, and companies sometimes hire outside firms to monitor workers' social media activity for clues. When evidence suggests that an employee might be scouting around, companies shouldn't just wait for the inevitable and then make a counteroffer, the researchers say; a preemptive intervention, such as making the worker aware of attractive internal openings, is more likely to lead to long-term retention.

One of the biggest challenges for brick-and-mortar retailers is competing with online-only sellers such as Amazon. The conventional "omnichannel" strategy is to encourage consumers to shop across channels. But few retailers have closely examined the profitability of such efforts, and they typically pay little attention to how far a customer lives from the store. New research led by Temple University's Xueming Luo shows that distance is a crucial variable. Working with a Chinese department store on its coupon strategy, the researchers found that the most profitable promotions coaxed distant online shoppers (ones who lived more than five kilometers away) into physical stores, where they were more likely to make impulse purchases and to buy "experiential" goods such as apparel and makeup. Luring distant in-store shoppers online was actually counterproductive--profits from those customers fell. (Coupons made no significant difference when customers lived close to a store.) Retailers should also consider giving online customers incentives (such as free shipping) to have orders sent to a local store for pickup rather than delivered to their homes, the researchers say. And they should reduce the real or perceived costs of traveling to a store--for example, by locating stores near public transit or ensuring ample parking.

Although a typical public company director might help hire a CEO a few times in a career, PE executives hire multiple CEOs each year. To tap this expertise, Jeffrey Cohn, of the executive search firm DHR International, and J.P. Flaum, of the consulting firm Green Peak Partners, surveyed and interviewed the managing partners of 32 private equity firms about their CEO search process. They drew five conclusions: (1) Experience is overrated; someone who can run with a new situation is often better than someone with years of industry experience. (2) Team-building skills are paramount. (3) Urgency outranks empathy; leaders need to be able to move decisively and without regrets. (4) Resilience is a must; in turnaround situations, leaders are likely to encounter some negative results. (5) Candor is also key; leaders must have the confidence to give their PE sponsors bad news quickly and honestly.

Job titles usually don't generate much excitement. But at some companies, receptionists are "directors of first impressions," PR people are "brand evangelists," and theme park workers are "cast members." Research shows that all this isn't just a silly exercise in euphemisms--it can be a powerful tool for improving workers' morale and boosting recruitment. London Business School's Dan Cable studied how creative new titles improved life at a local chapter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation and other organizations, and he has outlined steps for companies looking to launch retitling initiatives.

Many companies want to raise their level of customer service--but how? The typical response is to rewrite frontline employees' scripts and conduct pilot projects. Those tactics may be fine for a company whose service operation is functioning reasonably well. But if the operation is badly broken, or the industry is being disrupted and customers suddenly have many more choices, argue Singapore-based researchers and consultants Jochen Wirtz and Ron Kaufman, deeper cultural change may be needed. On the basis of 25 years of work with global customer service operations, the researchers recommend jettisoning four conventional practices, singly or in combination: (1) Don't start with customer-facing employees. Instead, make sure they're getting the right support. (2) Don't focus on specific skills or scripts. Educate people more generally about what "service excellence" means. (3) Don't pilot changes. Go company-wide to create momentum fast. (4) Don't worry about traditional metrics, such as share of wallet and NPS. Track the number of new value-adding actions put into practice. For companies looking to differentiate on service, these strategies can make the difference between slow, fleeting progress and rapid, sustainable success.

For any service company that bills on a recurring basis, a key variable is the rate of churn: How many customers cancel? Firms with high churn spend a lot trying to replace defectors with new customers. New research by Georgia State University's V. Kumar shows that they might be better served by smart strategies aimed at getting the right former customers to come back. Working with data on more than 53,000 customers who left a telecom company, Kumar and his colleagues found that companies can benefit by answering four questions on the basis of customers' prior behavior and their reasons for leaving. How likely is a given customer to come back? How long will a reacquired customer stay, and how much will he or she spend? Which people should get which incentives to return? And which win-back strategy is the most profitable and will be best for the company overall? By targeting their offers accordingly, companies can significantly increase their win-back rates.