How Shopify Changed E-Commerce
Introduction Starting an online business used to require solving a surprising number of technical and operational problems before a company could make its first sale. An entrepreneur needed a website,...
What Businesses Can Learn From Netflix: Disruption and Adaptation
Introduction The hardest business decision is often not recognizing that the market is changing. It's deciding whether to change a successful business before that change becomes unavoidable. Netflix provides an...
The Most Common HR Problems and How to Handle Them
Introduction Human resources problems rarely arrive as neatly defined HR cases. A manager may come to HR because two employees can no longer work together. An employee may raise a...
How to Handle Difficult Employees: Common Problems and Solutions
Introduction Few management responsibilities are more frustrating than dealing with an employee who consistently creates problems for the rest of the team. The behavior can take many forms. An employee...
What Businesses Can Learn From Coursera: Disrupting Online Learning
Online education was not invented by Coursera. Universities had offered distance learning for decades, and companies had already been delivering training through the internet. What Coursera changed was the scale,...
Common Employee Ethics Problems Managers Shouldn't Ignore
Introduction Most workplace ethics problems don't begin as major scandals. They often start with something that seems relatively minor: an employee taking credit for someone else's work, misrepresenting information, using...
How to Avoid Making Career Mistakes Without Realizing It
Introduction Some professionals work hard, consistently deliver results, and still find their careers moving more slowly than they expected. They may be dependable employees who rarely miss deadlines. They may...
How to Avoid Making a Bad Impression at Work
Introduction Making a bad impression at work doesn't always involve a major mistake. Sometimes it happens through a pattern of small behaviors: repeatedly arriving unprepared, interrupting coworkers, missing deadlines without...
Why Do Workplace Teams Fail to Communicate?
Introduction A team can have talented employees, clear goals, and the right technology and still struggle to get work done because people aren't communicating effectively. A project manager assumes another...
Common Workplace Safety Violations and How to Prevent Them
Introduction Workplace safety violations are rarely the result of a company intentionally deciding to put employees in danger. More often, they develop through a combination of outdated procedures, inadequate training,...
How to Talk to Employees About Workplace Ethics
Introduction Most organizations have a code of conduct. Many also provide annual compliance training. Yet that doesn't necessarily mean employees know how to handle an ethical problem when one actually...
What Businesses Can Learn From Apple
Introduction Apple is often discussed as a technology company, but some of its most valuable lessons have little to do with technology. The company's history offers a case study in...