Management - Leadership

For many years Document Security Management (a pseudonym) had a thriving business in retrieving and shredding or securely storing organizations' documents. Executives and their assistants loved its one-stop-shopping value proposition, and the sales force cultivated deep relationships with them.

Companies are increasingly experimenting with the use of philanthropy to enhance consumer loyalty, brand awareness, and sales. But even highly creative approaches that garner a lot of buzz often fall short of sales goals, leading many companies to conclude, prematurely, that charity doesn't pay.

A company has a great product and naturally wants consumers to think of it as the best they can buy. So the marketing team rolls out an advertising campaign showing why the product is superior to the competition on features and price and is rewarded with robust sales.

In eight experiments, doctoral student Yanping Tu and three collaborators--Christopher K. Hsee of the University of Chicago and Zoe Y. Lu and Bowen Ruan of the University of Wisconsin--found that people feel more negative toward individuals, images, and sounds if those "stimuli" are perceived to be approaching them.

The author has worked in advertising for four and a half decades, and during those years he has spent a lot of time persuading clients to run ads that feel risky--maybe even dangerous--when they're first pitched.

Since 1960 the U.S. economy has moved from largely financing the exploitation of natural resources to making the most of talent. The rewards to executives and financiers have skyrocketed as a result.

The open office is the dominant form of workspace design for good reason: It fosters collaboration, promotes learning, and nurtures strong culture. But what most companies fail to realize is that collaboration has a natural rhythm that requires both interaction and private contemplation.