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Toto Wolff, the team principal for Mercedes-AMG Petronas--arguably the most impressive team in F1 racing history--has led his organization to unparalleled success. Mercedes earned the Constructors' Championship (for best overall team performance) every year from 2014 through 2021, and over that time frame it won nearly 70% of the Grand Prix races it competed in. To understand what made that possible, Harvard Business School's Anita Elberse spent time with the team in 2021, conducting interviews and watching what went on behind the scenes before, during, and after races. She found that Wolff shapes the culture at Mercedes to a remarkable degree. Elberse's takeaway? What you say and do as a leader has a surprisingly powerful effect on the organization you run. In this article, drawing on her observations of Wolff's management style and practices, Elberse presents six lessons that can help any leader cultivate a winning team: (1) Set the highest standards for everyone; (2) put people front and center; (3) analyze mistakes continually--even when winning; (4) foster an open, no-blame culture; (5) trust superstars but maintain authority; and (6) relentlessly battle complacency.

Space is becoming a potential source of value for businesses across a range of sectors, including agriculture, pharmaceuticals, consumer goods, and tourism. To understand what the opportunities are for your company, the authors advise you to consider the four ways in which using space could create value: data, capabilities, resources, and markets. For most companies thinking about their space strategy over the next five to 10 years, data will be the dominant focus. For instance, many companies are turning to remote-sensing satellites for data that will inform business decisions. Whether it's tracking the number of cars parked in retail locations, detecting costly and environmentally damaging methane leaks from natural-gas wells, or assessing soil type and moisture content to maximize crop yields, creative uses for data gathered from space abound. Companies looking further ahead will want to explore the value to be gained from conducting activities in space, utilizing space assets, and meeting demand from the new space age. Businesses engaging with commercial space should be willing to experiment and should look for partners.

Many organizations take big actions in the realm of DEI because of something they see another company do--such as publicly declaring themselves champions of people of color or setting an ambitious top-down DEI strategy across the firm. However, these grand stances usually fizzle out, leaving leaders frustrated and saying, "DEI work is too hard. It takes too long to see results." The fact is, DEI isn't a short-term project, and a company making big moves before it has the right culture and structures in place is likely to fail, leaving marginalized employees and customers no better off and giving companies a reputation for hollow promises. Academic research and the author's experience working with firms on DEI strategy suggest that companies tend to follow predictable stages on their DEI journey. In this article, Georgetown professor and organizational psychologist Ella F. Washington describes the five stages: aware, compliant, tactical, integrated, and sustainable. She also includes questions for leadership teams to ask themselves. Understanding what stage your company is in can help you decide where to focus your energies most effectively and keep you from getting stuck.

While the popular view is that insights are the key benefit of artificial intelligence, in truth AI creates value by improving the quality of decisions. The good news is, the opportunities for it to do that in business are countless. But because decisions in one area of an organization usually have an impact on decisions in other areas, introducing AI often entails redesigning whole systems. In that way, AI is similar to groundbreaking technologies of the past, like electricity, which initially was used only narrowly but ultimately transformed manufacturing. Decisions involve a combination of prediction and judgment, and because AI makes highly accurate predictions, it will shift decision rights to where judgment is still needed, potentially changing who makes decisions and where, when, and how. More-accurate predictions in one part of a value chain will also have ripple effects on other parts. For instance, if a restaurant can reliably forecast the amount of ingredients it needs each week, its orders will fluctuate, making its suppliers' sales more uncertain. Strong communication is needed to synchronize effort and resources in a system, and modularity will help prevent changes in one area from disrupting others.

Mentoring programs operate under the promise that matching seasoned executives with up-and-coming professionals will produce all sorts of benefits. Unfortunately, relationships often remain superficial and transactional. These problems have only gotten worse with remote and hybrid work, which makes meaningful personal interaction difficult. To reap the full benefits of developmental relationships and create "authentic sponsorship," companies must focus on two vital qualities: public advocacy and relational authenticity. Public advocacy is a one-way process by which "seniors" use their power to help "juniors" get career opportunities. It produces visible and measurable outcomes, such as promotions and stretch assignments. Relational authenticity is a two-way process in which both parties share their perspectives and make themselves open to hearing and learning from each other. Juniors get the support and validation they need to take on new challenges, and seniors understand where their juniors' capabilities and talents lie and care enough about them to put their own reputations on the line. This article lays out the various stages of the journey to authentic sponsorship: mentor, strategizer, connector, opportunity giver, and sponsor.

Many salespeople today are struggling; only 57% of them make their annual quotas, surveys show. One problem is that buying processes have evolved faster than selling processes, and buyers today can access a wide range of online resources that let them evaluate products before even meeting a salesperson. AI tools can help organizations close the gap, but most don't know how to use them effectively. In this article the authors describe how sales AI has been a real game changer at a few companies. They also provide a self-assessment tool, the Sales Success Matrix, that will show sales leaders where to start or improve their AI journeys. The matrix has two dimensions: relationship level (which runs from transactional vendor on the low end to trusted co-creator at the top) and process level (which runs from ad hoc to customized). At the lower levels of both relationships and processes, simple AI that decreases costs and improves efficiency works best. In the mid levels, advanced AI increases sales effectiveness by analyzing opportunities and customer needs. At the highest level, cutting-edge technologies help firms generate deep insights about customers. No matter where a firm falls on the matrix, AI can help it boost sales. And the sooner and more broadly it applies AI tools, the better they work.

Many sustainability initiatives focus on improving the sustainability of products and operations in legacy or adjacent markets or on achieving sustainability gains by exploring new markets with a more diverse set of products. This is a variation on the classic "where to play/how to win" strategy familiar to most executives. Fewer leaders, however, are exploring an important new frontier in sustainability, in which brands actively partner with customers to achieve ongoing impact. This article describes a practical framework for creating sustainability strategies that take into account both dimensions--markets and customer engagement. The model lays out the four key ways that legacy companies can nurture growth in their sustainability efforts.

Few organizations provide strong guidance or training for managers on meeting individually with their employees, but the author's research shows that managers who don't hold these meetings frequently enough or who manage them poorly risk leaving their team members disconnected, both functionally and emotionally. When the meetings are done well, they can make a team's day-to-day activities more efficient and better, build trust and psychological safety, and improve employees' experience, motivation, and engagement at work. The author has found that although there's no one-size-fits-all approach to one-on-ones, they are most successful when the meeting is dominated by topics of importance to the direct report rather than issues that are top of mind for the manager. Managers should focus on making sure the meetings take place, creating space for genuine conversation, asking good questions, offering support, and helping team members get what they need to thrive in both their short-term performance and their long-term growth.

Three new books explore how Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok got us all hooked--even though they don't make us happy.

The cofounder of Rolling Stone discusses how a magazine launched on the fly revolutionized music journalism, changed the way politics and social issues were covered, and promoted great talent.

Three strategies can help employees anywhere feel connected. Plus, one way to beat inflation, what umpires' calls reveal about our "attention budget," and more.

A new study shows that when customers identify with a brand, an attack from an "outsider" will spur them to defend it by purchasing it.

When members of dominant social groups are accused of discriminating against those with less power and fewer resources, they sometimes seek to deflect criticism by portraying themselves as the victims. Some rely on digressive victimhood, which involves countering accusations of discrimination by reframing the issue as a matter of free speech or religious liberty. The authors discuss how managers can recognize such tactics so they can focus on addressing bias and supporting affected employees.

The shift away from a sole focus on financial returns to multistakeholder capitalism has involved a welcome rediscovery of the idea that businesses are social entities. Embracing this strategy requires a combinatorial accounting, taking into consideration the health of five types of stakeholders: employees, partners, and communities, along with investors and customers. This is not easy to achieve, even for companies that say they want to move in this direction.

DEI initiatives that promote social justice in organizations necessarily boost tensions: They make inequities visible and make many people especially those from dominant groups uncomfortable. When workplaces respond to such tensions by simply tamping down conflict, they miss opportunities to solve systemic problems. Here's how they can leverage conflict instead, to foster lasting change.

Quantum computing may one day force a rethink of how we rank influential inventions and innovations. This article offers a brief introduction to the core principles behind quantum computing technology, then outlines how to make your existing workforce the catalyst for the crucial experimentation phase that organizations must embrace in order to not get left behind. Although significant engineering challenges must be overcome before quantum computers become a commercial reality, building capabilities early is critical. The authors suggest starting the quantum capabilities journey by filling four key roles. This includes, first, a use-case manager, who can act as an interface between technologists and business units. Second, it includes a quantum data scientist, who can utilize quantum algorithms and quantum computing infrastructure to arrive at valuable and actionable business insights. Third, the team should include a quantum software developer, who can make applications usable, maintainable, and modular. Fourth, an executive sponsor can make a compelling case to the rest of the leadership team for the investment that quantum computing requires.

Forward-looking firms have been linking executive compensation to corporate social responsibility (CSR) for years. Research has identified two common types of CSR-contingent compensation contracts. Some firms take a formulistic or objective approach in which executives know in advance how much they can expect to gain by pursuing specified CSR-related activities, while other firms take a more subjective approach in which CSR-contingent compensation is subject to the discretion of compensation committees ex post. Implementing either approach can improve a firm’s CSR ratings. But the pros and cons differ depending on a firm’s industry, growth prospects, and earnings volatility. The subjective approach can be more efficient when, for example, firms are high-tech, risky, young, or fast-growing; are highly visible and facing more public scrutiny; or are implementing new, unconventional CSR projects. On the other hand, the objective approach may make more sense when firms are traditional or mature; are implementing conventional CSR projects or continuing existing CSR projects (so the target is clear and measurable); are expecting stable and predictable project outcomes; or are experiencing poor CSR standings. All firms can try taking a conservative, objective approach to gain experience designing a reward and evaluation system, and then move to a more subjective contract if it makes sense to do so.

Economic crises tend to have a disproportionate negative impact on employees rather than high-paid executives, whose incomes often increase even at the worst of times. The author proposes a new mechanism parity pills designed to be triggered by external shocks like pandemics and recessions, or internal factors like revenue declines or pay inequality thresholds that would ameliorate the effects on workers while upping the financial responsibility of CEOs.

It's disingenuous for companies to pretend they are passive observers of regulations, laws, or the political climate. Corporate political responsibility is a new variation of corporate social responsibility, describing the ideal ways in which businesses should engage with the key systems of society. It requires companies to manage conflicting views about when and how to use their voices and their political influence.

The notion of “quiet quitting,” or only fulfilling the bare-minimum requirements of one’s job, achieved zeitgeist status in 2022. When someone quietly decides to no longer go the extra mile for their employer, two ingredients of a healthy working relationship—trust and clear communication—are typically missing. And while many factors beyond a manager’s control might contribute to an employee reaching this point, three particular issues tend to drive workers into a “quiet quitting” experience. First, a lack of transparency at an organization—including managers keeping employees out of the loop of organizational realities—can lead to quiet quitting. Second, a lack of direction can lead to quiet quitting, because workers are not mind readers and can hardly deliver results when they don’t have clear guidelines. Third, a lack of boundaries can contribute to quiet quitting, especially in toxic corporate cultures that demand too much from workers. When any of these core values are weak or missing in an organization, employees may appear to be limiting engagement and commitment as part of some new trend. But when you take a real look at quiet quitting (and its counterpart, “quiet firing”), it’s really a symptom of failed business leadership. The solution, of course, is to be serious about proactively building these values into your workplace culture to foster trust and an authentic rapport with employees, which increases engagement and decreases the need for morale-depleting practices like clock watching.