Episode notes
The consulting firm McKinsey has helped its clients navigate disruption in a wide range of industries. But what can we learn from how McKinsey itself responded to disruption in the management consulting industry in the early aughts? In this episode, the originator of disruptive innovation, the late Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, joined former McKinsey managing partner Dominic Barton to break down how the firm shifted its internal strategy to prioritize flexibility and efficiency.
HBR On Strategy
by Harvard Business Review · English · Business
Business strategy isn’t just a plan, it’s a framework for success. Whether you’re building, innovating, or executing, HBR On Strategy is your destination for insights and inspiration from the world’s top experts on business strategy and innovation. Every Wednesday, the editors at the Harvard B
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E94 · 22 Jan 2025 · 47 min
A Middle Manager’s Guide to Executing Strategy
Imagine this scenario: Your company’s executive team has just announced their new master plan for growing the business. Now it’s your job, as a mid-level manager, to put it into practice. So where do you start? In this episode, strategist Andrea Belk Olson explains how to make the most of a plan that you may or may not agree with and that you may or may not have had any input into. She also has advice about the questions you should ask yourself before taking action, how to handle resistance from people you manage, and what to do if the new strategy isn’t working well.
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E93 · 15 Jan 2025 · 28 min
Competitive Strategy Lessons from the LIV Golf and PGA Tour Merger
In June 2022, the first ever LIV Golf event teed off outside of London. Offering players larger prizes and more flexibility, LIV Golf aimed to disrupt the sport. In response, the PGA Tour suspended all players who participated in the LIV Golf event, escalating tensions between the two entities. This conflict culminated in LIV Golf filing an antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour. Then, in a surprising turn of events, the two tours announced their merger in June 2023. University of Virginia associate professor Alexander MacKay discusses the competitive and regulatory issues at stake and…
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E92 · 8 Jan 2025 · 21 min
Strategies for Managing Talent Amid Uncertainty and Competition
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E90 · 25 Dec 2024 · 24 min
What It Takes to Thrive During a Crisis
Why did some companies thrive during the Covid-19 pandemic while others struggled? Keith Ferrazzi, founder of the consulting firm Ferrazzi Greenlight, surveyed more than 2,000 executives to learn how they changed their operations during the pandemic. The results show that some companies had already been cultivating a kind of extreme adaptability before the pandemic. That practice helped them come out on top. In this episode, Ferrazzi outlines the concrete steps organizations can take to cultivate the resilience and agility to stay competitive in the post-Covid-19 world.
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E89 · 18 Dec 2024 · 29 min
How Glossier Maintained Brand Integrity While Scaling
Glossier launched in 2014 as an e-commerce, direct-to-consumer makeup and skincare brand aimed at millennial women. From the start, Glossier’s founder Emily Weiss built a strong digital community around her brand. But after the company received its first major round of funding, Glossier was ready to scale up its marketing spending. The challenge: How to do that while also preserving the brand’s all-important authenticity? In this episode, Harvard Business School senior lecturer Jill Avery explains how to think about marketing when scaling a business. Drawing from her business case on…
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E88 · 11 Dec 2024 · 16 min
How to Build Long-Term Social Value
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E116 · 25 Jun 2025 · 1 min
An Announcement from HBR On Strategy
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E116 · 25 Jun 2025 · 30 min
The Strategic Advantage of Tapping Freelancers
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E115 · 18 Jun 2025 · 21 min
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Most businesses are built on a linear model: take, make, and discard. But that norm is reaching its limits, and leaders are under pressure to find smarter, more sustainable ways to operate. Weslynne Ashton is a systems scientist and professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology. In her masterclass at HBR’s 2024 Leaders Who Make a Difference conference, she explains how companies can shift to a circular economic strategy. One that reduces waste, reinvests in communities, and creates long-term value. She shares how businesses around the world are rethinking products, partnerships, and…
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E114 · 11 Jun 2025 · 31 min
Sustainability Is Fueling Innovation at Ferrari
When Ferrari, the Italian luxury sports car manufacturer, committed to achieving carbon neutrality and to electrifying a large part of its car fleet, investors and employees applauded the new strategy. But among the company’s suppliers, the reaction was mixed. Many were nervous about how this shift would affect their bottom lines. Harvard Business School professor Raffaella Sadun and Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna discuss how Ferrari collaborated with suppliers to work toward achieving the company’s goal. They also explore how sustainability can be a catalyst for innovation in the case,…
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