How Glossier Maintained Brand Integrity While Scaling

More from HBR On Strategy

1. 

   E92 · 8 Jan 2025 · 21 min

   Strategies for Managing Talent Amid Uncertainty and Competition

   In the last half century, relationships between employers and their employees have evolved away from being rooted in long-term loyalty to a new paradigm of short-term alliances driven by uncertainty and competition. Entrepreneurs and coauthors Ben Casnocha and Chris Yeh argue that the new world of work isn’t so different from the typical conditions that many entrepreneurs operate in. And if you’re a manager, you may need a new strategy to hire and retain top talent. Casnocha and Yeh, coauthors of the book The Startup of You, explain why it’s important for your organization to build internal…

2. 

   E91 · 1 Jan 2025 · 29 min

   How McKinsey Resisted Disruption

   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.

3. 

   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.

4. 

   E88 · 11 Dec 2024 · 16 min

   How to Build Long-Term Social Value

   What does it take to succeed as a business while doing well by your employees? Harvard Business School professor emeritus Mike Beer has studied companies who invest in building long-term social value and he says they offer some key lessons for other firms. In this episode, he breaks down how these companies set their strategies for new products and services, hiring, and even how much debt to accrue by first considering their company’s larger identity and higher purpose. Beer calls this “strategic identity.” He also explains how to manage short-term pressures from Wall Street through…

5. 

   E116 · 25 Jun 2025 · 1 min

   An Announcement from HBR On Strategy

   For the last two years, HBR On Strategy has been a collection of the best conversations and case studies with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. But the time has come for HBR On Strategy to hit pause on new episodes. We think that you deserve the highest-possible quality HBR content. And to do that, we’re going to focus our efforts for now on our sister feed, HBR On Leadership. But don’t worry—you can still enjoy the archive of episodes. Plus you can find brand new episodes of HBR IdeaCast, HBR’s Women at Work, Cold Call, and…

6. 

   E116 · 25 Jun 2025 · 30 min

   The Strategic Advantage of Tapping Freelancers

   The rapid pace of technological change is making a big impact on hiring. Some organizations are dynamically securing freelance workers through platform apps like Upwork and Freelancer. Other companies are investing heavily in work enabled by artificial intelligence. John Winsor and Jin Paik say these structural changes call for a reimagining of your talent strategy—one that is open to flexible, project-based work for talent inside or outside your organization—and they explain how to go about it. Winsor is the founder and chair of Open Assembly and an executive-in-residence at the Laboratory…

7. 

   E115 · 18 Jun 2025 · 21 min

   The Promises, Pitfalls, and Trade-offs of the Circular Economy

   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…

8. 

   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,…

9. 

   E113 · 4 Jun 2025 · 27 min

   Stress Test Your Strategy Before It Fails

   While many teams and organizations engage in scenario planning, most don’t go far enough. Arjan Singh, consultant and adjunct professor at Southern Methodist University, says a more disciplined approach, borrowed from the military, can help leaders truly test how their strategies, operations, and tactics hold up against competitors, shifting market dynamics, and unexpected events. He’s helped hundreds of companies identify risks and find new ways to innovate by leading them through corporate war games, and he explains his process and results. Singh is the author of the book Competitive…

10. 

    E112 · 28 May 2025 · 21 min

    Rethink Your Pricing Strategies Amid Economic Uncertainty

    Rafi Mohammed, founder of the consulting firm Culture of Profit, says a crisis or recession is not the time to panic and slash prices. He says leaders should instead reevaluate their pricing strategy—or develop one for the first time—to better respond to customers during the slump and keep them when the economy recovers. Since this conversation took place in 2020, the crisis you'll hear them referring to is—obviously—the Covid-19 pandemic. But these lessons apply well beyond that moment—to any period of economic instability. Mohammed shares examples of companies across a variety of…

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