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Using examples from companies the authors have studied or advised, the article describes a four-step process for leveraging technology that involves: (1) characterizing the technology, (2) identifying potential applications, (3) choosing from among the identified applications, and (4) selecting the best entry mode. The first step involves "de-linking"the technology from the specific products in which it is currently used. To do this, the authors explain, companies need to identify the functions the technology can perform. A good characterization can broaden the scope of the potential opportunities and allow people to focus clearly on the technology's abilities and limits. In many settings, this step requires extensive testing and R&D investment. As they explain, "You can't look for new applications until you know what your technology can do vis-à-vis what competing solutions do." Once companies have specified what the technology is, they can begin exploring new settings where it might be applied. Although the authors recommend starting with desk research, the biggest benefits often come from getting out of the office and interacting with people. Trade shows, they say, provide an excellent way to see firsthand where the technology and its alternatives might be applied, and to hear about the pain points of the existing technologies. Another approach is to tap into communities of problem-solvers who might be able to provide suggestions. Although identifying opportunities with the most promise may appear to be straightforward, in practice, the authors note, it can be more involved. Companies often underestimate the challenges of applying the technology, which may be revealed only by building early prototypes. In bringing technology to new markets, the goal should be to find new application areas where your technology performs better on existing performance dimensions, introduces a new performance dimension, or delivers the desired outcome at a lower cost.

This puts even the best incumbent companies in a weak position when the market finally embraces the new technology, something the authors call the "hybrid trap." This article takes a close look at the auto industry's transition from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles (EVs) and compares it to precedents in other industries. Several incumbent automakers, such as General Motors Co. and Honda Motor Co. Ltd., entered the EV market early, but they backed away from these projects in favor of continued emphasis on established engine technology. Gradually, most of them focused on hybrid cars that combined old and new technologies. This opened the door to new competitors, notably Tesla Inc., which focused solely on the EV technology. By mid-2017, nearly every old-line engine producer was playing catch-up on EV technology, working to release new electric models in the next two to five years. Although it is too early to know if Tesla will be successful in the long run, the Tesla example, in the authors'view, points to a fundamental weakness in how incumbents respond to industry transformations. In the 1960s, U.S. electronics companies responded to the introduction of Japanese transistor radios by developing products that blended transistor technology with traditional vacuum tubes. In the early 1990s, Kodak Ltd. tried to sell a "film-based digital imaging"product, which merged film photography and digital technology. And a decade ago, BlackBerry Ltd. tried to respond to the challenge of the iPhone by releasing a phone that had both a touchscreen display (like the iPhone) and a traditional keyboard (like earlier BlackBerry phones). The answer for incumbents, the authors write, isn't to walk away from products based on the old technology and jump headlong into the new. But they need to take precautions so that the company's legacy operations don't hamper their ability to pursue new technology.

Research shows that most organizations fall far short when it comes to strategic alignment. The authors'analysis of 124 organizations revealed that only 28% of executives and middle managers responsible for executing strategy could list three of their company's strategic priorities. How do leaders close this dangerous strategic-alignment gap?

As the digital revolution rages on, every business leader must become technology literate. This guide provides executives with an introduction to the technologies that are transforming our world.

The 2018 Data & Analytics Global Executive Study and Research Report by MIT Sloan Management Review finds that innovative, analytically mature organizations make use of data from multiple sources: customers, vendors, regulators, and even competitors. The report, based on MIT SMR's eighth annual data and analytics global survey of over 1,900 business executives, managers, and analytics professionals, explores companies leading the way with analytics and customer engagement.

Empirical evidence demonstrates the value of feedback and ratings for performance. But HR is moving away from traditional performance reviews because managers and employees say they don't like them. It's a mistake that will backfire.

Companies used to spend years clarifying business requirements before they would even think of launching new software. Today, cheaper cloud-based apps mean that implementation decisions are made on the fly -and there's no going back.

Customer relationships can evolve through four stages -they can be transactional, transitional, communal, or damaged. Understanding each of these stages, using them to classify customer relationships, and tailoring CRM efforts accordingly can enable your company to better deploy its limited CRM dollars. Not all outreach efforts work equally well in all stages of a relationship. And without this kind of tailoring, you're likely wasting some of your CRM budget.

IT alignment can produce inertia -unless it's accompanied by the right culture. Sure, closely aligning IT with the rest of a company's strategy can cut costs and improve the ability to collect data, facilitating the creation of early-warning systems and operational dashboards. But a less regimented approach has its place, too, allowing responses to changing business and economic conditions that are swift and creative.

Some leaders have failed to realize that the daily lives of those who work in their organizations will inevitably be transformed over the coming decades. But it's the responsibility of leaders to create clarity about the future of work. That means being engaged with creating a narrative about the future of jobs, actively championing the learning agenda, and role modeling work flexibility -for instance, by taking paternity leave or working from home.

Companies can enhance their employees'creativity and boost innovation by learning from the Maker Movement's emphasis on creative learning, collaboration, fluidity, and novel play.

After the Great Recession, the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank, needed to compete even harder for every dollar. Arthur C. Brooks and his colleagues set out to demonstrate its true impact to a generation of data-savvy philanthropists. AEI's output is pretty straightforward: books, research articles, op-eds, media appearances, and so on. Determining its impact meant measuring its competitive standing in the marketplace of ideas. Brooks describes two of the metrics AEI uses: how many op-eds its scholars publish in prominent newspapers and how often those scholars are called by Congress to give testimony. Measured against its four leading competitors, AEI can claim 36% of op-eds over the period 2015-2017 and the most testimonies (by a wide margin) in the years 2009-2017.

Great innovators have long known that the secret to unlocking a better answer is to ask a better question. Applying that insight to brainstorming exercises can vastly improve the search for new ideas--especially when a team is feeling stuck. Brainstorming for questions, rather than answers, helps you avoid group dynamics that often stifle voices, and it lets you reframe problems in ways that spur breakthrough thinking. After testing this approach with hundreds of organizations, MIT's Hal Gregersen has developed it into a methodology: Start by selecting a problem that matters. Invite a small group to help you consider it, and in just two minutes describe it at a high level so that you don't constrain the group's thinking. Make it clear that people can contribute only questions and that no preambles or justifications are allowed. Then, set the clock for four minutes, and generate as many questions as you can in that time, aiming to produce at least 15. Afterward, study the questions generated, looking for those that challenge your assumptions and provide new angles on your problem. If you commit to actively pursuing at least one of these, chances are, you'll break open a new pathway to unexpected solutions.

As B2B offerings become more commoditized, the subjective, sometimes quite personal considerations of business customers are increasingly important in purchases. To discover what matters most to B2B buyers, the consulting firm Bain analyzed scores of quantitative and qualitative customer studies. All told, it identified 40 discrete "elements of value," which fall into five categories: table stakes, functional, ease of doing business, individual, and inspirational. The elements range from strictly objective--those related to pricing and specifications, for example--to more subjective ones, such as reducing the buyer's anxiety and enhancing his or her reputation. Understanding this full range of rational and emotional considerations, and tailoring the value proposition to the ones customers prize most, is critical to avoiding the commodity trap.

One of only a handful of African-American CEOs in the Fortune 500, Frazier gained widespread attention when he withdrew from President Trump's business advisory council after the events of August 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. He says, "I didn't see this as a political issue. It's an issue that goes to our fundamental values as a country." Frazier grew up in the inner city, in a household that valued education highly. He was fortunate, he says, to be bused out of his neighborhood to "the best schools in Philadelphia," which he credits with closing "the opportunity gap" for him. Despite a degree from Harvard Law School, however, he had to work to become "user-friendly" for the clients and partners at his white-shoe law firm. In this conversation with HBR's editor in chief, Frazier talks about balancing short-term pressures with long-term needs, the dauntingly high percentage of research projects that fail, the rationale for pricing lifesaving drugs so high, and the importance for a CEO of diffusing power "to people in a position to make a difference."

Some experts argue that corporate leaders are starving their firms of investment capital by making excessive payouts to shareholders, thereby undermining innovation, employment opportunity, and economic growth. As evidence, they point to S&P 500 firms' using 96% of their net income for repurchases and dividends. A closer look at the data shows that the amounts going to shareholders at the expense of internal investment are less than claimed. The problem lies in the ratio used--shareholder payouts as a percentage of net income--which fails to take into account offsetting equity issuances as well as actual R&D expenditures. The percentage of income potentially available for investment that goes to shareholders is not 96% but a much more modest 41%. After paying shareholders, S&P 500 firms are at near-peak levels of investment and have huge stockpiles of cash for exploiting future opportunities. There may well be severe corporate governance problems in the S&P 500, but the data suggests that excessive shareholder payouts is not one of them.

The majority of board chairs are former CEOs, who are used to calling the shots and being stars. So it's no surprise that many start behaving as if they are alternative chief executives of their firms. That sows conflict and confusion at the top. In addition, as research by INSEAD's Corporate Governance Centre shows, the two jobs are distinctly different--and so are the skills needed in them. The chair leads the board, not the company, and that means being a facilitator of effective group discussions, not a team commander. After surveying 200 board chairs and interviewing 140 chairs, directors, shareholders, and CEOs, INSEAD has distilled the requirements for the chair's role down to eight principles: (1) Be the guide on the side; show restraint and leave room for others. (2) Practice teaming--not team building. (3) Own the prep work; a big part of the job is preparing the board's agenda and briefings. (4) Take committees seriously; most of the board's work is done in them. (5) Remain impartial. (6) Measure the board's effectiveness by its inputs, not its outputs. (7) Don't be the CEO's boss. (8) Be a representative with shareholders, not a player. While many executives need to shift gears and mindsets to follow these, successful chairs say the effort pays off.

There's no question that most American industries have become more concentrated. Economists are trying to understand whether this is necessarily a bad thing for competition. The short answer: It's complicated. Innovation superstars like Google have created winner-take-most markets largely by exploiting network effects, not through predatory behavior. However, research from the wider economy (including the tech sector) uncovers classic signs of unhealthy concentration: rising profits, weak investment, and low business dynamism. The government's approach to antitrust violations is due for an overhaul. And regulators need to pay more attention to protecting economic vitality and consumer well-being--and less to industry lobbyists.

Firms spend millions of dollars annually on whistle-blower hotlines, training, and other efforts to ensure adherence to laws, regulations, and company policies. Yet malfeasance remains entrenched in the corporate world. Why? Too many firms treat compliance as a box-checking exercise, making employees sit through training and attest that they understand the rules, but failing to assess the effectiveness of their compliance programs, or doing so with faulty metrics. The authors explain how we reached this sorry state--and how we can remedy it. Firms should start by linking compliance initiatives more closely to specific objectives: preventing misconduct, detecting it, or aligning policies with laws and regulations. Then, using careful model design and some creativity, firms can develop better metrics to measure what's working and what isn't.

Any list of top CEOs reveals a stunning lack of diversity. Among the leaders of Fortune 500 companies, for example, just 32 are women, three are African-American, and not one is an African-American woman. What's going on? The authors studied the careers of the roughly 2,300 alumni of African descent who have graduated from Harvard Business School since its founding, focusing on the 67 African-American women who have attained top positions in corporations or professional services firms. These women thrived, they found, because of three characteristics that are key to resilience: emotional intelligence, authenticity, and agility. The women were adept at reading interpersonal dynamics and managing their own reactions; crafting their identities; and transforming obstacles into opportunities. Beyond personal strengths, the authors say, another factor was critical: nurturing relationships with mentors who recognized the women's talent and made it their business to support them. The insights gleaned are important not just for African-Americans and women; they're essential for any manager who recognizes that an organization's diversity is its strength.