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A renowned cardiologist and healthcare leader explains how technology is making diagnosis and treatment faster and more accurate-and why we are in the midst of a 'Gutenberg moment' in healthcare. He also describes the dawn of 'the era of informed consent'; the ongoing power of the 'Angelina [Jolie] effect'; how wireless technology is changing healthcare, and how 'Consumer Genomics' will turn Medicine on its head. In the end, he shows that "The movement towards self-generated data by smart, hyper-connected patients represents a serious challenge to medical paternalism.

Start-ups seem to be getting bigger faster than ever--Uber is just one example of today's "unicorns," or private, venture-backed companies valued at a billion dollars or more. But is that really true, and does rapid growth lead to greater long-term success? Researchers at the Silicon Valley consultancy Play Bigger examined these questions and came up with some intriguing findings. Among them: Today's start-ups are growing about twice as fast as those founded a decade ago (as measured by market capitalization). However, there's no relationship between amount raised prior to IPO and growth in market cap afterwards. Age at IPO does seem to be predictive--companies that go public between the ages of six and 10 years generate 95% of all value created post-IPO. And most value creation comes from "category kings"-- companies, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, that carve out entirely new, winner-take-all niches. Tech start-ups are in a race to define new product categories, and in recent years the pace has quickened. Simply raising more money isn't enough to win the race--and going public too early or too late may limit success. Even for unicorns, the path forward is challenging.

New studies reveal that symbols and sayings that broadcast your morality may shield you from being asked to do something unethical.

Here are three examples of visualizations that can help viewers grasp colossally large or infinitesimally small numbers.

Today’s business leaders are scrutinized like never before, and not just for their ability to lead organizations to financial success. The pressure is on for CEOs to adhere to accepted values. Thanks to social media, leadership behaviour is constantly monitored by a public ready to share news of transgressions. As a result, the price for departing from expected behaviour is steep for both leaders and organizations. But does following the standard of what is considered good as a CEO really lead to sustainable business with higher profits? Or do nice people finish last? <br><br> This article explores these questions by looking back in time and highlighting the findings of a study that examined the impact of ethical leadership on the kingdom of Judah. After using a common ethical standard to review 19 kings between 931 BC and 586 BC, it was posited that organizations with ethical senior management have better long-term performance. Modern examples of how senior executives influence their organizations support this conclusion. As a result, firms should seek leaders who demonstrate normatively acceptable conduct. That means leaders who are concerned with how numbers are achieved as well as the organization’s impact on employees and the environment. It means leaders who are credible and possess leadership character. And it means leaders who ensure that subordinates follow their example. For organizations that do this, ethical leadership will likely result in a scandal-free reputation, increased morale, job satisfaction and performance — and a positive bottom line.

Stories abound about situations where individuals and groups that went on to great performance levels were passed over (or nearly overlooked) in the early stages of their careers. Talent isn’t always easy to recognize early on, and the challenges in distinguishing potential from performance aren’t new. However, the increasing pace of change in most industries coupled with alternative opportunities from competing organizations means that most firms can’t afford to overlook emerging talent as much as in the past. Spotting future leaders “early” means spotting them in their initial jobs and roles. This means looking for signs of potential that do not necessarily correlate with current performance metrics. Since leadership potential isn’t always embedded in early jobs and roles where it can be easily demonstrated, we need processes to spot the “glimmers” of potential that manifest themselves in less-than-systematic ways. We also need systems that help organizations sort out those glimmers from the day-to-day noise. All cases will be somewhat different, and talent spotting probably leans more toward an art than a science. The point isn’t to be 100 per cent accurate, but to leverage more critical development time by looking for serious leadership potential while it’s in the glimmer stage, but understanding that glimmers aren’t constant in frequency or equal in brightness.

Many companies go to extraordinary lengths to build bonds among workers, often to no avail: Think of trust falls, a frequently mocked symbol of wrongheaded attempts to create intimacy among workers. New research suggests there's a better way, and it's pretty simple: Encourage teams to eat together. Cornell University's Kevin Kniffin and colleagues researched meal preparation practices among firefighters in one U.S. city and identified significant positive correlations between eating together and team performance. Cooperative behavior, for example, was about twice as high among team members that ate with one another. Companies can take advantage of these findings by investing in such things as onsite cafeterias, encouraging team leaders to organize lunches, and including meal preparation activities in offsites. This reprint includes three additional Idea Watch articles. "How to Prevent Overbilling" presents research showing that simply changing how you ask vendors to account for their work--focusing on units rather than overall price--encourages more-ethical behavior. "What Makes a Start-Up an Employer of Choice?" examines how six nonfinancial attributes, such as office location and founder qualifications, influence the appeal of new ventures for prospective employees. "Straight Talk About Pay" is a visual depiction of people's perceptions about their compensation. Most people have no idea whether or not it's fair--and that has a big effect on how long they stay in their jobs.

New research from Duke University reveals that gender bias distorts our assessments of creative work--and that can have a negative impact on both individuals and their organizations.

Maps from the Kress Collection at HBS's Baker Library depict historical efforts to regulate France's forests for ship timber.

As a boy, Bush watched "Emergency!" on television and was captivated by the romance and seeming magic of saving lives. As an adult, he found the reality of medicine to be very different: There wasn't much humanity in the way health care was actually delivered. Believing that he'd be daunted by the coursework required for a medical degree, he decided to take an entrepreneurial route to improving the system. His first sense of the opportunity came while he was driving an ambulance in New Orleans one summer during college. Some patients with chronic disease who couldn't afford their medicines would repeatedly call the ambulance to take them to a hospital where they could be stabilized. What if the ambulance itself were outfitted with treatments for the five most common chronic diseases and carried EMTs who were trained to use them? Those patients could be treated in place, at a radically lower cost than what the hospital would charge. That idea didn't work out, and Bush moved on to think about a network of maternity clinics. He and Todd Park drew up a business plan at Harvard Business School--one that was "unbelievably complicated to execute and very risky." But in the process of pursuing it, they created websites for the paperwork with rules that prevented mistakes. That was the seed for athenahealth, which today supports electronic medical records and a suite of services of practice management and care coordination, leaving doctors free to spend more time with their patients.

For the past 20 years, the theory of disruptive innovation has been enormously influential in business circles and a powerful tool for predicting which industry entrants will succeed. Unfortunately, the theory has also been widely misunderstood, and the "disruptive" label has been applied too carelessly anytime a market newcomer shakes up well-established incumbents. In this article, the architect of disruption theory, Clayton M. Christensen, and his coauthors correct some of the misinformation, describe how the thinking on the subject has evolved, and discuss the utility of the theory. They start by clarifying what classic disruption entails-a small enterprise targeting overlooked customers with a novel but modest offering and gradually moving upmarket to challenge the industry leaders. They point out that Uber, commonly hailed as a disrupter, doesn't actually fit the mold, and they explain that if managers don't understand the nuances of disruption theory or apply its tenets correctly, they may not make the right strategic choices. Common mistakes, the authors say, include failing to view disruption as a gradual process (which may lead incumbents to ignore significant threats) and blindly accepting the "Disrupt or be disrupted" mantra (which may lead incumbents to jeopardize their core business as they try to defend against disruptive competitors). The authors acknowledge that disruption theory has certain limitations. But they are confident that as research continues, the theory's explanatory and predictive powers will only improve.

Negotiations can be fraught with emotion, but it's only recently that researchers have examined how particular feelings influence what happens during deal making. Here the author shares some key findings and advice. (1) Anxiety leads to poor outcomes. You will be less nervous about negotiating, however, if you repeatedly practice and rehearse. You can also avoid anxiety by asking an outside expert to represent you at the bargaining table. (2) Anger is a double-edged sword. In some cases it intimidates the other parties and helps you strike a better deal, but in other situations, particularly those involving long-term relationships, it damages trust and goodwill and makes an impasse more likely. To avoid or defuse anger, take a break to cool off, or try expressing sadness and a desire to compromise. (3) Disappointment can be channeled to reach a more satisfactory outcome. Before disappointment becomes regret, ask plenty of questions to assure yourself that you've explored all options. And don't close the deal too early; you might find ways to sweeten it if you keep talking. (4) Excitement isn't always a good thing. Getting excited too early can lead you to act rashly, and gloating about the final terms can alienate your counterparts. But if feelings of excitement, like other emotions, are well managed, everyone can feel like a winner.

Countless books and articles offer advice on avoiding missteps at the bargaining table. But some of the costliest mistakes take place before negotiators sit down to discuss the substance of the deal. That's because they often take for granted that if they bring a lot of value to the table and have sufficient leverage, they'll be able to strike a great deal. While negotiating from a position of strength is certainly important, many other factors influence where each party ends up. This article presents four factors that can have a tremendous impact on negotiation outcomes and provides guidance on what negotiators should be doing before either side starts worrying about offers, counteroffers, and bargaining tactics. Harvard Business School professor Deepak Malhotra advises negotiators to resolve process before substance, set expectations, map out the negotiation space, and control the frame. By following those steps, managers position themselves for success at the bargaining table.

To be effective, a negotiator must take stock of the subtle messages being passed around the table. In international negotiations, however, you may not know how to interpret your counterpart's communication accurately, especially when it takes the form of unspoken signals. The author identifies five rules of thumb for negotiating in other cultures: (1) Adapt the way you express disagreement. In some cultures it's OK to say "I totally disagree." In others that would provoke anger and possibly an irreconcilable breakdown of the relationship. (2) Know when to bottle it up or let it all pour out. Raising your voice when excited, laughing passionately, even putting a friendly arm around your counterpart, are common behaviors in some cultures but may signal a lack of professionalism in others. (3) Learn how the other culture builds trust. Negotiators in some countries build trust according to the confidence they feel in someone's accomplishments, skills, and reliability. For others, trust arises from emotional closeness, empathy, or friendship. (4) Avoid yes-or-no questions. Instead of asking "Will you do this?" try "How long would it take you to get this done?" (5) Be careful about putting it in writing. Americans rely heavily on written contracts, but in countries where human relationships carry more weight in business, contracts are less detailed and may not be legally binding.

When the "Titanic" collided with an iceberg and sunk, only 705 of its 2,200 passengers and crew, floating in 16 lifeboats, were saved. Imagine how many more might have lived if crew members had thought of the iceberg as not just the cause of the disaster but a lifesaving solution. The iceberg rose high above the water and stretched nearly 400 feet in length. The lifeboats, or the "Titanic" itself, might have been able to pull close enough to the iceberg for people to scramble on. Regardless of whether this could actually have worked, it's an intriguing idea--yet surprisingly difficult to envision. That's because a cognitive bias called "functional fixedness" limits people to seeing objects only in the way in which they're traditionally used. In a nautical context, an iceberg is a hazard to be avoided; it's very hard to see it any other way. When it comes to innovation, businesses are constantly hampered by functional fixedness and other cognitive biases that cause people to overlook elegant solutions hidden in plain sight. We can overcome this bias--and similar biases about an object's design and purpose--by changing how we describe the object and how we think about its component parts. This article also presents techniques and tools to help managers think in innovative ways--a process the authors call "brainswarming"--about common business problems, whether it be conceiving new products, finding novel applications for existing products, or anticipating competitive threats.

No business survives over the long term without reinventing itself. But knowing when to undertake strategic transformation-when to change a company's core products or business model because of impending industry disruption-may be the hardest decision a leader faces. Five interrelated "fault lines" can indicate that the ground beneath a company is unstable and that it's time for radical change. The authors' fault line framework addresses basic issues: whether the business serves the right customers, uses the right performance metrics, is positioned properly in its industry, deploys the correct business model, and has employees and partners who possess the capabilities required for future success. The framework can help executives build a case for change and persuade stakeholders to support the decision. And by identifying gaps between an organization's current state and where it needs to be to continue to thrive, it can inform the vision of how the company must transform. Diagnostic questions and an in-depth look at the health care company Aetna-an organization in the midst of an ambitious transformation effort, where one of the authors (Mark Bertolini) is CEO-illuminate how to detect the fault lines while there's still ample time to respond.

In 2007, Chuck Prince, then the CEO of Citigroup, made a notorious comment about the subprime mortgage market: "As long as the music's playing, you've got to get up and dance. We're still dancing." Soon after, the financial system crashed, and that remark came to be seen as a cavalier justification for excessive risk taking by the bank. But authors Martin and Kemper raise another possibility: Prince may have been painted into a corner, because Citigroup's stock was indefensibly overvalued. The only way the bank could earn the unrealistically high returns shareholders expected was through ever more dangerous activities. The overvaluation trap was first identified by Michael Jensen in a 2005 article examining the dot-com bubble. He noted that it often affects entire sectors and that in response to it executives tend to adopt two strategies: investing in hot, hyped technologies (as Global Crossing did with fiber-optic cable) and glamorous acquisitions (Nortel's downfall). And when investment opportunities start to dry up, firms may turn to financial manipulation (think WorldCom) to prop up their overpriced equity. Martin and Kemper point out that today companies in the pharmaceutical and oil sectors are caught in this same trap. Their market caps are spectacularly high. But massive spending on R&D is not producing more new drugs, and ever greater investment in oil reserve exploration is only exacerbating the glut of supply. The dance may be ending for both industries, and their executives need to figure out new and more-realistic narratives for value creation.

You can't get very far in your career without taking new jobs, joining new organizations, transferring to new locations, and meeting and building relationships with new contacts. But surprisingly, many professionals stumble in these situations because they haven't mastered three basic yet critical getting-to-know-you skills: introducing themselves, remembering names, and asking questions. Fortunately, it's fairly easy to get better at them. In this article, a Babson professor who has spent 20 years counseling executives and MBAs offers tactics that will help you navigate new situations more confidently. For instance, introductions tend to go more smoothly if you've practiced your opening lines--and you know how to make the other person feel valued. Names are easier to remember if you repeat and rehearse them and link them to vivid mental images. And you're more likely to get the answers you need if you figure out the right person to approach--and the right time--and ask short, to-the-point questions. By paying attention and applying simple but practical strategies like these, you can set yourself up for success with new challenges.

Katie Couric talks about the difference between network news and digital news and between morning and evening shows.

Hap Klopp founded The North Face, where he served as president and CEO for 20 years and built the largest and most successful retailer in its industry. In this Ivey Interview, he discusses lessons learned over his impressive career and warns against businesses looking to get rich overnight, because for every Silicon Valley success story there are countless failures and disappointments. The North Face is an example of disruptive technology, as it took materials developed for the Vietnam War and applied them to the camping industry. “If you’re not clearly differentiated, you are just another bottom player,” he says, “so the only tool you can use to beat competition is pricing. In other words, right out of the gate you’re sowing the seeds of destruction.” Klopp argues that start-ups work best when employees have a common vision and pay scheme, rather than disparate goals and compensation levels. Finally, he discusses the recent shift of power to consumers, predicts that domestic manufacturing will make a bigger comeback than expected, and says that whoever truly utilizes omni-channel marketing will meet great success.