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Do daughters influence the business decisions of S&P 500 leaders? New research suggests that the answer is yes.

A decision tree demonstrates how one cable company might spot service defectors early.

Before she joined Analysis Group, the author worked at a small economic consulting firm that--like most other firms in the industry--closely tracked and measured the profitability of each office and each practice area. That approach, she observed, created a lot of internal competition and divisiveness. In addition, the compensation model was formula-based and data-driven, largely determined by who was selling new business. Analysis Group uses a much different model: It determines partners' compensation without relying on formulas; it doesn't obsess over false precision about who sold what business; and pay isn't strictly a function of billable hours. Instead, extensive, informed discussion of each person's contributions to the firm leads to a decision about what pay seems fair. For one thing, Samuelson writes, in a professional services firm it's not always clear who deserves credit for a specific action. She is convinced that the firm's unconventional model is one of the reasons its culture is so strong.

What's the true test of a leader's worth? At HBR, we believe it's the results he or she produces over the long run. To see who measured up, we analyzed the performance of the CEOs in the S&P Global 1200 over their entire tenures and ranked them from best to worst. In this issue, we reveal who made the top 100. In our analysis, we tracked the shareholder returns each CEO generated, starting from day one on the job, along with the change in each company's market capitalization. We adjusted the returns for each industry and country, to offset any increase that was attributable merely to being in a hot market. Then, to account for the many aspects of leadership beyond financial success, we incorporated a measure of environmental, social, and governance performance. For this we relied on the ratings of the investment research firm Sustainalytics. Our view is that, in an era of big data and greater transparency, consumers and investors want to understand a company's culture and values, not just its share price. And as the number one CEO on this year's list, Novo Nordisk's Lars Sorensen, points out, the two are inextricably linked. "In the long term, social and environmental issues become financial issues," he says. In an interview with HBR's editors, the low-key Sorensen shares his thoughts on counterintuitive strategy, connecting with employees, and managing for a triple bottom line.

When a company connects with customers' emotions, the payoff can be huge. Yet building such connections is often more guesswork than science. To remedy that problem, the authors have created a lexicon of nearly 300 "emotional motivators" and, using big data analytics, have linked them to specific profitable behaviors. They describe how firms can identify and leverage the particular motivators that will maximize their competitive advantage and growth. The process can be divided into three phases. First, companies should inventory their existing market research and customer insight data, looking for qualitative descriptions of what motivates their customers--desires for freedom, security, success, and so on. Further research can add to their understanding of those motivators. Second, companies should analyze their best customers to learn which of the motivators just identified are specific or more important to the high-value group. They should then find the two or three of these key motivators that have a strong association with their brand. This provides a guide to the emotions they need to connect with in order to grow their most valuable customer segment. Third, companies need to make the organization's commitment to emotional connection a key lever for growth--not just in the marketing department but across every function in the firm.

The credit card giant Capital One is known for its pioneering use of marketing analytics and big data, so it might be surprising to read about its recent realization: that too much reliance on those tools had left it without a meaningful brand. The authors explain how the number one job of the CMO--to strike the right balance between promotions that goose revenue in the short term and brand-building campaigns that support healthy margins in the long term--has become dramatically harder in the age of data-driven targeting. Capital One got its own wake-up call when its CEO, Rich Fairbank, commissioned a brand equity study. The research revealed that Capital One was overwhelmingly known by consumers for just one attribute: "They send me lots of mail." Efforts to strengthen the brand and give Capital One a stronger foundation for future growth yielded five lessons--all learned and refined through conversations with other marketing executives, including Tony Pace, of Subway; Mark Addicks, of General Mills; Tariq Shaukat, of Caesars Entertainment; Russell Weiner, of Domino's; and Jim Speros, of Fidelity, as they dealt with the same tension in their very different organizations.

As digital technology has enabled shoppers to easily research and buy products online, sellers have been scrambling after them, trying to understand and satisfy their wants. Savvy companies, however, are using new tools, processes, and organizational structures to proactively lead digital customers from consideration to purchase and beyond. They are creating compelling customer journeys and managing them like any other product--and gaining a source of competitive advantage. Building successful journeys requires four key capabilities: (1) Automation, to smoothly carry customers through each step of their online path; (2) Personalization, to create a customized experience for each individual; (3) Contextual interaction, to engage customers and appropriately sequence the steps they take; and (4) Journey innovation, to add improvements that enhance and extend the journey and foster customer loyalty. In addition, the most successful companies have a particular organizational structure, with a chief experience officer overseeing a journey-focused strategist and a "journey product manager." This latter role is critical--the journey product manager leads a team of designers, developers, data analysts, marketers, and others to create and sustain superior journeys, and he or she is accountable for the journey's ROI and general business performance.

Responding to disruptive innovation may be one of the greatest challenges managers in established firms face. On the one hand, they've been warned that disruption can sneak up and destroy their business. On the other, experience tells them that disruptions can take years, even decades, to play out. And some that threaten never occur at all. Whether a company moves too early to adopt a disruptive technology or too late, it ends up wasting resources and squandering competitive advantage. In this article, the authors outline an effective way to mange the uncertain transition from an established technology, service, or business model to a disruptive one. Companies should develop hybrids, which combine elements from a disruptive technology with the current technology to create a new offering that sits between competing innovation generations: Think Prius, which combines elements from both internal combustion and electric engines. The authors identify seven types of hybrids that companies can use, depending on whether a disruption is already under way, just getting started, and/or a distant possibility.

For any enterprise to be competitive, continuous learning and improvement are key--but not always easy to achieve. After a decade of research, the authors have concluded that four biases stand in the way: We focus too heavily on success, are too quick to act, try too hard to fit in, and rely too much on experts. Each of these biases raises challenges, but each can be curbed with particular strategies. A preoccupation with success, for example, leads to an unreasonable fear of failure, a mindset that inhibits risk taking, a focus on past performance rather than potential, and blindness to the role of luck in successes and failures. Managers therefore need to treat mistakes as learning opportunities, recognize and foster workers' capacity for growth, and conduct data-based project reviews. To counter the bias toward action--and the unthinking perpetual motion and exhaustion that ensue--leaders can schedule more work breaks and make time for reflection. They can redress the tendency to conform, which stifles innovation, by encouraging workers to cultivate their individual strengths and to speak up when they have ideas for improvements. And they can develop and empower their employees to solve problems instead of turning automatically to outside experts.

One of the most powerful players in global finance, Larry Fink also stands out for his desire to change the very system that made him who he is. He has frequently spoken out about the perils of short-term thinking, especially on Wall Street, and in April 2015 he sent a letter to the world's leading CEOs urging them to ignore their activist shareholders and focus instead on the long-term health of their companies. In this interview with HBR's editor in chief, Fink expands on those ideas and talks about changing the tax code for capital gains, rethinking fiduciary responsibility, the role of government, and what makes companies great.

Most seasoned managers know how to handle formal negotiations at work: with clients over contracts, with bosses over budgets, with employers over compensation. But what about all the opportunities for informal negotiation that arise? Do you know how to recognize and seize the chances you get to position yourself for a better role, change an untenable situation, or ensure that you're getting credit for extra work? For 35 years the author has been studying negotiation and coaching executives; she has found that many people don't, and the reason is understandable. It can feel more comfortable to negotiate as an agent for your organization than it does to negotiate in your own behalf. More emotions are at play; it's often difficult to figure out exactly what you want or how to get the conversation started; and the risk of failure carries a higher cost. Sometimes advocating for oneself is seen as not being a "team player." But leaders hurt themselves if they ignore opportunities to push for better assignments, more resources, or higher compensation. Kolb counsels focusing on four steps: recognize, prepare, initiate, and navigate.

Bill T. Jones revolutionized modern dance through the company he founded in 1982 with his partner Arnie Zane, who later died of AIDS-related lymphoma. He's since choreographed over 120 works (including the Broadway hit "Fela!"). Now 63 and the artistic director of New York Live Arts, he returns to the stage for a solo performance this season.

Although the Toronto Blue Jays didn’t make it to the 2015 World Series, they clearly didn’t lack character — and this wasn’t a fluke. As departing General Manager Alex Anthopoulos explained, team management had made a concerted effort during the off-season to focus less on “talent and tools and production” and put more emphasis on player “character, make-up, quality of the human being, what kind of teammate they are.” This article uses research on 11 character dimensions that drive performance to examine how the team members came together to contribute to one of the team’s best performances in decades. The focus on character that Anthopoulos put in place did much more than make the Blue Jays popular with fans — it was what turned the team into an outstanding baseball club. And that’s something that the next GM should take note of, along with managers and directors responsible for hiring and promoting individuals in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. After all, as Ivey research shows, giving character the attention it deserves leads to “home runs” in performance outside the baseball stadium as well.

Only about one-third of unethical corporate behaviour is driven by a desire for personal gain — greed isn’t the key issue. This article debunks myths of unethical corporate behaviour and argues that such behaviour is most often a result of situational and contextual factors, job dependence and cognitive factors. No evidence suggests that the average businessperson has a Machiavellian personality. Although some unethical workplace behaviour is self-serving, most unethical acts are the result of managers encountering moral dilemmas. They can act unethically out of desperation, especially when their job security and financial livelihood are challenged. If they behave unethically, they often rationalize their unethical behaviour by believing that what they did was morally acceptable, and emotionally “consume” to address the negative feelings associated with this behaviour. Their organizational dependence causes them to experience added pressure to perform, thus perpetuating unethical behaviour. <br><br> In order to avoid the cycle of unethical behaviour, managers should a) have human resource managers focus on providing employees with career counselling and development opportunities so as to avoid becoming too dependent on their employers; b) try to live within their means; c) keep an independent ombudsperson in the firm that can assist when they encounter moral dilemmas; d) implement ethical training programs; and e) practice ethical leadership. The outcomes associated with workers behaving badly are often relatively benign, ranging from lost office supplies and inflated expense reports to minor customer deceptions and white-lie tax filing. Collectively, however, the cost of these acts is enormous, and the business world needs a better understanding of what makes managers misbehave.

When Volkswagen’s emissions-hiding scandal surfaced, then-CEO Martin Winterkorn initially tried to ride out his leadership crisis, claiming he had been unaware of the company’s use of pollution-hiding software. Authorities are investigating, but currently no public evidence directly links senior management to the rigging of diesel engines marketed as green technology. Winterkorn eventually agreed to resign to give the company a chance to recover, which might have been worthy of some praise, but then Winterkorn insisted he was “not aware of any wrongdoing on my part.” This article examines why he bears responsibility for the crisis as a leader and examines the related lessons that should be learned. The auto sector is under huge pressure to cut both costs and emissions while also improving vehicle quality and safety. As a result, and as every CEO knows, the temptation to cheat is enormous. But as a leader, it never pays to focus on rewarding results while ignoring how they are achieved, especially when conducting business in environments that are highly competitive. In other words, trust is only a good thing when you have a culture that supports the right behaviour. The essence of good risk management is asking appropriate questions and getting truthful answers. Leaders need to listen to the “whispers” in the organization. The Volkswagen saga is yet another example that all three Cs of leadership — competencies, character and commitment — are essential for good leadership.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. American health care is undergoing a data-driven transformation - and Intermountain Healthcare is leading the way. This MIT Sloan Management Review case study examines the data and analytics culture at Intermountain, a Utah-based company that runs 22 hospitals and 185 clinics. Data-driven decision making has improved patient outcomes in Intermountain's cardiovascular medicine, endocrinology, surgery, obstetrics and care processes - while saving millions of dollars in procurement and in its the supply chain.

Apple, the tech firm founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976, could soon be a trillion-dollar enterprise. Its power to invoke fear in competitors is directly related to Jobs’s success as a market disruptor. But while Jobs’s passion for the design and quality of products created under his leadership is worth trying to emulate, the leader character of the man is not. Besides significant shortcomings in his personal life, Jobs had no problem taking credit for work done by others and declined to join The Giving Pledge. His burning passion for design caused him to fail as a businessperson more than once, and much of Apple’s success can actually be attributed to happenstance and good fortune. While the business world can learn a lot from Steve Jobs, the leader character of Apple’s legendary co-founder is not pedestal-worthy.

When Dunn became the CEO of Bolthouse, in 2008, he had 20 years' experience in the soft drinks industry. If Coca-Cola could persuade people to drink more than a billion servings of its soda each day, he wondered, why couldn't Bolthouse do the same for a vegetable? He and his team decided to use some of the tactics of junk food companies, which are experts in demand creation. "Eat 'Em Like Junk Food," Bolthouse's multimillion-dollar marketing campaign, used tongue-in-cheek TV, print, and digital ads to liken baby carrots to Cheetos, Doritos, and other snack food favorites. The company put its products in vending machines, used "Sesame Street" characters on its packaging, and sold through retailers such as Walmart and 7-Eleven. It created carrot snack packs, developed 27 varieties of juices and smoothies, and put veggie and fruit purees in squeezable tubes. And it attracted the attention of Campbell's, which acquired Bolthouse in 2012.

Since 1980 global corporate profits have grown at an unprecedented pace, increasing their share of global GDP by 30%. North American and Western European multinationals have been the biggest beneficiaries, capturing more than half of corporate profits by leveraging their scale and exploiting unprecedented opportunities for reducing costs. This remarkable era is now coming to an end. Growth is slowing, costs are rising, and new rivals from emerging economies and from the technology sector are changing the rules. In the decade ahead, the authors forecast, profits will continue to increase in absolute terms, but they will fall to 7.9% of global GDP--around what they were when the boom began. To maintain their lead, executives in Western multinationals must consider the following responses. (1) Be paranoid. Instead of focusing internally, executives in Western firms need to understand their new rivals. (2) Seek out patient capital. Emerging-market firms and technology companies often take a long view, building their market share over years at the expense of short-term profits. (3) Radically self-disrupt. Companies must overcome strategic inertia by reallocating capital as conditions change. (4) Build new intellectual assets. The most profitable businesses are in idea-intensive industries, so intellectual capital, such as data and algorithms, is a prime asset. (5) Go to war for talent. As populations age and talent becomes scarce, now is the time for human capital management to become a strategic priority.