artificialintelbulletin.com

Tag: All Managers

  • What Top Performers Do Differently with AI—and Why They See the Biggest Benefits

    What Top Performers Do Differently with AI—and Why They See the Biggest Benefits

    Harvard Business Review Logo

    Illustration by Jason Ford

    AI isn’t simply replacing sales work or automatically equalizing sales performance; it’s providing disproportionate lift to individuals and organizations that can build systems around

    Generative AI has produced two competing views about which workers will benefit most. One view is that AI will narrow performance gaps by giving lower performers templates, answers, and coaching directly in their workflow. The other is that AI will widen those gaps by eliminating routine but necessary work, which will allow top performers to spend more time on higher-value activities where they already have an advantage. At the individual task level, high and low performers may both benefit, but the more important question is which effect dominates on net in real jobs, where workers perform bundles of activities. The answer matters for how firms hire, train, organize teams, and adjust practices built for their current talent mix.

  • Research: Sleep Deprivation Is a Leadership Problem

    Research: Sleep Deprivation Is a Leadership Problem

    Harvard Business Review Logo

    moodboard/Getty Images

    Sleep deprivation remains widespread among leaders, and many leaders underestimate how much fatigue affects their performance. A new survey of 1,009 U.S. managers and executives suggests that the

    At 8:40 a.m. on a Friday, a leadership team gathers to make the biggest call of its quarter. The CEO hasn’t had enough sleep all week, but nobody knows that, because she arrived energized, with a coffee in her hand, performing alertness the way many senior leaders learn to do. She’s far from the only one in the room performing alertness, though. Many of the others in the room are hiding their own sleep deprivation—which means the decision they’re all about to make may be shaped as much by the sleep they’ve lost this week as by the analysis in front of them.

  • Research: When Pay Fluctuates, Workers Walk Away

    Research: When Pay Fluctuates, Workers Walk Away

    Harvard Business Review Logo

    HBR Staff; Flavio Coelho/nonnie192/Getty Images

    Today, more than 80% of employers offer some form of variable pay. From performance bonuses to tipped service jobs to demand-based gig work, more and more workers are taking home paychecks that

    According to a recent Payscale report, more than 80% of companies currently use some form of variable pay to compensate their workers. From performance bonuses in sales and commission-based roles to tipped service jobs, demand-based scheduling in retail and construction, and algorithmically-priced gig work, a growing proportion of workers take home paychecks that vary substantially from week to week or month to month. Variable pay is also prevalent among professions often associated with a stable income including public school teachers, police officers, and medical doctors.

  • Leading with Resilient Optimism

    Leading with Resilient Optimism

    September 29, 2026

    Summary.   

    In this week’s Insider newsletter, managing editor Gretchen Gavett shares an early release article from the upcoming November-December 2026 issue of HBR on what psychology researcher

    The Insider is a weekly, subscriber-only newsletter, where our managing editor curates HBR stories, research, and ideas that senior leaders shouldn’t miss.

  • Is Reluctance to Step into Leadership a Sign of Maturity or a Red Flag?

    Is Reluctance to Step into Leadership a Sign of Maturity or a Red Flag?

    Harvard Business Review Logo

    Deagreez/Getty Images

    Organizations often equate eagerness to lead with readiness, overlooking employees who hesitate to step forward. But reluctance can reflect self-awareness, careful consideration of the

    Organizations tend to notice people who project assertiveness. Employees who confidently put themselves forward, speak often and openly about their ambitions, and appear eager to take charge are more likely to be identified as leadership material. Their desire for the role is easily interpreted as evidence that they are ready for it. Yet being eager to lead is not the same as being ready to lead.

  • Research: How Speech Patterns Shape Opportunity at Work

    Research: How Speech Patterns Shape Opportunity at Work

    Harvard Business Review Logo

    Tatiana Maksimova/Getty Images

    Summary.   

    Employees’ speech patterns can shape their careers, not because speech reliably predicts ability, but because managers often mistake familiarity for social skill. A new study, which draws on

    This article was produced by Harvard Business School Working Knowledge and features the insights of faculty member Kadeem Noray.

  • When a Team Member Underperforms—but Has Organizational Capital

    When a Team Member Underperforms—but Has Organizational Capital

    Harvard Business Review Logo

    HBR Staff/AI

    Summary.   

    Leaders sometimes inherit an underperforming employee they cannot remove, leaving them responsible for results without the authority to address the problem. They can limit the damage by testing

    Some of the most damaging performance problems have nothing to do with who you hired. They’re about members of your team you’re not allowed to remove.

  • Research: Gen AI Is Collapsing Creative Processes

    Research: Gen AI Is Collapsing Creative Processes

    Harvard Business Review Logo

    Illustration by Alex Robbins

    Generative AI is transforming creative work by making it faster and easier to brainstorm and visualize ideas. But a new, yearlong study following senior creatives in charge of television and

    Imagine a photographer reviewing a concept image for an advertising campaign that the client has already approved. He notices a problem: The man in the image is wearing a baseball cap that casts his face in shadow, but his eyes are clearly lit, showing his intense stare into the camera. The photographer’s trained eye tells him immediately that that lighting is impossible. No real-world set up could produce it. The image had been created by a senior creative using gen AI, and the client had loved it. Now the production team has been tasked with recreating—with cameras and human actors—something that reality can’t match.

  • When There’s More Work Than Your Team Can Handle

    When There’s More Work Than Your Team Can Handle

    Harvard Business Review Logo

    Martin Poole/Getty Images

    When demands increase while resources shrink, leaders can’t simply absorb the extra work or push an already-overextended team harder. Both approaches carry costs:

    When my coaching client, Chris* became chief legal counsel at a financial services firm, he didn’t anticipate how fast the workload would escalate. Within his first year, the company closed three major acquisitions back-to-back, producing an avalanche of contract reviews, compliance filings, and regulatory matters. Every time Chris tried to hand something off, his team would say, “we’re doing our best, but we’re at capacity.” He understood, but since the work still had to get done, Chris absorbed it himself. Working nights and weekends to keep up soon compromised Chris’s ability to drive the very high-level strategy he’d been tapped to lead.