152 articles in Management
Paul Graham's influential essay on why meetings are so destructive for creative workers. Makers need long, uninterrupted blocks of time; managers work in one-hour intervals. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon by breaking it into pieces too small to do anything hard in. Essential reading for anyone managing engineers or designers.
Time is finite, but energy is renewable. Draws on performance science to show that managing four dimensions of energy (physical, emotional, mental, spiritual) produces sustained high performance. Wachovia Bank employees who followed the program outperformed a control group by 13% in revenue. Introduces energy rituals: 90-minute work blocks, midday workouts, gratitude practices.
A comprehensive guide to the four phases of project management: planning, build-up, implementation, and closeout. Covers the iron triangle of scope, time, and cost constraints, and how to balance them. Includes practical tools for work breakdown structures, risk management, and stakeholder communication. A foundational reference for PM certification.
The pre-mortem technique asks team members to imagine that a project has already failed spectacularly and then work backward to identify causes, overcoming the optimism and groupthink that plague traditional risk assessment. Klein's research shows that pre-mortems increase the ability to identify potential problems by 30% compared to standard risk workshops. The technique works because it grants permission to express doubt, leverages prospective hindsight, and transforms critics from obstacles into assets.
Expert performance comes not from innate talent or raw experience, but from deliberate practice: focused, effortful activities specifically designed to improve performance. Ericsson's research shows that experts across fields invest thousands of hours in structured practice with immediate feedback, pushing just beyond their comfort zone. Organizations can apply these principles by designing learning experiences that target specific weaknesses rather than simply repeating comfortable routines.
Draws on research from Hersey, Blanchard, and Goleman to explain how effective leaders flex their style—directing, coaching, supporting, or delegating—based on a follower's competence and commitment. Understanding situational leadership is essential for any manager overseeing diverse teams.
Based on Gallup's study of 80,000 managers. Great managers don't try to fix weaknesses; they capitalize on strengths. They treat every employee as an individual, not using a one-size-fits-all approach. They define the right outcomes rather than the right steps. And they find the right fit between person and role rather than trying to mold people into roles.
Peter Drucker's masterwork on self-management. Know your strengths (use feedback analysis), know how you perform (reader vs. listener, alone vs. team), know your values, know where you belong, and know what you can contribute. Required reading in virtually every MBA program and executive education course worldwide.
Explores Robert Greenleaf's servant leadership philosophy, where leaders prioritize serving their teams before leading them. The article examines how inverting the traditional power hierarchy unlocks creativity, trust, and long-term organizational health.
Drucker distills decades of observation into eight practices of effective executives: ask what needs to be done, ask what is right for the enterprise, develop action plans, take responsibility for decisions, take responsibility for communicating, focus on opportunities rather than problems, run productive meetings, and think 'we' rather than 'I'.
Daniel Goleman's groundbreaking article on emotional intelligence in leadership. Identifies five components of EI at work: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill. Argues that while IQ and technical skills are entry-level requirements, emotional intelligence is the sine qua non of leadership. Widely taught in MBA programs worldwide.
The principled negotiation method from Harvard's Program on Negotiation. Four key principles: separate people from the problem, focus on interests not positions, generate options for mutual gain, and insist on objective criteria. Also covers BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement) as the true source of negotiating power. The foundation of every negotiation course taught worldwide.
Hollywood screenwriting guru Robert McKee on why stories are the most powerful tool for business communication. Traditional rhetoric (data, logic, argument) doesn't inspire action because it's intellectual. Stories engage emotions: they present a struggle between expectation and reality that creates suspense, insight, and identification. Covers the structure of a compelling business story.
Kahneman and Lovallo explain why we systematically underestimate time, costs, and risks while overestimating benefits. The planning fallacy: taking an 'inside view' focused on the specific case rather than the 'outside view' based on similar past projects. Introduces reference class forecasting as a corrective. Essential for project management and strategic planning courses.
Herzberg's landmark research distinguishes between hygiene factors (salary, conditions, policies) that prevent dissatisfaction and motivators (achievement, recognition, growth) that drive true engagement. Improving hygiene factors eliminates complaints but never creates satisfaction; only motivators achieve that. This distinction explains why lavish perks at tech companies often fail to improve retention when meaningful work and autonomy are absent.
Lencioni identifies five interconnected dysfunctions that undermine teamwork: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results. The model reveals how each dysfunction builds on the previous one and provides leaders with a practical roadmap for building cohesive, high-performing teams.
Drawing on Edgar Schein's foundational work, this article explains how organizational culture is formed through shared assumptions, espoused values, and visible artifacts. Leaders who understand these layers can intentionally shape culture to drive strategy execution and employee engagement.
Heifetz and Laurie distinguish between technical problems (solvable with existing knowledge) and adaptive challenges (requiring new learning and changes in values). Leaders must mobilize people to tackle tough problems, regulate distress, maintain disciplined attention, and give the work back to people. A cornerstone of Harvard Kennedy School's leadership curriculum.
Kotter's classic distinction between management and leadership. Management is about coping with complexity; leadership is about coping with change. Leaders set direction (vs. planning), align people (vs. organizing), and motivate (vs. controlling). One of the most-cited articles in organizational behavior courses.
The leader's mood is literally contagious due to the brain's open-loop limbic system. Identifies six leadership styles: visionary, coaching, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting, and commanding. The best leaders flexibly deploy multiple styles. Research shows emotional intelligence accounts for up to 90% of what distinguishes star leaders from average ones.