Career | INSEAD Knowledge

Career

It's the Journey, Not the Destination

N. Klein, R. E. Lim

Including information about your career journey can help convey warmth in written professional introductions.

Career

Pursuing Purpose After Early Retirement

W. Jiang, C. Harbour, A. Tirard

Individuals who achieve financial independence seek greater purpose and meaningful work to enrich their lives.

Leadership & Organisations

Letting Go of the Urge to Rescue

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Exploring the motivations behind our need to help others and embracing a balanced approach to offering assistance.

Career

The Psychological Strategies of Influencers

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Understanding the psychology behind why influencer marketing works.

Career

A Holistic Approach to Navigating the New Workplace

Mark Mortensen

How to foster a thriving and sustainable workplace culture to contend with the realities of the new office.

Career

Reinventing Yourself After a Setback

F. Godart, A. Tirard, C. Harbour

How to survive a significant career defeat and rebuild your professional and personal life.

Career

A Flexi-Work World Needs New Performance Appraisals

Chengyi Lin

Adopting the right metrics could help align objectives and encourage more companies to embrace flexible work arrangements.

Career

Retirement and Beyond: The Last Days of Executives

Jose-Luis Alvarez

How to plan for the end of the professional life and a smooth transition to retirement.

Leadership & Organisations

How Women Leaders Benefit From Using Humour

Ella Miron-Spektor

New research suggests that being funny helps leaders gain influence, and that women benefit more than men from using humour in public speaking.

Career

Breaking the Cycle of Self-Sabotage

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

A roadmap for identifying and overcoming the self-defeating habits that hold you back.

Career

Why Career Conversations Matter

W. Jiang, C. Harbour, A. Tirard

Meaningful discussions between managers and employees build stronger individuals and organisations.

Career

Transcending the Victim Mentality

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

How to overcome feeling like a victim and create a positive, hopeful attitude to life.

Career

What Machine Learning Tells Us About Gender Stereotypes

Rachel Eva Lim

Machine-learning models offer insights into how putting women in leadership positions affects gender stereotypes in the workplace.

Career

What’s Behind the Tech Layoffs?

C. Lin, A. Fatás, H. Bresman, M. Mortensen, W. Jiang

INSEAD faculty on the state of the labour market and what’s to come for firms and employees.

Sunshine cup of coffee representing kind feedback

Career

Why Managers are Kinder to Women in Workplace Reviews

L. Jampol, A. Rattan, E. Wolf

Employers are nicer to women because of the stereotype that women are “warmer”. Here’s why that’s a problem.

Concert - Photo by Getty/zamrznutitonovi

Career

Can the Grammys’ Best New Artist Curse Be Undone?

S. Harrison, N. Askin, L. Hagtvedt

Groups can stay creative and successful over time – if they don’t chase further acclaim.

Leadership & Organisations

Leading Change in Turbulence: Case of Discovery Inc.

J. Petriglieri, G. Petriglieri, M. Soldi

In this video, Marinella Soldi shares ways to navigate the turbulent waters of digital transformation and why it is important to tackle both the strategic and cultural facets of change.

Career

How to Work Out What Your Employees Really Want

INSEAD Knowledge, M. Mortensen

A holistic approach to understanding employees’ needs.

Family Business

A Career in the Family Business: Duty or Choice?

M. Bennedsen, C. Harbour, A. Tirard

Would-be joiners of family businesses can have their cake and eat it – if they get the ingredients right.

Herd of sheep by MriyaWildlife/Getty Images

Leadership & Organisations

How to Break Free From Herd Mentality

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Nurturing independent thought can help us overcome dangerous sheeple behaviour and groupthink.

Career

The Problem With Being Too Easy-going

A. Barasch, K. Woolley, P. J. Liu

Failure to express your preferences in everyday situations can make you seem less likeable and even slightly less human.

Business card exchange. Photo by Getty/PeopleImages

Career

Collaborations That Are Bad for Business but Benefit Employees

H. Piezunka, T. Grohsjean

Sharing a partner with competing companies hinders the success of firms but helps employees’ careers.

Career

How Much Control Do You Really Have Over Your Career?

Charles Galunic

Chance events may have a greater impact on career trajectories than we think.

Career

Why It Pays to Be Sceptical About Behaviour Tests

Felix Jan Nitsch

Using such techniques to assess individual personality traits such as rationality might overstate their potential.

Career

The World’s Most Talent Competitive Countries, 2022

B. Lanvin, F. Monteiro

Mounting talent inequalities could become a significant roadblock to reaching key targets of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Career

The Power of Networking in the New Economy

F. Godart, A. Mears

In today’s gig economy, fleeting ties can be valuable to the career of the gig worker.

Career

The Hidden Power of Workers From Humble Backgrounds

C. Harbour, W. Jiang, A. Tirard

Businesses need to do more to level the playing field for socioeconomically disadvantaged workers.

Career

The Pandemic Has Dealt a Blow to Gender Balance

Zoe Kinias

Here’s what business leaders can do about it.

Career

Ten Steps Towards a More Fulfilling Life

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

The journey towards a more fulfilling existence starts within you.

Strategy

Can We Get Better at Navigating Uncertainty?

Nathan Furr

What innovators have learnt that empowers them to face the uncertainty of new pursuits.

Career

How to Find Fulfilment by Taking a Step Down

W. Jiang, C. Harbour, A. Tirard

Three stories of professionals who bucked the trend and found greater meaning in their work life.

Leadership & Organisations

Finding Meaning in Life

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Create a compelling self-narrative based on the five pillars that influence the way we experience meaning.

Career

What Good Could Come After Financial Success?

B. Vissa, L. K. Hans

All of society would benefit if successful entrepreneurs used their skills to promote positive social change.

Career

Burnout Won’t Prevent Itself

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

While people make sure to charge their phones, they don’t always take the time to recharge themselves.

Career

The Pitfalls of Flaunting Your Social Status

A. Barasch, S. Srna, D. Small

Ditch the luxury logos if you want to be seen as a cooperative team player.

Career

How Can Managers Use AI to Find the Right People?

S. Black, P. van Esch

Eight recommendations to help firms win the war for talent.

Career

The Problem When Bankers Marry Social Workers

Winnie Jiang

When you and your romantic partner disagree about the meaning of work, it reduces your odds of quickly landing a job should you find yourself unemployed.

Career

How Family-Work Conflict Keeps Us Glued to Our Mobile Phones

C. Trombini, M. Magni, M. Ahuja

Torn between family obligations and work, many people can’t resist working on their phones after hours, creating a downward spiral for their well-being and home life.

Leadership & Organisations

Carpe Diem: Don’t Postpone Your Dreams

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Far from a hedonistic cry, carpe diem instructs us to live a life of meaning.

Career

Performance Reviews Need a Brand-New P&L

Chengyi Lin

Is your firm’s performance review process helping or hindering progress for your high potentials?

Career

The World’s Most Talent Competitive Countries, 2021

L. F. Monteiro, B. Lanvin

The pandemic revealed strengths and weaknesses in how nations develop and retain talent.

Career

Pursuing the Arts After a Career in Business

A. Tirard, C. Harbour

How three mid-career professionals leveraged their business skills as they became full-time artists.

Career

To Find Your Dream Career, Show Your Unconscious Who’s Boss

K. Min, E. van de Loo

The social pressures you think are holding you back are most likely your own projection.

Leadership & Organisations

Marked for Disruption, Deep in Denial: Law Firms at a Crossroads

A. Fruehmann, R. Lehman

The greatest threat to the survival of law firms isn’t technological, but psychological.

Leadership & Organisations

The Competencies and Constraints That Determine Leadership Success

Pawel Korzynski

A novel management theory looks past individual leaders to constraints that might limit their effectiveness.

Career

Breaking Bad: Humanitarians Who Went Corporate

C. Harbour, A. Tirard

How three professionals who started in purpose-driven organisations continued to do good after migrating to “the other side”.

Career

The Connections Between Love and Work

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Seven lessons about relationships that could save your career.

Career

A Post-Mortem on Product Management

Ayman Jawhar

Treating product management as a role, rather than a culture all its own, deadens its meaning and impact.

Career

Social Media Helps Global “Dream Teams” Come Together

P. Korzynski and G. Mazurek

Academic international collaboration is now evolving beyond conferences or formal networks as constantly improving social media connects more researchers.

Career

How LGBTQ+ Employees Can Embrace Authenticity

Antoine Tirard & Claire Harbour

Four professionals with different sexual orientations and gender identities describe their journeys.

Leadership & Organisations

Teams in Evolution – and Revolution – After the Pandemic

H. Bresman, M. Mortensen

How sensemaking can help you cope with unplanned, constant changes in your team.

Career

From General Manager to CHRO

Claire Harbour & Antoine Tirard

Three stories of business leaders who moved to the top human resources role and reinvented HR in their company.

Career

Product Management Is Dead

Ayman Jawhar

Long live product management – but not as it has been conceived up till now.

Career

Why – and How – to Hire an Outlier

A. Tirard, C. Harbour

An unconventional profile can be a tough sell, but the potential rewards are worth the risk.

Career

The Hidden Upside to Low-Power Negotiating

Alena Komaromi

Looking for work during a historic downturn needn’t cost you your dignity. Multiple research studies suggest strategies for turning a negotiation disadvantage into opportunity.

Career

To Navigate Office Politics, Map Out Your Friends and Foes

Andy J. Yap

Before you make a political move, draw a POWER map.

Career

Shoring Up Executive Careers in a Pandemic

Lee Seok Hwai

The best time to plan for contingencies was yesterday. The next best time is now.

Career

Seven Lessons From Refugees Who Became Entrepreneurs

Claire Harbour & Antoine Tirard

The inspiring stories of four people who relaunched their career from scratch.

Career

The World’s Most Talent Competitive Countries, 2020

F. Monteiro, B. Lanvin

How artificial intelligence is shaping talent competitiveness around the world.

How the Daily Commute Contributes to the Gender Wage Gap.jpg

Economics & Finance

How the Daily Commute Affects the Gender Wage Gap

A. Roulet, T. Le Barbanchon, R. Barthelot

Women’s aversion for commuting motivates them to look for closer and not-so-well paid jobs compared to men.

Career

Should You Be a Career Lifer?

A. Tirard, C. Harbour

The stories of three executives who made the counter-intuitive choice of staying with the same employer for most if not all of their career.

Career

Creating a Meaningful Life in Turbulent Times

How can accessing our sources of personal meaning help us manage mounting insecurity in our lives, families and work?

Career

An Action Plan for Work-Family Balance

Finding the right balance for your personal and professional life requires conscious planning, ample reflection and proper communication.

Career

Those Unfulfilled Childhood Dreams? They May Still Be Driving You

Elizabeth Florent Treacy

Summon your inner child before deciding on that new job.

Career

The Proper Care and Feeding of Dual-Career Couples

Benjamin Kessler

There’s no single path to long-term fulfilment in love and work – as long as partners are communicating regularly on three main points.

Career

Seven Ways to Overcome the Fear of Making a Career Change

Claire Harbour & Antoine Tirard

Bold new professional aspirations often freeze us in our tracks.

Career

How Making New Friends on LinkedIn Can Boost Creativity

Pawel Korzynski

Proactive online social networking enhances the link between personal innovativeness and creativity.

Career

Leaving a Lasting Leadership Legacy

Adaptation, reflection and stewardship are forward-looking life lessons.

Career

From Corporate High-Flier to Artisan

Antoine Tirard & Claire Harbour

Tips and stories from three executives who left a lucrative career to join a skilled trade.

Career

Five Everyday Exercises for Building Empathy

Minter Dial

Empathy is like a muscle – use it or lose it.

Entrepreneurship

The World’s Most Innovative Countries, 2019

R.Noyes, B. Lanvin

Continuing innovations in health and medicine have led to economic growth and a better quality of life for many around the world. But inequalities could grow rapidly.

Career

Composing a Life of Complex Change

Linda Brimm

Firms can benefit greatly from helping experienced global professionals transition to headquarters and a geographically settled life.

Career

So You Want to Learn How to Code?

Claire Harbour & Antoine Tirard

Tips and stories from three execs who went to coding boot camps.

Career

The Challenges Faced by Global Cosmopolitan Women

Linda Brimm

To tap the full potential of these agents for change, organisations must listen and push beyond assumptions.

Career

The World’s Most Talent Competitive Cities

Felipe Monteiro & Bruno Lanvin

Our Global Talent Competitiveness Index explains the importance of cities in innovation.

Career

Pivoting Into Business After an Artistic Career

A. Tirard, C. Harbour

The stories of three performers who successfully joined the corporate world.

Career

Why Should You Work With a Creative Star?

M. Sosa, J. Mihm, H. Liu

Collaborating with creative stars can make you more creative and help unlock your star potential.

Career

Getting Your Foot in the Door When Switching Industries

C. Harbour, A. Tirard

Here’s how you can prevail against unimaginative recruiters and employers.

Career

The Skills That Global Cosmopolitans Bring to the Table

Linda Brimm

Professionals versed in several cultures have an exceptional ability to learn from experience.

Entrepreneurship

The Multinational Fuelled by Thousands of Entrepreneurs

Felipe Monteiro

Haier’s business model has created a worldwide entrepreneurship movement.

Career

The World’s Most Talent Competitive Countries, 2019

Felipe Monteiro & Bruno Lanvin

Entrepreneurial talent is a critical component of both competitiveness and innovation.

Career

Making the Leap to Entrepreneurship

Antoine Tirard & Claire Harbour-Lyell

Three former corporate executives who migrated to the start-up world share their stories and tips.

Career

What Women on the Board Need to Know

Three INSEAD alumnae share their wisdom as board directors.

Career

The Gift of a Global Cosmopolitan Mindset

Those who live global lives develop a psyche that enables them to tackle complex challenges.

Career

The Number One Skill You Need

Selling may be a dirty word for some, but it’s an absolutely critical skill in our personal and professional lives.

Career

The 10-Point Stress Audit

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

What excessive stress looks like and what you can do about it.

Career

Lessons for Boardroom Debutantes

Claire Harbour-Lyell & Antoine Tirard

Three women non-executive directors share their tips for anyone aspiring to join the boardroom.

Career

A Long-Term Guide to the Art of Communication

Great communicators are always practicing.

Career

Am I Too Old to Switch Careers?

A. Tirard, C. Harbour-Lyell, N. Courtis

Eight reasons why career transitions later in life are possible despite lingering age discrimination.

Career

What the Happiest Two-Career Couples Are Doing Differently

The conventional wisdom urging compromise and self-sacrifice leads many dual-career couples astray.

Career

How to Hire a Rock Star Chief Marketing Officer

The ten qualities you should look for when interviewing potential CMOs for your start-up.

Career

The 4 Es of Successful Career Transitions

A. Tirard, C. Harbour-Lyell, N. Courtis

A navigational framework to take ownership of your career.

Career

The Status Quo Isn’t Working for Two-Career Couples

Dual-career coupledom doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. But outdated talent management programmes often twist it into one.

Career

Finding Your Path in Tech Marketing

What you need to know when evaluating marketing career options in the start-up world.

Career

How to Get More Women to Work in Tech

Lucia Del Carpio & Maria Guadalupe

Role models and reassurance about potential success can impact women’s career decisions.

Career

Taking Your Spouse Along on Your Learning Journey

Transformational programmes can trigger relationship dynamics that unfold like a play in five acts.

Career

Ten Networking Strategies to a Seat on the Board

How executives create second-act careers on boards.

Career

Are You (and Your Company) Ready for the Gig Economy?

Independent workers’ carefully cultivated professional identities point to new possibilities for talent development.

Career

The Surprising Link Between the Economy and Personnel Evaluations

Macroeconomic changes lead to bias in how we assess the work of others.

Career

The Three Skills Product Managers Need to Succeed

As they rise in prominence, product managers will need new skills to take their seats at the leadership table.

Career

The World’s Most Talent Competitive Countries, 2018

Paul Evans & Bruno Lanvin

Diversity is the linchpin of innovative and competitive working environments.

risks of rivalry in a winner-focused world.jpg

Career

The Risks of Rivalry in a Winner-Focused World

H Piezunka, W Lee, R Haynes, M Bothner

Competition becomes bloodier when winners accumulate outsize advantage.

Career

How a Superstar Affects Your Ratings

Subjectively evaluating people can have long-lasting effects.

Career

The Personal-Professional Divide Is Over

Tech disruption demands new ways of engaging with colleagues, customers and the general public.

Career

You Can Have More Than One True Work Identity

People with multi-pronged careers shouldn’t feel inauthentic or fear being branded as such.

Career

Humans Are Hard-Wired to Hate Networking

Kaisa Snellman

If you loathe the awkwardness and insincerity of networking, you’re not alone. But it needn’t be that way.

Career

The Mindset That Fosters Career Agility

Antoine Tirard & Claire Harbour-Lyell

Six personal factors can smooth the process of career change.

Career

Why “Believe in Yourself” Is Bad Advice for Women

In the workplace, women can capitalise on self-confidence only when they exhibit “feminine” behaviours as well.

Career

How to Author Authenticity

How someone reflects upon and describes their journey can determine how much they stand out.

Career

Talent Management for the Age of Career Disruption

Antoine Tirard & Claire Lyell

Companies are still working from a 20th century career playbook. It’s time for a new edition.

Career

Watch Out for the Well-Travelled

William Maddux, Jackson Lu & Adam Galinsky

Sampling a wide array of cultural norms can blur people’s moral vision.

Career

Building Team Resilience on Social Media

Guidelines for how a team can use social media to foster resilience in crisis situations.

Career

Three Crucial Advantages of Multicultural Management Teams

International experience and insight matter far more than what it says on your passport.

Career

How Your Personal Relationships Impact Your Professional Ones

Roger Lehman & Julius Koh

The roles we unconsciously adopt in significant relationships can result in struggles with colleagues, personal relationships or our careers.

Career

How HR Can Boost Its Business Impact

Six practical steps to bridge the gap between HR and business, with an eye on the bottom line.

Career

In Defence of Multitasking

The best time to attempt almost any demanding task is when you’re already “in the zone”.

Career

The World’s Most Talent Competitive Countries, 2017

Paul Evans & Bruno Lanvin

While technology is eliminating jobs, it is also creating them. But filling these new roles is the next talent challenge.

Strategy

Storytelling: More Than a Presentation Tool

How a story can make a strategy come to life.

Career

Stop Blaming Women for Gender Inequality

It’s hard to “lean in” when you feel you’re being pushed out.

Career

Finding a Meaningful Second Act Career

A.Tirard, C. Harbour

After spending years advancing in their careers, many seasoned professionals debut in second acts that combine purpose with a pay cheque.

Manfred kets de Vries When Digital Obsession Becomes a Disorder

Career

Addressing Digital Addiction

When does an obsession with digital technology become a serious health problem?

Career

What Diaspora Executives Learned When They Returned Home

Antoine Tirard & Claire Lyell

Adjusting to a new culture isn’t easy, but for many, coming home is even harder.

Career

Starting Your Career Far from Home

Antoine Tirard & Claire Lyell

Young people seeking adventure, career enrichment and personal fulfilment should consider an overseas stint.

Career

The Disturbing Benefits of “White-Washing” a Résumé

Four decades after the Civil Rights Act, students are “whitening” their résumés to increase their chance of getting a callback. What’s more disturbing is that research shows it works.

Career

Negotiations Should Never Come Down to Price

Filip Hron & Horacio Falcão

Focusing a negotiation on price puts both sides at risk of leaving out other interests that are more important.

Career

When Authenticity Doesn’t Translate

Attempts to cultivate authenticity can backfire if you are seen to project the wrong values.

Linda Brimm Seven Cs of Change and Development

Career

Embracing the Complexity of Global Mobility

Understanding their own experience of change can help globally mobile executives deal with it.

Career

Eight Tips for Career Re-Entry

Antoine Tirard & Claire Lyell

Resurrecting your career after a long break is not easy. But stories of those who went through the transition can teach us how to better navigate a way back to work.

Career

How Women and Men Internalise the Glass Ceiling

Received ideas about leadership can provoke a career-killing identity crisis in women attempting to climb the ladder.

Career

Enhance Your Contract Value with Social Media

Frenetic social media engagement can increase your value, compensate for performance weak spots and even serve as a great retirement plan.

Career

The World’s Most Talent Ready Countries, 2015

Immigration may be controversial, but the world would be a poorer place without it.

Negotiating a Take-it-or-leave-it job offer

Career

Should You Accept a Take-it-or-Leave-it Job Offer?

If you find yourself in such a situation, there are many more options than yes or no.

Leadership & Organisations

“Take it or Leave it”: What Message Are You Really Sending?

Most negotiators believe that without power they will be unable to secure the best deal; but translating power into value is not a given or even an easy task.

Career

Why Your Next Hire Should Be an Athlete

Athletes who became business successes have passion, resilience and leadership skills. Lessons learned from sport can help in business.

Career

Global Cosmopolitans are often pigeon-holed by organisations as mobile and adaptable people, standing ready to be parachuted into the next market. But they should push back when they want to go “home” or stay put for a while and companies should listen.

Career

Why You Should Build a Portfolio Career

Many describe career paths as an upward trajectory, but moving sideways is becoming more popular and sensible.

Career

Are You Discriminating Without Realising It?

Stefan Thau

Discriminatory decisions are often driven by a combination of internalised stereotypes and rational self-interest.

Leadership & Organisations

Do We Always Need Purpose?

Regain control by better understanding your inner “purpose”.

Career

How to Learn from a Global Life

Global Cosmopolitans adapt to new situations so seamlessly they often don’t realise how they did it. Learning from your global life can help you define a creative edge of difference from your international experiences.

Career

Negotiate Your Way to Career Flexibility

We’re familiar with the idea of negotiating a salary, but negotiating for greater time and task diversity may be just as important for our emotional and professional fulfillment.

Career

How to Transition From Consulting to C-Suite

A. Tirard, C.Lyell

Former management consultants can make great CEOs. But the transition isn’t an easy one.

Career

Making Coffee Chats Work for You

Unsolicited requests for your time can be turned into valuable opportunities. If you’re the one requesting, you should bring something to the party if you want something in return.

Career

Achieving the “Money-Happiness Balance”

Horacio Falcao

To become more fulfilled and less vulnerable professionally, manage your career as you would an investment portfolio. Diversify a little time into your own special projects.

Career

A New Twist to the Beauty Bias

Attractive men may appear more competent, but it won’t always land them the job.

Career

Why Firms Need “Outduction” Programmes

Keeping relationships with employees who leave is a small investment companies should be making. They should start by rethinking how they manage exits.

Career

Why Geeks Are a New Talent Opportunity

As business becomes increasingly technological, the proportion of ‘geeks’ in the ranks is rising. Some say they’re annoying and others that they just don’t fit in, but it’s essential for managers to integrate these knowledgeable individuals, no matter how awkward they are.

Career

The Art of Keeping Employees from Leaving

Retaining workers is becoming a balancing act between hard data research and a human touch. It’s more important than ever to complement intuition with statistical analysis.

Career

Your Rolodex Matters, but by How Much Depends on Your Gender

Men benefit from their connections more than women, especially when they are young.

Career

The World’s Most Talent Ready Countries, 2014

Talent is moving around the world faster than ever before. Countries that remain open to it are building a competitive edge.

Career

Returning Home to Find Things Have Changed

‘Boomerang’ employees, who return to a former employer later in their career, may find all is not as they left it. For some this means even greater opportunities, for others, there are new hurdles to overcome.

Career

Boomerang Executives: Why They Leave, Why They Return, And How They Manage It

The revolving door to many Fortune 100 executive suites has been turning 360 degrees in recent years as employees who leave to broaden their experience, increasingly find themselves returning to the fold.

Career

Employee Disengagement Starts With the Job Offer

Putting tight deadlines on job offers may seem like a good way to grab desirable talent, but doing so carelessly damages firms in the long term.

Career

Finding Meaning in Your Career

Working backwards from where you want to be can give you purpose.

Career

The Perils of Mismanaged Psychometric Testing

The number of companies using psychometric testing is growing, but how should it be managed to maximise its effect and avoid psychometric terror for its subjects?

Career

The Importance of Doing Nothing

By giving the brain ‘downtime’ we can improve mental health and allow ideas to incubate.

Career

Can a Team Have Too Much Talent?

Attracting top talent is a key priority for competitive organisations. But can ‘more’ become ‘too much’?

Career

Being Yourself: How Much is Too Much?

How much of “yourself” you put on display should be dependent on the situation and those around you.

Career

The MBA Career Path Less Travelled

For MBAs who haven’t mapped out their entire career plan, the best path to fulfilment is found by stepping out of the HR waiting room.

Career

Sins of the Past

Adolescent mistakes can seriously impact a career today. It may not be fair but it happens.

Career

The World's Most Talent Competitive Countries

Paul Evans & Bruno Lanvin

INSEAD’s Global Talent Competitiveness Index shows high-income countries leading in fostering knowledge and vocational talent pools. Low-income countries are struggling in both areas.

Career

Get Out of the Way!

How to set structures to foster innovation and creativity, then step back.

Career

The Rise of Multicultural Managers

Many multinational companies have hidden, unrecognised multicultural gems within their ranks. To find these and get the most from their unique skills means taking the time and trouble to carefully develop and deploy multicultural managers in critical positions.

Career

Networking in the Middle East

Competition for jobs in the Middle East is heating up and job candidates are finding that making contact on the ground is the only way to stay ahead of the pack.

Career

Making the Change

Forget planning and networking...it's a sure-fire way to remain stuck!

Economics & Finance

Europe’s shale gas competitiveness challenge and consequences for the petrochemical sector

“I think it’s simply irresponsible to declare that we don’t need [shale gas] and we don’t want [shale gas] here in Europe”. Kurt Bock, CEO of BASF[ii]

Leadership & Organisations

The Wise Leader

Smart leaders steer their organisations to victory, but wise leaders are needed to keep them on top in a dynamic world.

Career

Are You A Star Performer?

Star performers may be CEOs or politicians or even clerics; they may live in a forest or a city or a jungle. But they all share certain traits.

Career

Creating a Star Team

A perfect working team is more than a set of great CVs; it also encompasses competent jerks and loveable fools.

Economics & Finance

Carrefour: the new Kmart?

Karel Cool

The newly appointed CEO of Carrefour, M. Georges Plassat, has given himself three years to rebalance the Carrefour Group. Describing Carrefour as a “duck without a head”[i] – and thus no vision –, he is certainly aware of the challenge he is up to. The fall from grace of Kmart of the US is a frightening reminder of the potential urgency of Carrefour’s refashioning.

Leadership & Organisations

Leadership today: An inward journey

Executive training may not make a leader out of a follower, but it certainly can make a promising leader better... provided he's willing to put in the effort and take a good long look into his soul.

Leadership & Organisations

Are rankings worthwhile?

The ranking of companies and business leaders has become something of a cottage industry in recent years. But what do they tell us about anything? Quite a bit, it turns out. You just have to learn to read between the numbers.

Career

Banking on Russia’s future

‘Russian management’ may seem like a conflict in terms to some cynics in the business world, but a new programme for the region’s largest bank created by INSEAD and the Moscow-based New Economic School is changing all that.

Entrepreneurship

Boeing 787 Dreamliner: Success through a new Manager?

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner program is getting a new manager, Larry Loftis, who is the current manager of the highly successful 777 program. It is hard to be surprised at a change in management of this program, which delivered its first aircraft 3 year behind schedule and has been plagued by design and manufacturing problems. The latest one was discovered one month ago. It makes sense that a project in trouble should have a new manager, and that this new manager should have a track record of success. That’s the way to fix problems, isn’t it?

Career

What makes a good leader?

What qualities are necessary in a global environment of economic uncertainty and political change, in which - thanks to technology – change happens at warp speed? Participants at INSEAD’s Leadership Summit Middle East in Abu Dhabi in January speak out…

Entrepreneurship

The Henry Ford of Cardiac Surgery

Cardiac surgery is a sophisticated, dangerous and delicate procedure; but an Indian surgeon and his hospital group have successfully transformed it into a factory style mass operation, bringing high quality care to the many millions who could never before afford it. Dr. Devi Shetty’s Bangalore based flagship, 1,000-bed Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospital, charges $2,000, on average, for open-heart surgery, compared with hospitals in the U.S. that are paid between $20,000 and $100,000, depending on the complexity of the surgery.

Strategy

Middle Management: The Undervalued Asset of Developed Economies

Quy Huy

The business press and business schools have implicitly or inadvertently focused the public’s attention on extraordinary CEOs and top executives and continued to undervalue the role of middle managers, who are defined as managers who do not report directly to the top CEO and who are one level above front line workers.

Leadership & Organisations

Do gamblers make good leaders?

A professor of corporate strategy at Tsinghua University explores the link between risk-taking in the casino and in the board room.

Leadership & Organisations

When deadlines don't work: The perils of exploding job offer

Employers could be forgiven for wanting their favorite candidates to accept a job offer NOW. But new research shows that putting a time limit on a job offer can have far-reaching negative repercussions.

Leadership & Organisations

Executive women: Is there a future?

There are plenty of women in the workplace – and in positions only dreamed of a generation ago: airline pilots, scientists, executives. But not TOP executives. In the United States alone, only 14 percent hold the keys to the executive suite, a 2010 report by non-profit group Catalyst reports.

Career

The value of bicultural individuals to organisations

How do companies improve operationally with diverse and talented workforces? By taking advantage of individuals who feel at home in multiple cultures, says INSEAD visiting professor Mary Yoko Brannen.

Career

How to make friends and gain influence …by losing employees

Fighting to attract and retain the best talent is still important but letting employees go, even in good times, is also beneficial, says a research team led by INSEAD faculty Andrew Shipilov and Frederic Godart.

Leadership & Organisations

How do you measure success at the top?

Perhaps at no other time in history has CEO compensation come under such scrutiny. What makes these business leaders, who are more often than not men, worth so much money?

Career

Smart economics: investing in working women

Working women make up a fast-growing percentage of the global workforce, which is now estimated at 46 per cent of the total. In emerging markets, most working women are self-employed, earning low and irregular incomes.

Career

Diversity in the workplace

Be it male-female or multi-cultural, diversity is an offshoot of today’s global economy, the workforce more and more reflecting society’s make-up. But with unemployment having increased since the economic crisis, corporate diversity targets - in the developed world, at least- are in jeopardy, with the remaining workforce left largely unmotivated, disillusioned, and prepared to jump ship at the next job offer. How can companies cope? And can maintaining workforce diversity be an asset or a liability to the bottom line in this environment?

Leadership & Organisations

Why MBAs should not sign the Harvard Business School oath

Harvard MBAs have proposed that all MBA students sign an oath. The oath can be found on http://mbaoath.org/take-the-oath. It pledges, among other things, to “contribute to the well-being of society” and to “create sustainable economic, social and environmental prosperity worldwide.” I don’t believe that this is a good idea, for three reasons. First, some parts of the pledge are inconsistent with fiduciary duties and ethical standards. Second the oath is a misplaced response to the financial crisis. Third, I don’t believe in pledges as an instrument to guide people’s behaviour.

Leadership & Organisations

Why an MBA oath?

Business schools have become an easy target as the butt of jokes about the causes of the current economic crisis. A recent segment on ‘The Daily Show,’ an American satirical television programme, explored the theme of MBAs being to blame for the crisis and the MBA oath as a possible remedy. Its presenter feigned surprise that not all students were willing to sign up to an oath that said: “I will act with utmost integrity and pursue my work in an ethical manner.” No doubt the view that MBAs would have difficulty in making such a commitment is more widespread and yet it seems such a straightforward commitment to make. So in answer to the question, ‘why an MBA oath?’, one response surely must be: ‘Why not?’ Why should it be so difficult for MBAs to commit to behaving ethically?

Career

Human capital: the challenges facing Asia

While the economic downturn is a key focus for many C-level executives, the need to attract and retain talent remains an important issue. This is all the more so in Asia where developing countries such as China and India are helping to drive the world’s economic recovery.

Economics & Finance

Bridging the Chinese talent gap

Despite making huge economic strides in the last three decades, China is still wanting in the area of human capital. Not enough local talent is being adequately groomed to keep up with the country’s growth engine.

Leadership & Organisations

The leadership diversity puzzle

They say it’s never a bad time to invest in leadership. But is that still true, even during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression? Unilever, the food and personal care products giant, thinks so and is putting its money where its mouth is.

Leadership & Organisations

Why women mean business

Business leaders ignore gender issues at their peril. That's the view of CEO of gender consultancy 20-First and INSEAD alumna Avivah Wittenberg-Cox. In a new book, 'Why Women Mean Business', Wittenberg-Cox and her co-author Alison Maitland say organisations that become savvy about 'womenomics' will win in the war for the best talent and leadership and the war for customers.

Leadership & Organisations

The leadership circle

“Leaders get the best out of followers and followers get the best out of leaders,” says Manfred Kets De Vries, Clinical Professor of Leadership Development at INSEAD. The connection between leaders and their staff is only one of many circular connections he sees.

Career

Facilitating upward communication

Oftentimes, what separates good leaders from bad ones lies is their art of communication. Much has been said about preferred leadership styles which advocate openness, tolerance and active engagement with subordinates.

Career

Improving organisations through performance feedback

Performance feedback plays an important role in indicating when a firm needs to change its management strategy. It doesn’t, however, indicate just what this new strategy should be, and firms do not always respond appropriately, says Henrich Greve, INSEAD Professor of Entrepreneurship and Organisational Behaviour.

Career

Inventing new futures through business education

This year, Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) in France will offer some 200 university students the opportunity to develop and implement sustainable projects which create economic opportunities for people in need.

Career

Intergroup leadership: a unifying force

As the name suggests, intergroup leadership involves a fair amount of interaction among team members. On paper, it may look simple enough, but in reality, it’s a lot harder to put into practice.

Career

Self-managing teams: debunking the leadership paradox

Is leadership superfluous in a self-managing team? Aren’t self-managing teams supposed to be self-sustaining and self-sufficient?

Career

Middle managers linchpin to dynamic team leadership

Although research suggests there’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach to leadership, a fixed or generic notion of leadership still gets taught at all levels, to be used at all times, for all problems. That’s according to Professor Steve Kozlowski of Michigan State University, who spoke to INSEAD Knowledge on the sidelines of the first INSEAD-Wharton Research Conference on Leadership, about his study into dynamic leadership.

Career

Taking leadership research global

INSEAD Knowledge

While there is much talk about the global dimension of leadership, the reality is that research in this area has lagged behind because, even globally, it is based on US-centric models, be it US companies or American leaders.

Career

“Diversity is not diversity is not diversity”

Measuring diversity in terms of broad demographic categories such as gender, race or age fails to take into account the underlying dynamics that can play a more decisive role within groups of people – diversity in attitudes, skills, knowledge and power, for example. “It’s hard to just say ‘oh, there’s a group whose members vary in their age’ and to really understand what that dynamic will be,” says Katherine Klein, Professor of Management at Wharton.

Career

The Experience Trap

When companies look for a manager, they should look for experience, right? Well, maybe not. INSEAD professors Kishore Sengupta and Luk Van Wassenhove say their research has revealed what they call the ‘experience trap.’

Career

Putting leaders on the couch

When INSEAD Professor Manfred Kets de Vries coaches leadership teams, he effectively puts them on the couch – treating them not so much as rational actors but as emotional ones.

Career

Building and sustaining a strong talent pipeline

INSEAD Knowledge

Best practices only work in a given context, says Günter Stahl, INSEAD Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour. “So what works for one company may not work for another.”

Career

The employee value proposition

A lot of companies talk about being an employer of choice, but as competition for talent heats to a boil, Stewart Black, INSEAD Affiliate Professor of Organisational Behaviour, says executives have to do more than give the concept lip service.

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