How Ferrari Hit the Brakes on a Deepfake CEO

Matt Harrison Clough In July 2024, an executive at luxury sports car manufacturer Ferrari received several messages that appeared to have been sent by CEO Benedetto Vigna on the messaging and calling platform WhatsApp. The messages, which originated from an unfamiliar number, mentioned an impending significant acquisition, urged the executive…

Building a Data-Driven Culture: Four Key Elements

Topics Column Our expert columnists offer opinion and analysis on important issues facing modern businesses and managers. More in this series subscribe-icon Subscribe Share Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images Thanks to the deafening buzz around data science and AI, enterprise leaders no longer doubt the transformative potential of this…

Generate Value From GenAI With ‘Small t’ Transformations

Topics How to Maximize the Business Value of Generative AI The promise of generative AI is value — higher revenue, streamlined efficiencies, and more innovative decision-making. Achieving this value isn’t easy. Maximizing it is even harder. This MIT SMR Executive Guide offers expert insights into the strategies needed to get…

Are You Being a Nice Jerk?

Topics Column Our expert columnists offer opinion and analysis on important issues facing modern businesses and managers. More in this series subscribe-icon Subscribe Share Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images Let me ask you some questions to get this discussion started. In the past week or two at work, did…

Side Chats During Online Meetings: A Minefield for Leaders

Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images “One conversation in the room, please.” We’ve all heard, or said, something like this during in-person meetings. Hushing side discussions helps reinforce the best parts of face-to-face meetings: the opportunity to be attentive, be aware of eye contact and body language, and focus everyone…

Three Nonnegotiable Leadership Skills for 2025

Topics Column Our expert columnists offer opinion and analysis on important issues facing modern businesses and managers. More in this series subscribe-icon Subscribe Share Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images In the early days of the Industrial Revolution, factory floors used to spontaneously catch fire. Many industrial operations generated enough…

Philosophy Eats AI

Generating sustainable business value with AI demands critical thinking about the disparate philosophies determining AI development, training, deployment, and use. Michael Schrage and David Kiron January 16, 2025 Reading Time: 32 min  Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images In 2011, coder-turned-venture-investor Marc Andreessen famously declared, “Software is eating the world”…

Analytical AI: A Better Way to Identify the Right AI Projects

The allure of generative AI is undeniable, but it should not eclipse the proven capabilities of analytical AI. Consider a better way to ideate on the best AI projects for your organization. Pedro Amorim, Teresa Bianchi de Aguiar, Luís Guimarães, Bernardo Almada-Lobo, and Bruno Teixeira January 15, 2025 Reading Time:…

Turbocharging Organizational Learning With GenAI

Topics How to Maximize the Business Value of Generative AI The promise of generative AI is value — higher revenue, streamlined efficiencies, and more innovative decision-making. Achieving this value isn’t easy. Maximizing it is even harder. This MIT SMR Executive Guide offers expert insights into the strategies needed to get…

How the Lego Group Built Culture Change: From the Ground Up

Topics Culture Champions Building a healthy culture is one of the most important — and hardest — leadership jobs. These articles, based on a webinar series and research by Donald Sull and CultureX, share actionable advice from leaders whose cultures produced exceptional business results and a world-class employee experience. More…

When Candidates Use Generative AI for the Interview

Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images Generative artificial intelligence is transforming how candidates prepare for interviews, making it more complicated for hiring managers to accurately assess their true expertise. By inputting role-specific details, organizational information, and their resumes into GenAI tools, candidates can prompt the technology to generate potential interview…

Five Trends in AI and Data Science for 2025

Topics Column Our expert columnists offer opinion and analysis on important issues facing modern businesses and managers. More in this series subscribe-icon Subscribe Share Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images This is the time of year for predictions and trend analyses, and as data science and artificial intelligence become increasingly…

How a 160-Year-Old Startup Uses AI: The Heineken Company’s Ronald den Elzen

Topics Artificial Intelligence and Business Strategy The Artificial Intelligence and Business Strategy initiative explores the growing use of artificial intelligence in the business landscape. The exploration looks specifically at how AI is affecting the development and execution of strategy in organizations. In collaboration with More in this series Get updates…

Gaining Real Business Benefits From GenAI: An MIT SMR Executive Guide

Topics How to Maximize the Business Value of Generative AI The promise of generative AI is value — higher revenue, streamlined efficiencies, and more innovative decision-making. Achieving this value isn’t easy. Maximizing it is even harder. This MIT SMR Executive Guide offers expert insights into the strategies needed to get…

10 Essential Leadership Tips for 2025

subscribe-icon Subscribe Share Nick Purser/Ikon Images If you want to be a successful leader in 2025, you might want to put the two C’s at the top of your list: communication and culture. Indeed, looking back at MIT SMR’s most popular articles in recent months, it’s striking how many of…

Seven Essential Hybrid Work Tips for Leaders in 2025

subscribe-icon Subscribe Share Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images Leading teams in a hybrid work environment is still a relatively new science — and presents many types of challenges. Hybrid team leaders need to identify the best team norms around communication, refine the workplace culture to foster collaboration and community,…

MIT SMR’s 10 AI Must-Reads for 2024

Topics Data, AI, & Machine Learning AI & Machine Learning subscribe-icon Subscribe Share Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images The wave of transformation that artificial intelligence tools — large language models and generative AI, in particular — have unleashed feels unprecedented. Unlike previous technological waves, these tools are disrupting even…

Five Tune-Ups Your Company Needs in 2025

subscribe-icon Subscribe Share Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images Here at MIT Sloan Management Review, we’re lucky to have a growing number of columnists — true experts who write on their topics regularly — to share the latest lessons and trends that they’re seeing in their fields. Our columnists are…

How Businesses Can Help Safeguard Human Rights

The director of NYU Stern’s Center for Human Rights and Business discusses the role companies can — and should — play in ensuring the health and safety of their global labor forces. Michael H. Posner, interviewed by Kaushik Viswanath December 19, 2024 Reading Time: 9 min  Marie Montocchio/Ikon Images Michael…

How to Amplify the Advantages of Working at a Founder-Led Company

Mark Airs/Ikon Images When COVID-19 struck in early 2020, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky faced a devastating crisis: Bookings on his vacation-rental marketplace plummeted 80% almost overnight, and the company was forced to postpone its planned initial public offering. Chesky responded by abandoning what he has described as a hands-off leadership…

Five Hybrid Work Trends to Watch in 2025

Topics Column Our expert columnists offer opinion and analysis on important issues facing modern businesses and managers. More in this series subscribe-icon Subscribe Share Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images Just a few months ago, many people thought the battles over the value of the hybrid work model — and,…

The Courage to Listen

Topics Column Our expert columnists offer opinion and analysis on important issues facing modern businesses and managers. More in this series subscribe-icon Subscribe Share It takes a truly confident leader to admit what they don’t know — and a brave one to ask their subordinates what they really think. A…

Our Guide to the Winter 2025 Issue

subscribe-icon Subscribe Share Design Work to Prevent Burnout Sharon K. Parker and Caroline Knight Key Insight: Managers can apply a new model for work design to enhance their teams’ well-being and engagement by improving key job characteristics. Top Takeaways: Maintaining employee morale and keeping productivity high are just two of…

Engaging Employees in Growth and Innovation

Topics Radar Brief insights on emerging trends in management from the opening pages of MIT Sloan Management Review’s quarterly print magazine. More in this series subscribe-icon Subscribe Share Courtesy of Bob Stiller Bob Stiller founded Green Mountain Coffee Roasters in Waterbury, Vermont, in 1981, serving as CEO and president until…

Three Things to Know About Incentivizing CEOs

Radar These research-based tips can help boards better align chief executives’ contract terms with corporate objectives. Kaushik Viswanath December 09, 2024 Reading Time: 1 min  Topics Radar Brief insights on emerging trends in management from the opening pages of MIT Sloan Management Review’s quarterly print magazine. More in this series…

The GenAI App Step You’re Skimping On: Evaluations

Topics Data, AI, & Machine Learning AI & Machine Learning Column Our expert columnists offer opinion and analysis on important issues facing modern businesses and managers. More in this series subscribe-icon Subscribe Share Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images If your organization is developing generative AI applications based on large…

Ask Sanyin: How Do You Build for an Unpredictable Future?

Coaching for the Future-Forward Leader Wise leaders invite their teams to help imagine what’s possible. Sanyin Siang December 05, 2024 Reading Time: 2 min  Topics Coaching for the Future-Forward Leader Leadership roles come with new personal and professional challenges — and Sanyin Siang, board and CEO coach, adviser, and author,…

The Top 10 MIT SMR Articles of 2024

subscribe-icon Subscribe Share In 2023, generative AI became the topic every leader wanted to learn more about. In 2024, many leaders and organizations moved beyond the tactical AI questions to the strategic ones — such as where to reap the most business value while minimizing risk. For example, how can…

Four Leadership Loads That Keep Getting Heavier

Topics Column Our expert columnists offer opinion and analysis on important issues facing modern businesses and managers. More in this series subscribe-icon Subscribe Share Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images Feeling emotionally drained at work? Is your patience exhausted? Your energy low? If so, you’re showing clinical markers of burnout.…

Transmitting an Unwritten Culture: Hermès HR Leader Sharon MacBeath

Topics Culture Champions Building a healthy culture is one of the most important — and hardest — leadership jobs. These articles, based on a webinar series and research by Donald Sull and CultureX, share actionable advice from leaders whose cultures produced exceptional business results and a world-class employee experience. More…

A Better Way to Avoid Project Delays

Frontiers Many organizations estimate project timelines inaccurately. Working from past project examples, however, can improve on-time completion. Matej Lorko, Maroš Servátka, and Le Zhang November 27, 2024 Reading Time: 6 min  Topics Operations Project Management Frontiers An MIT SMR initiative exploring how technology is reshaping the practice of management. More…

Bonus Episode: Lessons From Jobs in the Age of AI

Topics Artificial Intelligence and Business Strategy The Artificial Intelligence and Business Strategy initiative explores the growing use of artificial intelligence in the business landscape. The exploration looks specifically at how AI is affecting the development and execution of strategy in organizations. In collaboration with More in this series Get updates…

How Ukrainian Companies Are Transforming Wartime Challenges Into Lifelines

Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images War subjects businesses to unprecedented tests. With governments stretched to their limits, businesses must step in and assume responsibilities far beyond their conventional mandates, profoundly transforming the notion of corporate social responsibility (CSR). As national survival and corporate survival become more and more intertwined,…

Building a Consistently Excellent Culture: Bain’s Manny Maceda

Topics Culture Champions Building a healthy culture is one of the most important — and hardest — leadership jobs. These articles, based on a webinar series and research by Donald Sull and CultureX, share actionable advice from leaders whose cultures produced exceptional business results and a world-class employee experience. More…

Five Ways Leaders Can Get People to Speak Up

Behind every failure is a team of people who were afraid to dissent and debate. But research shows that leaders can take specific actions to elicit constructive challenges. Celia Moore and Kate Coombs November 20, 2024 Reading Time: 7 min  Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images The Research A team…

How AI Changes Partner Collaboration

Explore six steps for using AI with external partners in new ways to drive product and business model innovations. Margherita Pagani and Thomas H. Davenport November 20, 2024 Reading Time: 8 min  Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images In a time of constant change and evolving customer expectations, the ability…

Cutting Last-Mile Delivery Costs

Frontiers New tactics can boost profitability and satisfaction with subscription services. Stanley Frederick W.T. Lim November 19, 2024 Reading Time: 8 min  Topics Frontiers An MIT SMR initiative exploring how technology is reshaping the practice of management. More in this series Neil Webb/theispot.com Costco and Amazon subscription services were just…

Why Influence Is a Two-Way Street

Gary Bates/Ikon Images The Research The authors’ survey data was gathered from 2015 to 2023 via a questionnaire to which approximately 1,400 executives, representing 500 companies across industries and global regions, responded. Not all respondents replied to all questions. The authors also conducted 500 individual interviews at 45 companies in…

GenAI Tools and Decision-Making: Beware a New Control Trap

Research Highlight Generative AI tools promise to help leaders make better decisions. But they may also cause trouble by nudging leaders toward a control-based style, research shows. J. Mauricio Galli Geleilate and Beth K. Humberd November 18, 2024 Reading Time: 8 min  As artificial intelligence technologies develop, managers are striving…

AI Tools That Modify Speech Have Downsides

Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images At the annual TED Conference earlier this year, the room fell silent for the demonstration of a potentially groundbreaking technology: a “cone of silence” tool, currently in development, designed to block out all surrounding noise so conversation partners can hear only each other’s voices.…