Each new industrialized era ushers in its own leadership style and organizational paradigms,
says Amit Mukherjee of Hult International Business School. The assembly line system of
the early 1900s spawned the authoritarian boss, while the quality control movement later in
the century created empowering leaders who oversaw collaborative teams. These “epochal”
transitions, Mukherjee writes, forced companies to completely overhaul their organizational
structures. Today’s digital technologies are having equally powerful effects. They change the
types of skills employees must possess and constantly impact the operating environment.
As a result, leaders must manage diverse, distributed teams while operating under volatile,
uncertain, complex, and ambiguous conditions. “These changes enable, even require, leaders
to engender creativity—the ability to look past received wisdom and traditional approaches
to give form or structure to new ideas,” Mukherjee writes. He explores what skills the digital
leader must possess and who that digital leader is likely to be. (The MIT Press, US$34.95)
Why do people agree to be organ donors?
How can citizens be prompted to pay their
delinquent taxes? What happens when
employees invest the maximum in their 401k
plans? Answers to these questions—and a
host of others across the fields of science,
medicine, and business—can be answered in
large part through experiments conducted
in the lab or in the field. Harvard’s Michael
Luca and Max Bazerman trace the long and intriguing history
of experiments that have been used to observe human behavior
and determine ways to redirect it. In particular, they’re
interested in the experiments at the intersection of psychology
and economics that proved “people aren’t always as rational
as traditional economics models assumed.” They explore how
behavioral economics can be used to set public policy, “nudge”
people into sound financial decisions, and improve education
outcomes—but they also warn that experiments have their
limitations. “Lab experiments can help us know whether and
when an effect might be relevant, but won’t predict the exact
effect in any particular real-world setting,” write Luca and
Bazerman. “Context matters.” (The MIT Press, US$29.95)
In a closer look at how experimentation functions in the
tech-driven world, Harvard’s Stefan Thomke explores how
digital tools have made it possible for companies of any size
and function to test hypotheses inexpensively and often. For
instance, every day at the travel platform Booking.com, employees run more than 1,000 experiments on the
company website, testing which small change
might optimize the customer experience. In
fact, because of the company’s dedication to
improving the user experience, all employees
are empowered to design and launch experiments
without permission from managers.
Some proposed changes are small—should
the “buy” button be red or blue?—but can
have massive and often unexpected effects on the bottom line.
When companies don’t experiment, they rely on their intuition,
which is usually wrong. Thomke shares dozens of examples of
successful experimenters, from Thomas Edison to Jeff Bezos to
the New Zealand team that won the 1995 America’s Cup yacht
race. He also presents general principles for carrying out successful
experiments and describes the managerial roadblocks
that get in the way. It’s a helpful guide to practical innovation.
(Harvard Business Review Press, US$32)
Entrepreneurship programs and incubators
have become staples at business
schools around the world, and thousands
of students annually join pitch competitions
and start their own businesses. Dave
Gee, director of the University of Wisconsin–
Whitewater Launch Pad, addresses
those students directly in this honest,
step-by-step guide to a successful launch.
He first encourages students to write down the reasons that they want to start businesses and the milestones that will make
them feel successful. “Come back to this list when times are
tough, when you need to balance personal relationships, classes
and your startup, when you have to fire a college friend,”
he says. But he also addresses the nitty-gritty of branding
the business, raising capital, and putting together a team. He
doesn’t shy away from hard topics such as when and how the
young entrepreneur might have to shut the business down, but
he explains that even a failed business is a learning experience
that can fuel the next venture. He also shares insights from his
previous students who have become successful entrepreneurs
and who are positioned to help the next generations find their
way. (Startup Guides LLC, US$14.99)
As technology becomes better and more
ubiquitous, businesses risk relying too much
on data and ignoring the input of people. In
other words, they sacrifice the story for the
spreadsheet, warns Rishad Tobaccowala
of communications firm Publicis Groupe.
When companies are seduced into believing
that data is all they need, he writes, they
“lose the agility, innovation, and inspiration
upon which organizations thrive.” But how can companies
pair “cool data” with “warm humanity”? For instance, screendominated
workplaces enable team members to stay connected—
but they also result in diminished communications and
weakened relationships. Tobaccowala suggests that companies
allow individuals to use the tech any way they choose so
their communications remain authentic; continue to schedule
in-person meetings; and rely on tech to promote social
interactions. In other words, he advocates using technology to
enhance humanity. Despite our digital advances, he stresses,
we still live in a world populated by “analog, carbon-based,
feeling creatures”—and businesses still need those creatures
as employees and customers. (HarperCollins, US$24.99)
People hesitate to request assistance because
they fear looking incompetent, yet research
shows even strangers give aid far more
readily than anticipated by those in need. The
University of Michigan’s Wayne Baker offers
practical suggestions for how people can
develop the essential skill of asking for help.
For instance, they should turn to people outside
their immediate circles; and they should
make sure each request is specific, meaningful, action-oriented,
realistic, and time-limited (or SMART). He also provides a series
of tools that teams can use to create cultures of mutual aid. For instance, in the Reciprocity Ring, workers meet in groups
of about 20 and take turns making requests; the others in the
group consider how they could help, perhaps by reaching out to
their own networks, before tendering their own requests. Baker
calculates that he’s facilitated corporate Reciprocity Rings that
have generated ideas worth up to US$400,000. He writes, “As
much as 90 percent of the help that is provided in the workplace
occurs only after requests for help have been made.” He shows
how to ask. (Currency Books, US$27)
When children in Thailand started approaching
smokers to ask for a light, the adults not
only refused, they recited cigarettes’ toxic
dangers. The children responded by handing
over notes asking why the smokers weren’t
worried about their own health and offering
the number for an anti-smoking hotline.
Subsequently, calls to the hotline jumped
60 percent. The campaign worked because
it highlighted a gap between how the smokers acted and what
they would recommend for others. It also allowed people to retain
agency by letting them figure out for themselves that their
behavior was harmful. These are some of the critical elements
involved in getting people to alter their behaviors, according
to Wharton’s Jonah Berger. “The assumption is that … if we
just provide more information, more facts, more reasons, more
arguments, or add just a little more force, people will change,”
he writes. “Unfortunately, that approach often backfires.” More
effective tactics are to remove barriers to change, help people
understand the costs of not changing, and reduce the risks of
trying something new. These tactics work for parents, policy
makers, hostage negotiators—and managers trying to change
company culture. (Simon & Schuster, US$26.99)
“It doesn’t matter how much we love our
family, respect our colleagues, or like our
neighbors. Conflict happens,” writes Columbia’s
Jennifer Goldman-Wetzler. And while
a healthy amount of conflict “should remain
part of a well-functioning life, team, organization,
and society,” unmanaged conflict
can tear all of those apart. She presents eight
practices readers can use to break familiar
patterns and achieve satisfactory outcomes. These include
noticing and discontinuing unconscious habits, stepping back
from heated situations, and designing paths to desirable new
outcomes. Her calm, clear-headed suggestions are designed to
work in any arena where conflict might arise. (Harper Business,
US$29.99)