Operations

How organizations can improve task flow and prevent overload.

Leadership Collection How can managers establish a framework for productive teamwork — one in which team members can work together with enthusiasm? This collection of articles from MIT Sloan Management Review examines how to build teams that utilize each member’s talents, play to team members’ strengths, and help the company prosper.

Leadership Collection A more inclusive workplace not only boosts morale but often increases performance, too. This collection of articles from MIT Sloan Management Review examines ways that organizations are adapting to workforces that are older, more demographically and geographically diverse, and more varied in their ability to work collectively.

Leadership Collection Leaders have to be strategists, negotiators, and visionaries. This collection of articles from MIT Sloan Management Review looks at the particular challenges of keeping an organization’s vision on track across business units when there’s dissent among the ranks and when momentum starts to flag.

Leadership Collection Leaders grapple with bringing accountability into everything they do, for both internal audiences and the wider community of stakeholders.

Leadership Collection How do you decide how to decide? What are the best strategies for problem-solving? This collection of articles from MIT Sloan Management Review explores the critical importance of knowing what problem you are trying to solve, taking the time to thoroughly frame a decision and explore the full scope of options, and recognizing that consensus isn’t always the best policy.

Leadership Collection What are the best ways to make sure that projects and new ideas move forward smoothly and smartly? This collection of articles from MIT Sloan Management Review examines the ways to tap employees for their best ideas, encourage them to share their concerns, and use strategy loops to incorporate new information and translate it into effective action.

Formal communication protocols may seem outdated, but they offer crucial performance advantages.

In response to increasing consumer demands for faster deliveries without added cost, more companies are implementing IT solutions that enable access to real-time sales data and inventory data across the whole enterprise. Real-time sales and inventory information, coupled with advanced analytics enables networks to accommodate fluctuations and changes in the business environment quickly, a quality the authors call distribution agility.

To prevent email from feeling like a burden, teams should develop shared practices to enable it to help — not harm — employee productivity. This begins by developing an understanding of the relative effects of congruent vs. incongruent messages.