The Best of This Week
The week’s must-reads for managing in the digital age, curated by the MIT SMR editors.
Topics
Weekly Recap
Hubris in the Age of the Celebrity CEO
When leaders experience one success after another, it can lead to a sense of self-importance that shifts their focus from demonstrating character to elevating their personal brand. But it’s possible to stop hubris in its tracks before it’s too late by reconsidering the yardstick that defines success for you.
How Minority Stakeholders Can Increase Their Influence
Joint ventures in which one partner holds a minority stake can be tricky: Minority partners often aren’t able to force resolution of their concerns and end up taking a back seat to the dominant stakeholder. Consider these 10 ways minority partners can increase their governance and influence.
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Hybrid-Ready or Not
Over the course of the pandemic, employees have grown accustomed to independence. Making unilateral, top-down decisions about work arrangements or reinstating formerly standard control practices will likely be met with a backlash from employees who have tasted freedom. Managers who ignore the lessons of remote work do so at their own risk.
Transformative Tech for In-Store Retail
Digital technology can improve the in-store customer experience — and it can give retailers more data on shoppers’ preferences and buying habits. Offering an overview of the current landscape, this article provides guidance for retail executives considering their in-store tech strategy.
How Will We Produce Enough Electric Cars and Batteries?
Hundreds of millions of electric vehicles will hit the roads in the coming decades, each carrying a massive battery. Materials scientists are working on two big challenges: how to cut down on the metals in batteries that are scarce, expensive, or environmentally or economically problematic to mine; and how to improve battery recycling to more efficiently reuse these valuable metals.
What Else We’re Reading This Week
- CEOs have powerful leverage to drive organizational change around diversity and inclusion — if they choose to use it (Source: Smith Business Insight)
- An addiction risk algorithm has become central to how the U.S. handles the opioid crisis — but it may be worsening the situation (Source: Wired)
- How to bond with new employees, remotely (Source: Harvard Business School Working Knowledge)
Quote of the Week:
“People benefit most from guidance when it’s given in a way that they can act on it in real time. I want that too. Tell me the day — tell me the minute — that you see something so that I can immediately try to change it. To hone your craft, you need feedback.”
— Mike Fisher, CTO at Etsy, in the latest interview in MIT Sloan Management Review’s Leading With Impact series, “Leadership as Craft”