Real Case Stories

Stamp celebrating the history of the Reinheitsgebot. The Reinheitsgebot  (literally "purity order"), sometimes called the "German Beer Purity Law", is the collective name for a series of regulations limiting the ingredients in beer in Germany src Wiki Five hundred years ago, on April 23, 1516, two Bavarian dukes enacted the law. “In all cities and markets and in the countryside,” the Reinheitsgebot reads, “only barley, hops, and water may be used for brewing beer.” (Yeast was added to the law later, after Louis Pasteur discovered what was doing the fermenting.)  src HBR The text of the 1516 Bavarian law is as follows: We hereby proclaim and decree, by Authority of our Province, that henceforth in the Duchy of Bavaria, in the country as well as in the cities and marketplaces, the following rules apply to the sale of beer: From   Michaelmas   to   Georgi , the price for one Mass [Bavarian Liter 1,069] or one Kopf [bowl-shaped container for fluids,...

Why is Feedback only synonymous with Negative? Why do we give only Negative Feedback? It's very common to see people get very defensive when someone gives a feedback which is perceived as Negative. One tends to lockdown and get into a counter offensive mode whenever such feedback is given. This very often results in promoting a culture where people don't openly discuss issues. This author,Sonia Di Maulo  proposes a 3+1 feedback model. For every One opportunity for improvement, 3 positives need to be highlighted first. They key to the 3 positives is It builds Trust and Collaboration It increases engagement

MIT's Richard Locke researched  2 Nike tshirt factories in Mexico. These two factories have many similarities - both are in Mexico, both are in the apparel industry, both produce more or less the same products for Nike (and other brands) and both are subject to the same code of conduct. Plant 1 gave workers complete freedom to decide production targets, team organization and managing production plants and schedule. Employees work in teams and are also responsible for routine maintenance of equipment. Jobs are rotated and they value knowing how to perform a variety of operations and claimed that this opportunity to work on several operations plus in teams significantly improved working conditions. Every morning, the supervisors communicate to each team the style and quantity of products they need to produce. The workers would get together and discuss amongst themselves how much they can actually produce and then meet with the supervisor and agree on the production target f...

Kevin Systrom worked in Google for 3 years before quitting and eventually co-founding Instagram which was acquired by Facebook for a billion dollars. In his book "How Google Works", Eric Schmidt writes about this incident. Salar Kamangar was very impressed with young Kevin who was a marketing associate and wanted to transfer him to the Elite APM program (Associate Product Manager). He was however rejected because the programme only accepted candidates with a computer science degree. Even though Kevin was a self-taught programmer and had a history of working with engineers he wasn't allowed into the programme. Read the book

In this study by Sociologist Cedric Herring, he found an association between Diverse workforce and increased corporate profits and earnings. This is in contrast to other accounts that view diversity as either nonconsequential to business success or actually detrimental by creating conflict, undermining cohesion, and thus decreasing productivity. This research tests eight hypotheses derived from the value-in-diversity thesis. The results support seven of these hypotheses: Racial diversity is associated with increased sales revenue, more customers, greater market share, and greater relative profits. Gender diversity is associated with increased sales revenue, more customers, and greater relative profits.  The value-in-diversity perspective makes the business case for diversity, arguing that a diverse workforce, relative to a homogeneous one, produces better business results. Diversity is thus good for business because it offers a direct return on investment, promising greater...

WhatsApp co founder Brian Acton had applied for a job at Facebook in 2009 but was rejected. He had posted this sad tweet "Facebook turned me down. It was a great opportunity to connect with some fantastic people. Looking forward to life's next adventure." Here's the link to the tweet He eventually sold his company WhatsApp to Facebook for a whopping $19 billion

In this research , the team found that just 3 minutes of Negative news in the morning can lead to a 27% higher likelihood of you having a bad day. The negative news in the morning can set the trend for the day. One group was exposed to Negative News and another was exposed to Negative News with a solution focus. Individuals who watched just three minutes of negative news in the morning had a whopping 27% greater likelihood of reporting their day as unhappy six to eight hours later compared to the positive condition. The article however also proposed another theory. When exposed to a Problem followed by a solution, the mood significantly changed. Participants were found to be less hostile than those only exposed to the problems. Also read Consuming Negative News can make you less Effective at Work

In this Harvard Research paper  on "Initial Offer Precision and M&A Outcomes", the researchers put forward evidence to show that the maker of the first offer may be able to further tilt the bargaining game to her advantage by expressing the offer price in precise terms . For example, a list price of $1,020,000 is more informative and likely to lead to a smaller price adjustment than a list price of $1,000,000. In another example, he states that a bid for $10.20 per share leaves the impression that the bidder is less likely to revise the bid significantly upward than a bid for $10.00 per share. Some of the reasons are 1. Competing bidders may view precise offers as more informed, and, perhaps because of the winner’s curse, may not wish to enter a bidding contest against an ostensibly more informed bidder 2. Targets may interpret precise offers as evidence that the acquirer is informed and knows what it is doing. 3.  Targets may be more willing to close the dea...

Anthony Schuman , a health services researcher, has published a paper on Human relationships. Through his teaching and writing (more than 90 articles and book chapters and the book “Partnerships in Healthcare: Transforming Relational Process”) he has become a leading proponent of a partnership-based clinical approach known as Relationship-Centered Care. His work focuses on organizational change and how people can work together more effectively across all levels of healthcare. When people disagree at work, it is often misinterpreted as a personal attack. The standard reaction is that " If you like my idea, you like me, if not, you don't like me"  src HBR Suchman recommends using a series of Relationship building statements represented in the Acronym  PEARLS. src WSU.edu Partnership             We’ll see this through together             I really want to work o...

This NYTimes story cites a very interesting case of a Toll collector strike in England. During the strike drivers were just asked to put the toll money into a collection box. Surprisingly the government collected more told money during the strike. This indicates that the drivers were fairly honest but also indicated that the Toll collectors had been stealing a lot of money.