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CEO Picks - The best that international journalism has to offer!  S61Why Is Customer Service So Bad? Because It's Profitable. - Harvard Business Review (No paywall)   American consumers spend, on average, 13 hours per year in calling queue with an estimated monetary cost of $38 billion. A third of complaining customers must make two or more calls to resolve their complaint. And that ignores the portion who simply give up out of exasperation after the first call. So why is customer service still so bad? Part of the answer is that a subset of companies purposely make callers jump through hoops with the hope that they’ll simply give up. When this happens, the company saves money on redress costs. At first glance, this may seem problematic: what about customer retention and brand reputation? Research shows that companies with a large market share — think airlines, cable, and internet services — can get away with bad practices because customers have nowhere else to go. This may help us understand why some of the most hated companies in America are so profitable.
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S2From the U.S. Senate to Diplomacy--John Kerry's Leadership Lessons  HANNAH BATES: Welcome to HBR on Leadership, case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, hand-selected to help you unlock the best in those around you. Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has spent more than 40 years in public service – from his decades in the U.S. Senate to leading the State Department from 2013 to 2017, and now as the first-ever U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate. In this episode, he shares the leadership lessons he learned over those years – from how to influence people and bounce back from defeats, to staying focused on important goals over the long term. You’ll learn how Kerry approaches leadership transitions, and what he does on his first day leading a new team. You’ll also learn why compartmentalization is an important skill for any leader – whether you’re on the global stage or learning to manage your first team. This episode originally aired on HBR IdeaCast in October 2018. Here it is.
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S3Best Buy's Hubert Joly on Re-Defining Your Company's Purpose  In this episode, you’ll learn how Joly re-defined Best Buy’s purpose and aligned incentives with that larger strategy. You’ll also learn how he found mutually beneficial ways for the company to work with competitors and suppliers, including Amazon, the e-commerce giant that once threatened the company’s survival.
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S4Two Factors that Determine When ESG Creates Shareholder Value  The paper “Corporate Sustainability: First Evidence on Materiality,” published in 2016, marked a significant shift in perceptions of corporate sustainability. It demonstrated that focusing on financially material ESG (environmental, social, and governance) factors positively impacts portfolio returns and shareholder value. Despite its influence in popularizing ESG investing, the topic remains controversial with mixed academic consensus and political debate in the U.S. Recent research by the author has further explored this field, highlighting two critical aspects: the role of high-ability managers in selecting profitable ESG projects and the long-term value of ESG practices in supply chains. The study found that companies with high-ability CEOs and strong ESG investments outperform others, and firms with fewer supplier ESG incidents yield higher returns. These findings underscore the importance of ESG efforts in resource allocation and their potential to attract investment by demonstrating a tangible impact on shareholder value. The ongoing challenge lies in enhancing disclosure, transparency, and effective use of ESG information by investors and regulators.
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S5It's Time for Sustainability to Become a Core Part of MBA Programs  Business schools must adapt their curricula in response to the increasing demand for professionals skilled in sustainability and climate change management. This need is driven by evolving global climate disclosure regulations, such as those proposed by the SEC and implemented in California and the EU, mandating corporations to disclose climate-related financial risks and their carbon emissions, including indirect emissions (Scope 3). Currently, many companies fall short in quality and consistency of sustainability disclosures, highlighting a significant skills gap in the workforce. Business schools must incorporate interdisciplinary approaches in their programs, combining environmental and climate science with traditional business skills like carbon accounting, strategy, and governance. The curriculum should foster a common language between disciplines, such as sustainability and accounting, and include hands-on experiential learning. While some accounting firms and trade associations are offering courses in climate finance, these efforts are insufficient compared to what a comprehensive, climate-focused MBA program could provide. The adaptation of business school curricula is not just a necessity but an opportunity to lead in the training of future leaders in corporate sustainability.
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S6The Science of Making Truthful AI  This week, Azeem speaks with Richard Socher, CEO and founder of You.com, an AI chatbot search engine at the forefront of truthful and verifiable AI. They explore approaches to building AI systems that are both truthful and verifiable. The conversation sheds light on the critical breakthroughs in AI, the technical challenges of ensuring AI’s reliability, and Socher’s vision for the future of search.
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S73 Types of Overthinking -- and How to Overcome Them  Many people look at overthinking as a monolith, when in fact there are three different types: rumination, future tripping, and overanalyzing. In this article, the author offers guideance on how to spot and handle each of the three types of overthinking. Identifying the type of overthinking you or your team is dealing with is the first step in breaking free from its grasp — and more crucial than ever when the demand for quick yet thoughtful decision-making is high.
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S8S9How craftivism is powering 'gentle protest' for climate  The first time Sarah Corbett picked up a cross-stitch she was on a train to Glasgow, Scotland. Her hands were shaking and her breath was shallow. As she worked out how to do cross-stitch, she became increasingly aware of how stressed she was. The cross-stitch, which requires careful attention and slow, repetitive movements, made her realise she was feeling completely burnt out.It was 2008 and Corbett, a lifelong activist, had spent her career so far working for charities such as Christian Aid and Oxfam on their campaigns.
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S10Climate change will bring megafloods to California  The Santa Barbara police car blocked access to the bridge, lights flashing as the thundering, swollen brown river rampaged below. The water was running so high in this Southern California county that it gushed through the railings of the bridge, and poured out onto the road.This region is familiar with water scarcity – usually battling extreme heatwaves, wildfires, and drought. Now, Southern California is confronting an overabundance of water, in the form of torrential rain and life-threatening floods.
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S11Asbestos: The strange past of the 'magic mineral'  In the minerals gallery at the Natural History Museum in London, amid rows of ornately carved columns and cathedral-like windows, is an oak display cabinet. Within it is a small clear plastic box, labelled with the warning "DO NOT OPEN".The case contains what looks like a ball of the grey, fibrous fluff that you might find choking up a clothes dryer – or the kind of thing an owl might regurgitate. It looks like something that has been put on display by accident. But though this artefact is safely sealed within its box, and poses no risk to the public, inside is something deadly. It's an asbestos purse. Oddly, this pale, mangled relic once belonged to none other than American founding father Benjamin Franklin.
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S12What Size Company Is Right for You?  Should you take company size into consideration when applying for and accepting new roles? Organizations of all different sizes come with both pros and cons. Small-Scale Organizations. These organizations employ nearly half of all U.S. employees and might have just a couple of workers — like microenterprises and early startups — or up to 500 employees. Working at one can offer you great opportunities for learning, more decision-making power, and the ability to make a big impact. But, job stability can be a concern, there may be limited resources, and advancement can be a challenge. Medium-Scale Organizations. Mid-sized organizations can employee one thousand to several thousand employees. These organizations typically offer a positive balance between the agility of startups and the structure of larger organizations, can have more resources for employees, and usually offer a variety of options for growth. However, they can still be limited in terms of specialized roles, there will probably be a little more bureaucracy, and market competition from both smaller and larger companies can negatively impact workloads. Large-Scale Organizations. These companies might have thousands, to hundreds of thousands of employees. Because of their size, these organizations typically have extensive resources for employees, abundant career options, and even opportunities to work abroad. However, large organizations can be very slow moving, may make you feel like you’re having less of an impact, and will probably require you to participate in office politics.
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S13Drop-shipping is a lifeline for unemployed graduates in South Africa  Johannesburg-based Saba Mika proudly calls himself a “drop-shipping expert.” This basically means that the 36-year-old spends around five hours each day taking screenshots of trendy clothes and shoes from Chinese e-commerce websites, sharing them on Facebook Marketplace and WhatsApp groups, and ordering the goods if he receives any orders. Over the past two years, Mika has made up to 20,000 rand ($1,074) in a good month.A marketing graduate from the University of Lilongwe in Malawi, Mika moved to South Africa in 2018 with the hope of finding a job that matched his qualifications. After two years of a fruitless search, he decided to become a drop-shipping agent. “Drop-shipping is an easy way to make money,” Mika told Rest of World. “For those of us who cannot find work, it has become a way out of poverty.”
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S14Females Dominate Males in Many Primate Species  Most primate societies have long been assumed to be male-dominated, but a new study shows many have females in charge or feature power sharingFemale lemurs call the shots in their societies. Not only do dominant females choose their own mates; they also use prompts—such as tail and fur pulling or the occasional nip—with both males and females to dictate which other females in the group can mate. Primatologists have long categorized the world’s 108 lemur species as a female-ruled outlier group among primates, with the vast majority of other primate societies thought to be male-dominated.
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S15When We Find Earth 2.0, What's Next?  When I write or give public talks about exoplanets—alien worlds orbiting other stars—the most common question I’m asked is, “When will we find another Earth?”It’s a good question. As we’re learning, space is filled with a great many wildly differing worlds, and it’s natural to wonder if there’s an Earth 2.0 out there, or if they’re all truly, well, alien.
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S16New AI Circuitry That Mimics Human Brains Makes Models Smarter  A new kind of transistor allows AI hardware to remember and process information more like the human brain doesArtificial intelligence and human thought both run on electricity, but that’s about where the physical similarities end. AI’s output arises from silicon and metal circuitry; human cognition arises from a mass of living tissue. And the architectures of these systems are fundamentally different, too. Conventional computers store and compute information in distinct parts of the hardware, shuttling data back and forth between memory and microprocessor. The human brain, on the other hand, entangles memory with processing, helping to make it more efficient.
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S17Even ChatGPT Says ChatGPT Is Racially Biased  When asked, ChatGPT declared that its training material—the language we humans use every day—was to blame for potential bias in stories it generatedDevelopers of artificial intelligence are well aware, and share the concern, that their large language models could perpetuate racial and cultural biases. In response, they have tried to assemble diverse development teams to make sure that training data are drawn from broadly representative sources and to apply debiasing algorithms, and they have created built-in safeguards such as programming that prohibits AI programs such as ChatGPT from engaging in hate speech.
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S18Europe's New AI Rules Could Go Global--Here's What That Will Mean  A leaked draft of the European Union’s upcoming AI Act has experts discussing where the regulations may fall shortAs artificial intelligence applications become more advanced, lawmakers worldwide are grappling with the possibility of unintended consequences: not just potential existential danger to humanity but also the more immediate risks of job losses, discrimination and copyright infringement.
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S19S20Mars Mission's Budget Problems Force NASA Layoffs  NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is eliminating nearly 600 workers due to funding shortfalls for the space agency's Mars Sample Return missionThe Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California is a research and development lab federally funded by NASA and managed by Caltech.
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S21When Will We Finally Have Sex In Space?  Shawna Pandya: I think there must have been this rumor floating around NASA for the longest time that if they discussed sex in space, they would go blind or something like that.Lee Billings: Today we’re talking about the big bang but not in the way you probably think. We’re talking about sex—specifically, sex in space. It’s a topic NASA and other space agencies have treated as taboo for decades—because let’s be real — nobody wants to explain to Congress why taxpayer dollars would be spent on something so titillating.
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