Berry Picker

Some exciting news to share with the HBR community: The new HBR iPad app is now live in the iTunes app store. This launch is the realization of almost a year's worth of planning, proposing, modeling, designing, building, and general preparation. Senior Editor Scott Berinato and Assistant Product Marketing Director Kate Adams led dozens of people in the effort — in the building here and also with our partners at ScrollMotion. Needless to say, we're all pretty chuffed about it and wanted to let everyone know what they can find in the app.

But first, a bit of background. Over the last two years, Harvard Business Review has undergone a pretty remarkable transformation. We've grown from a brand primarily associated with a monthly print magazine to a brand that now encompasses a rejuvenated magazine, a thriving daily web site, an award-winning book line, a growing learning network and suite of tools, smartphone apps, audio, video, Webinars, "e-single" books, research and analytics, and now a rich new iPad app. Today, through all these touchpoints, we can bring you the kind of important leadership insights and guidance you want and need, however you want to consume them.

This new app is a true embodiment of that transformation — encompassing the magazine, the best of our web site, and very soon, a representation of our books lines and other products. The app is free to all, and you'll start getting value from the app immediately after downloading, thanks to the feeds that curate the best of our web efforts plus our very popular Management Tip of the Day and Daily Stat. You can also preview a portion of the magazine free of charge. Should you be interested in purchasing an issue or a subscription to the iPad version of the magazine, we've created a number of different options. Not long after launch, we'll be offering a subscription that includes the tablet and the print magazine together.

In the run up to this launch, we did a lot of community surveying and testing, trying to get a better sense of what you valued in the iPad form factor and from HBR. While the HBR community expressed interest in our running additional multimedia components with the magazine articles, the true desires surfaced were around more utilitarian features like sharing content with your social networks and via email. That focus on utility is at the heart of the new app.

It's important to note that this launch is just the beginning of our journey with you in the tablet realm. Next we'll be adding the functionality we couldn't make happen for launch, things like getting our books and other products and back issues of the magazine available, and adding yet more functionality that increases the utility of the content. What's more, this first iteration is available in the U.S. only. We will roll out an international version very soon.

Lastly, we created the promotional video below to capture some of our excitement about the new app. Enjoy it, download the free app in the iTunes store and let us know what you think. We look forward to continuing the conversation.

Mustering willpower is a struggle for almost everyone — and it's getting harder. We, as individuals and as a society, lack self-control at precisely the time we need it most.

Willpower is about more than resisting our bad habits. It's the mental discipline that allows us to cultivate good habits, make better decisions, and control our own behaviors — everything from dieting effectively to powering through difficult problems at work. It's a quality that can separate the most productive businesspeople from the least productive. And it's a trait that many of us lack. Surveys of more than 1 million people show that self-control is the character trait modern men and women recognize least in themselves.

Our environment only exacerbates the problem. The jungle of stimuli that engulfs us each day make it difficult to exercise restraint or focus on the important habits we need to build or tasks we need to accomplish. Nicholas Carr has argued in his book, The Shallows, that the internet is destroying our ability to concentrate and read or think deeply; and as John Tierney and Roy Baumeister point out in their book, Willpower, a typical computer user checks out more than three dozen websites per day. Focusing on an important memo is hampered by the distraction of Facebook and the incessant new email notifications blinking on our smartphones. Our ability to read a book is handicapped by the impatience of our 140-character habits. Even as I write this article, I'm tempted to snack, surf Wikipedia, check Twitter, or switch to another task.

But willpower is an essential quality you'll need for personal effectiveness at work, forcing yourself to prioritize the most important items on your to-do list, powering through an endless day of difficult decisions, or simply resisting the urge to eat that extra bag of chips in the office snack room. Want to grow your business or get that promotion at work? Cultivating willpower may be your quickest route to success.

To combat declining willpower, consider a few of the following approaches, based in part on Tierney and Baumeister's recommendations:

• Practice small. Did you know that by reminding yourself to sit up straight at your desk you can train the same mental muscle you need to quit smoking or sustainably shed pounds? Research has indicated (PDF) that even reminding yourself to keep good posture on a regular basis can gradually improve your ability to self-regulate, and maintaining a regular exercise routine may improve self-control. Practice small exercises in self-control, and your overall willpower will benefit.
• Take on your greatest challenges one at a time. How long was your New Year's resolutions list this year? How many points have you already ignored? Even my suggested list for young leaders had five separate points, but if you want to shake a particularly trying habit (or build a good one), you should only focus on one major change at a time. Start, for instance, with your resolution to check Facebook or Twitter only twice per day; then, once you're free of that habit, move on to your new diet and exercise plan. In the short term, the amount of willpower you have is fixed, and overloading yourself with new tasks that require it may diminish your ability to accomplish any goal.
• Monitor, monitor, monitor. Want to run a fast mile? Time every run. Want to write the next great American novel? Post the word count you've written every day on Facebook for all your friends to see. The more you monitor something (and ask others to help you monitor) the more likely you are to stay on task. Sites like Quantified Self offer an increasingly diverse array of ways to self-monitor, just as sites like Mint.com offer specific opportunities for self-regulation. If you're distracted by Facebook, Twitter, or other social media at work, keep a log of every time you check those sites and force yourself to introduce small goals to reduce the number of times you visit them every day.
• Find time to replenish. In the short term, you only have so much willpower, and once it's depleted, your ability to exercise self-control or make sound decisions diminishes dramatically. If you're in a stressful job, for example, your ability to make decisions is worse in the afternoon than in the morning. However, finding downtime and even eating (replenishing your body's glucose) can help you replenish your willpower before taking on difficult decisions or tasks. Skipping or working through lunch may actually negatively impact both your ability to make decisions and your ability to work productively in the afternoon.
• Keep it clean. A simple way to improve willpower is to operate in a neat environment. Tierney and Baumeister note that environmental cues like messy desks or unmade beds can "infect" the rest of your life and habits with disorder, whereas maintaining a neat and clean environment can help you to maintain order and self-control in the other tasks you confront. If your office or cubicle is a mess at work, make your first order of business to organize your space, and you may find your focus and productivity improving at work.

Willpower is a struggle in the modern era. Our distraction-filled lives make it innately difficult. These are just a few tips to build and maintain willpower, but starting here may help you build a critical personal discipline.

What else do you do to stay on track?

This post is part of a series of blog posts by and about the new generation of purpose-driven leaders.

This Sunday many of us will be watching the red carpet arrivals and cheering for our favorite actresses, actors, and films at the 84th annual Academy Awards. Winning an Oscar not only signals the high quality of a film, but also creates a marketing windfall. Given all of this newly-created value, it's fair for cinemas to consider raising ticket prices for Oscar-winning-or even Oscar-nominated films.

The industry could use the extra revenue. While the movie business is glamorous, it isn't a cash cow. Operating margins, for example, for Viacom's filmed entertainment division (which includes Paramount Pictures) and the Regal Entertainment Group (a large cinema chain) are 6% and 8% respectively. An extra buck or two of margin for select films would be meaningful to both studios and movie houses.

There's an argument that filmgoers are willing to pay more for new bells and whistles. Ticket prices for 3-D films, for instance, average 8% higher than their 2-D counterparts. Since winning an Oscar differentiates a film, there's rationale to charge more.

While I am a big proponent of setting prices to capture value, in this instance I'm wary of raising prices. Consumer sentiment regarding cinema prices is akin to a tinderbox waiting for the spark to flare up. Why? Consumers can easily calculate the premiums they are paying to enjoy the cinema experience. Instead of paying $11 per-person at the box office, they know that in a few months they'll be able to rent the DVD at Redbox for a buck or so. Similarly, they know that concession-priced popcorn, candy, and soda can be purchased for a fraction of the cost elsewhere. A $35 night at the movies can be replicated at home for $5 or so.

Sure, watching a movie at the cinema is a different — arguably better — experience compared to watching at home. What's unique about this scenario is that the prices of a good next-best alternative (watching at home) are so transparent — it's so much cheaper. A dollar or two premium at the box office could be the spark that ignites a "we are being taking advantage of" consumer backlash.

Instead of charging such an overt premium, studios and cinemas have another option. Given that movies often sell out on weekend nights, why not dynamically price movie tickets? Start with a base price and if a movie is close to selling out, charge more. The pitch to consumers is more appealing: "We know that you want to see your favorite movie on Saturday night. But given our limited capacity, our 8 PM showing is close to selling out. By using price to allocate scarce seats, you can still come at your preferred time period for a few dollars more. However, if you want to save money, come to the 6 PM or 10 PM showing."

Dynamic pricing seems fairer to consumers. The price increase is due to capacity constraints — they're not just charging more because they can — and lower priced options are available. This subtle difference in approach to increasing prices is especially important during this time when consumers are quick to vent via social media. Understandable explanations and choices are essential to successfully raising prices. This strategy — as opposed to singling out specific films — may be more beneficial to theaters and cinemas. Prices will be raised when a showing is close to selling out — which can occur for popular films as well as popular time slots (i.e., date nights). This captures the increased value of both the film and usage occasion.

So what do you think? Should cinemas charge more for Oscar winners? Does dynamically raising prices to keep seats available during popular times — instead of selling out at lower prices — seem fair? Do you think cinemas should lower prices on slower-selling films? I'd enjoy hearing your thoughts.

Let's get real — and back to basics.

In an era of high unemployment, and especially in this political season of economic nationalism, both parties outdo themselves with promises to "rebuild America." Yet, the imperatives of offshore facilities and employees are — and will remain — central to American companies' international competitiveness. A company's foreign sales can approach or exceed 50 percent; its non-U.S. employees can be 25 percent or greater of total workforce; its supply chain of third parties is vital.

Yes, everyone would agree that we have serious economic policy issues at home about creating jobs, stimulating growth, increasing exports, improving education, investing in R&D, encouraging high-tech manufacturing — and about reconciling the cost of any governmental initiatives with significant debt reduction. However, given partisan divisions about proper public/private roles, these issues will stay in flux — and will be distorted or obfuscated as the campaigns jockey for position — until after the election.

What is not in flux is this fundamental reality: American companies will, for a wide variety of reasons relating to global dynamism, continue to participate in this transformative era of global economic change by increasing activities and hiring workers outside the U.S., especially in fast-growing foreign markets. (They may also, on a limited basis, move some jobs back to the U.S. for certain domestic markets due to rising costs abroad and labor productivity at home.) Yet, politicians oppose — or at least do not defend, and certainly do not fairly explain — this most fundamental international dimension of global business reality. In the State of the Union, President Obama declaimed: "No, we will not go back to an economy weakened by outsourcing..." The Republican candidates largely stand mute on off-shoring because of jobless pain at home and the difficulty of explaining that trade is only one factor causing unemployment. Offshoring and outsourcing today are like sex in the Victorian era: repressed or criticized in public discussion, much practiced in private behavior.

It is therefore vital for global businesses, which may be subject to exacting scrutiny, to defend offshoring with clear positions and clear actions regarding purpose, global standards and assistance for displaced workers. These have always been "must do's" in the long debate about labor markets in globalization, but clarity on these issues is especially necessary this year. So here, in brief compass, are my views on the responsible, competitive basics of offshoring and outsourcing which global companies must be prepared to embrace forcefully — and to articulate clearly in their communities, with their stakeholders and, as necessary, in the political maelstrom.

Business Purpose. Companies must step up and honestly explain why they offshore business functions and employment in a broad array of product and service activities to compete in a truly global economy. Among the strong (and standard) reasons that non-business people could understand, if properly explained (and if supported by the facts), are:

• The need to stay cost-competitive with companies headquartered elsewhere, either through reduced finished product/service cost or through supply chain efficiencies;
• The need to manufacture, assemble, provide services, and do R&D in order to understand and sell in a local market, and to attract great local talent for jobs that would not ever be offered in the U.S.;
• The need to have a significant employment or plant/equipment presence in a local market because host governments demand it;
• Because such a presence can also pull a company's high-end exports from the U.S.;
• Because a presence can strengthen that market's economy and thus increase U.S. exports over time;
• Because any products imported back to the U.S. can benefit consumers and the economy with lower cost (although foreign operations often sell in foreign markets).

Use of Revenues and Margins. Similarly, companies must be more forceful in explaining the uses of revenues and margins derived from offshoring/outsourcing's competitive cost structures and local appeal. They are key both to cash flow which finances dividends, and to "net income" that drives stock price which, in turn, benefits shareholders (heavily American) — especially older individuals who are either direct investors or who rely on pension funds. The cash from high revenues and margins is also often used to enhance the corporation: for improving its operations, productivity, technology and products, or for increasing reach and scale efficiencies through acquisitions. In a well-run, responsible company, only a tiny percentage of cash from global "profits" is used for executive compensation (an exception being some financial service companies where a high percentage of revenue goes to compensation).

Working Conditions. One of the traditional arguments against globalization is that multinationals offshore to emerging markets to avoid environmental, health and safety regulations in the developed world. In response to that criticism, international corporations have set — or should set — policies to assure decent working conditions overseas, both in their own facilities and in facilities of third party suppliers.

These policies cover such issues as: prohibitions on child and prison labor, wages and hours, living conditions, worker safety, adherence to environmental standards, non-discrimination and non-harassment. Importantly, the policies can be based either on local law or on standards beyond local law corporations voluntarily adopt. For example, multinationals might adopt a minimum age of 16 for child labor in all nations both for the welfare of child and for administrative convenience (child labor laws vary across nations).

These policies must be made real by implementing systems and processes in education and training, in leadership development, in protocols for qualifying and re-qualifying suppliers as well as for assessing second and third tier suppliers, and by imposing real sanctions when suppliers violate standards. Critically, the policies and their implementation must be subject to verification for credibility — either by inside or outside auditors, or in public reports from independent third party auditors (such as those established in the late 1990's under the Apparel Agreement between retailers and recently forced on Apple after working conditions in Chinese factories made the front-pages and led to global protests at Apple stores).

Quality. It is imperative that global companies ensure quality in their offerings with overseas input — whether complying with legal requirements or following self-imposed quality standards. Serious safety and quality concerns in offshored or outsourced components, ingredients and products are now a key part of the globalization debate. Lead paint in toys, antifreeze in toothpaste, tainted ingredients in blood-thinner medicine and unsafe food (for people and even pets) — these events have led consumers, parents, patients and regulators to question whether products using global suppliers are of sufficient quality and safety to protect American end-users — and end-users elsewhere in the world — from grievous harm. Companies must proactively address these concerns as a matter of course.

"Deverticalization" in creation of goods and services through use of third party suppliers does not relieve the ultimate seller from ultimate responsibility. The seller must assure tight contracting and a vigilant oversight "system" quality for items sold in the global marketplace to avoid defects that threaten functionality or, more importantly, that risk impairing health and safety.

Worker Transition at Home. Whether due to ethical concerns, to sound policy or to good politics, American multinational companies would be wise to use their balance sheets, when possible, to provide decent severance, job training and outplacement services to workers displaced in the U.S. Such company-specific efforts can be coordinated with governmental safety net programs, including Trade Adjustment Assistance. Aimed specifically at training, job placement, income support and health care for workers laid off due to international trade, this 50-year-old program was re-authorized last fall by bi-partisan majorities in both the House and the Senate. Its funding is not robust; it needs to be coordinated/consolidated with other programs for displaced workers (like unemployment insurance); its effectiveness in placing workers can be improved. But it is a program — and broader safety net concept — which multinationals should support and improve, in addition to programs for their own displaced workers, to assist those American workers adversely affected by accelerating global technology change and competition.

After the election, the American people and American companies face many difficult public policy issues on labor markets and competitiveness in the deeply interconnected national and international economies. But for now, one thing is sure: corporations involved in international competition across the globe must practice and, when challenged, defend, responsible offshoring and outsourcing in fast-growing international markets — and it is especially important for them to do so in this election year when the issue may be distorted, misunderstood or unpopular.

Such overseas activity is a fundamental piece of the great puzzle for the future: what is the proper mix of public policies and private actions that will allow U.S. corporations to compete globally — against corporations benefited by "industrial policy" in other "market capitalism" countries; and against the new class of corporate powerhouses from autocratic nations practicing "state capitalism," who benefit from their governments' blatant favoritism?

This post is part of the HBR Insight Center on American Competitiveness.

When I was growing up, one of the principles in our house was that we had to tell the truth, no matter how painful it might be. Lying, we were taught, wasn't something you could get away with. Like Pinocchio's nose, it would be apparent to others.

Children of course need clear rules to learn the difference between right and wrong. However as we get older, the truth becomes more nuanced — and there are times when a little white lie or the absence of some key facts might be appropriate. The problem is that all of us have different standards for when, why, and how we shade the truth. These divergent 'shades of gray' then cause miscommunication, breakdowns of trust, and other dysfunctional behaviors. That's why, despite the inclusion of "integrity" in almost every value statement, some form of lying is common in most companies.

From my experience, there are three fundamental concerns that cause people to shade the truth, either consciously or not. Being aware of these "lying triggers" can sometimes help to improve communication and reduce the feelings of mistrust.

Impact of the truth on yourself: It's human nature to want people to think well of us, particularly those who have influence over our lives and careers. At the same time we all make mistakes, so we create justifications and excuses — many of which are at best half-truths. I recall a manager whose key project was behind schedule, largely due to his lack of discipline and follow-up. Yet when asked why the project was lagging, he blamed a snowstorm (from six months previously) for slowing down the work.

Impact of the truth on others: One way to gain others' approval is to avoid pointing out things that may damage their self-image. As a result, many people withhold some or all of their true thoughts about others. For example, a senior executive complained to me recently that one of his managers never gave her people negative criticism during performance reviews. To justify that behavior, she said that it was better to reinforce positive behaviors rather than point out weaknesses — a strategy that also happened to make her popular with her team. The senior executive however was convinced that her drive to be well liked was doing the team a disservice, because they didn't know what they could do to improve.

Impact of the truth on business success: To be successful almost every organization needs to sell — be it a product, a service, a story, or a promise. But much of that selling is done without truthful disclosure of what it will take to fulfill the sale. That's why product salespeople will often take an order without revealing to the customer that there may be supply problems, or why a CEO will tout the benefits of an acquisition without mentioning the challenges of integration. Showing customers or partners what's truly behind the curtain could undermine credibility and threaten the deal. The wiser course in many cases is to limit the truth and figure out how to "deliver" later.

It's easy to be judgmental about all these situations and to insist on absolute truth at all times. But people don't work that way, and neither do organizations. As managers, the best we can do is to be more aware of why we avoid or shade the truth — and make sure that it's an appropriate time to do so.

How truthful is your organization? What's your experience with shades of gray?

Complaints about email abound. Perhaps you've heard some of these or uttered them in pain yourself: I receive hundreds of emails a day. I can spend my whole day responding to incoming messages. I can't find anything in my inbox. In response, some companies are taking drastic steps to help workers manage the number of messages they receive. The CEO of Atos, a British IT services company, has vowed to ban internal email by 2015. Volkswagen in Germany has agreed to stop sending emails to certain employees after work hours. If these companies are taking radical action, is it time for you to do the same to counter your own overload?

What the Experts Say
Productivity experts counsel against such extreme measures. Email is certainly a threat to efficiency, says David Allen, a consultant and the author of Getting Things Done and Making It All Work, but he maintains that it's also an essential work tool. "I've had email since 1983. I couldn't live the life I live without it," he says. Bob Pozen, a senior lecturer of business administration at Harvard Business School and author of "Extreme Productivity" agrees. Even if you wanted to use it less, he says, it's nearly impossible to get people by phone or in person these days. Both Pozen and Allen believe that sweeping rules like the ones Atos and VW are trying are not necessary. You can regain control over your email, and reduce its insidious effects on your productivity, by looking at the root causes of the problem and then following a few straightforward rules.

Recognize it's not really about email
According to Allen, email overload is only a symptom of a larger issue: a lack of clear and effective protocols. If your organization has ambiguous decision-making processes and people don't get what they need from their colleagues, they'll flood the system with email and meeting requests. People then get mired down in their backlog, which leads to even more email and meeting requests from frustrated co-workers trying to follow up.

Allen had one client who had an average backlog of 3,000 – 4,000 emails. When he finally cleared and stayed on top of his inbox, both his email traffic and his meeting load went down. His colleagues got the direction and input they needed so they didn't need to hound him. "Email handled well reduces meetings. And meetings handled well reduces emails," Allen says. Taking the time to reply now can save you twice the time in the future.

Control your flow
Another way to reduce the time you spend on email is to turn off the spigot of incoming messages. There are obvious practices that help, such as unsubscribing to e-newsletters or turning off notifications from Facebook or Twitter. But you may also want to reconsider whether your colleagues or direct reports are copying you on too many "for your information" emails. If so, simply explain that you only need to be updated at certain times or when a final decision is made.

Pozen says you can also reduce how many you receive by sending fewer and limiting whom you send to. Resist the temptation to send one-word messages such as "Thanks!" Don't hit "Reply All" unless everyone needs to hear what you have to say. Don't rely on email to make big decisions or to sort through complex issues, such as policy changes, that will warrant tons of back and forth. Know what is better handled face to face or by phone. By modeling good email practice, you can encourage those around you to only send messages when it's necessary and appropriate.

Clear out your inbox and keep it clean
No matter how much you do the above, it's still possible you'll have a clogged inbox. You've probably read much of the advice about managing email, but some of it bears repeating. Start by emptying out your inbox. If you have thousands of messages in your main folder, create a new folder called "Old Inbox" and put the messages in there. You still have access to them if need be but you will be able to handle incoming messages more easily without the clutter staring back at you.

Once you've gotten to zero messages (or at least close to it), commit to sorting through new email right away. Use the following three steps:

1. Delete. Glance over your inbox and delete any messages you don't need to read or keep: calendar invites, advertisements, etc. "You ought to be able to discard 80% of them just by looking at the title," says Pozen.
2. Respond. If you can reply to a message in a few minutes or less, go ahead and do that. "If you put it off, you lose time by trying to find it, or remembering what you wanted to say," says Pozen.
3. File. For the rest of your messages, decide where they should go. Put them into folders or use flags or labels to indicate how high priority they are and when you need to respond by.

Choose a handful of times during the day when you will review your inbox. If you do it every five minutes, you'll end up spending your whole day on email. But don't try to go cold turkey either. Checking your email only once or twice a day is impractical. "Most people who send an email are looking for a response quickly," says Pozen.

Be careful with rules
According to both Allen and Pozen, sweeping policies that effect a broad population of workers and dictate how and when they check email are not realistic, nor likely to be effective. "Why hamstring your employees with silly rules?," says Allen. Plus policies like these don't always stick. "It's hard to come up with mechanical rules that work for everyone," says Pozen.

That doesn't mean all rules are bad however. You can develop guidelines for yourself and those you interact with. Encourage others to limit emails to only those who have an action item. Have open discussions about how you will communicate about specific topics. "Try to reach agreement with the group on what's reasonable to send and receive," says Pozen.

Take an occasional break
Since email is such a constant presence in our lives, it can be rejuvenating to disconnect from all things digital once in a while. Some do this whenever they go on vacation. Others take a deliberate "email sabbatical." "It's always a good idea to untangle yourself from intense interactive engagements every once in a while just to prove you're not hopelessly addicted and get some fresh air," says Allen. Of course, this strategy isn't for everyone: "If you're constantly distracted by what you might be missing, you're way better off spending as much time as you need to handle it," says Allen.

Principles to Remember:

Do:

• Respond quickly and clearly to those who need your attention or input — this will reduce the amount of email you receive
• When you can't reply immediately, file the emails for action later
• Take an email sabbatical on occasion to give yourself a break

Don't:

• Assume that email is the real problem — a clogged inbox might mean you haven't established clear priorities
• Send one-word emails and reply to everyone on a thread — the more email you send the more you will receive
• Think a company-wide policy will solve your email problems — focus on what you can control: your own behavior

Case Study #1: Develop a system and stick to it
Ana Dutra, the CEO of Korn/Ferry International, is known for responding to every email she receives within 24 hours, regardless of who it comes from. But she doesn't feel like she spends too much time on email. "I have a system that works for me," she says. It is a process she felt forced to develop when she led the global organization strategy practice at Accenture and received 250 to 300 emails per day. While that number is lower now that she's at Korn/Ferry (around 120 emails a day, she says), she is still committed to staying on top of her email and keeping her inbox clean. "The more it accumulates, the harder it is to catch up and determine what's important and what's not," she says.

Ana uses a four-step process each time she opens her Blackberry or Outlook inbox. She starts by deleting anything she can: invites, spam, etc. She then sorts by subject so she is only looking at the last message in a conversation. She doesn't look at the previous trail of email unless she needs to. "The problem may have already been solved," she points out. She then looks at the messages she was copied on to see if there is something urgent or whether she is just being kept in the loop. The last thing she does is reply to messages that can be handled immediately and files the rest into folders.

For her it's a matter of respect to reply promptly. "It takes 20-30 seconds to write a quick email explaining when you will get to something," she says. "So much is resolved and so many decisions are made by email, it is irresponsible not to respond." She also trains those she works with. "If you want me to read what you write to me, make it short," she says. She encourages people to label things "Action required" or "No action — FYI only."

Every time she has down time — in a car, waiting for an appointment — she cleans out her inbox. She doesn't think of the time she spends managing her email as an encumbrance. In fact it's the opposite. "It doesn't feel like a burden at all. It feels great," she says.

Case Study #2: Stop the source
Frank Sopper, the President of OpenBook Learning, a company that provides educational software to U.S. public schools and advises executives on cognitive effectiveness, does not want to be copied on any emails. "I don't slap anyone's hand if they do," he says, "but I may ask, 'Why are you sending this to me?'" Sopper started to look closely as the emails he was receiving several years back in a previous role. He asked himself: Is there an action item here for me? If not, why am I receiving these?

At OpenBook, he has pushed the people he works with to think carefully about why they are sending an email and who needs to receive it. "We've really worked hard in our organization not to copy anyone on an email unless there's an action item for them," he says. The goal is not to stifle conversation but to make sure it's relevant. "Anyone can communicate with me. They send me an email with me in the 'To' line."

Managers at OpenBook don't feel constrained by the rule. In fact, Sopper says that people seem relieved because they feel trusted to do their job. And he relies on other tools to monitor performance. "I have to trust that we have metrics that measure people's work without watching their conversations," he says.

Has the no CC approach significantly reduced his email load? "I don't know how many emails I receive," he acknowledges. "I get rid of them, move them into folders. They don't stack up in my inbox. But I know it's sharply less than my peers who are running similar sized organizations."

"My manager expects me to be at my desk from 9 to 5," a highly successful salesperson lamented during a break at a session I was delivering at a progressive company in Silicon Valley. "I love my job," she went on, "but I have an hour and fifteen minute commute each way, and it's just wearing me down."

"Could you do your work from home?" I asked.

"Absolutely," she told me.

How crazy is that? Her boss shouldn't just be allowing her to work from home, he ought to be encouraging it.

Most employers still tell their employees when to come to work, when to leave, and how they're expected to work when they're there. Why not measure employees by the value they create, rather than by the number of hours they sit at a desk?

Too many companies continue to operate by the premise that their employees can't be fully trusted, and so treat them as children, who must be continuously monitored.

The solution is to hire people you're prepared to trust, and then treat them as adults, capable of making responsible adult choices. Do that, and it's a good bet they will. Indeed, considerable evidence suggests that the more confidence managers have in their people, the better they perform.

At the same time, companies who give employees more autonomy have every right to expect accountability. That begins with clearly and explicitly defining what success looks like in any given job, and making that, rather than face time, the measuring stick.

I learned this very quickly in my own company. My first instinct was to have everyone at the office at the same time, because it seemed the most efficient way to work together, and it was convenient for me.

As it turned out, one executive had three young children, and lived more than an hour from the office. Spending that much time commuting wouldn't have served her or us well. Another employee told me she was much more productive working from home. What I know now is that she gets a ton of work accomplished there.

A third employee's commute takes twice as long if he leaves during rush hour, so now he comes in early and leaves early, when he's not working from home. I myself like to write at home in the early morning, and come into the office later.

There are times, it turns out, when it's important to have our whole team together, so we do try to schedule at least one day a week when that can happen.

What we've created is a variation on something called the "Results Only Work Environment," which was first launched among corporate employees at Best Buy. "The simplest definition of a ROWE," founders Cali Ressler and Jodi Thompson have written, "is that each person is free to do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done."

Plainly, there are jobs where face-time is critical, such as a factory worker, or a salesperson in a retail store. Even at that, technology has made it possible to do many such jobs from anywhere. Most Jet Blue customer service agents, for example, work from home.

Giving people more freedom isn't just about when and where they work, it's also about how they work. Letting go of the "how" was something I found more challenging as a leader, because I invariably had strong opinions about the best way to do almost anything.

Over time, I discovered that the more autonomy I gave people, the more confident and expert they became in their domains, the more ownership they took of their results and the happier they were at work. I do weigh in today, and I try to be the voice of the big picture, but I almost never insist on my point of view.

If you define clear deliverables, and give people full responsibility for achieving them, my experience is they'll over deliver far more often than they fall short. They'll also feel more comfortable seeking help when they need it. As Hew Evans, a Sony HR director in Asia, puts it: "If your manager knows what you're doing all the time, you're not doing you're job, and he's not doing his."

In our work with organizations, we do an exercise in which we ask employees to define their workdays in a way that would allow them to feel most productive and satisfied. Then we ask managers to meet with each of their employees and talk about how to best meet each team member's unique preferences, while also taking account of the team's overall needs.

The job of a leader or a manager, I've concluded, isn't to tell people how to get their jobs done, or when and where they do their best work. Rather, it's to free, fuel and inspire them to bring the best of themselves to work every day.

Having a strong domestic manufacturing base is vital to the United States maintaining its world leadership in innovation. That is because advanced manufacturing provides an important institutional foundation for learning and developing process skills and capabilities that are increasingly intertwined with core R&D in some of the industries most important to the country's economic future. These include advanced and specialty materials, biologics, nanotechnology, and precision mechanical devices.

Since joining the Harvard Business School in 2007 (after a long career at IBM, Kodak, Silicon Graphics, and other companies), I have visited hundreds of factories. They include ones that produce a million notebook computers a week, a significant proportion of the world's ibuprofen and acetaminophen, sophisticated biopharmaceuticals, microchip engine controllers for 40% of the world's cars, key components for iPhones, commercial jet engines, scientific instruments, heavy construction equipment, tools for making semiconductors, and solar panels.

With the exception of two jet-engine factories and two plants that make heavy equipment, all were located outside the United States. If that surprises you, you're not alone. Most Americans have no idea where the stuff they buy comes from and don't appreciate how much of the U.S. manufacturing base has disappeared.

A Lot of Manufacturing Is Knowledge Work

Most Americans believe factory work is mechanical, snapping together plastic parts or assembling electronic devices. No thinking required; just put in these four screws 2,400 times a day.

There certainly is a great deal of such routine manual labor going on in the world, but there is also an enormous amount of sophisticated knowledge work. Many of the jobs in the most advanced semiconductor-manufacturing plants are as complex as a lunar-landing mission. Making parts for an iPhone is a challenging mix of materials science, mechanical engineering, precision fabrication, and managing mind-boggling complexity in the supply chain. Producing biologics involves enough biochemistry, chemical engineering, and cell biology to make a graduate student wince.

Working in these plants are inventive people who are the source of important ideas for making products better or in different ways. The best factories routinely conduct scientific experiments to improve their processes, and the best factory managers are teachers and innovators as well as leaders of people.

When R&D and Manufacturing Must Be Near

Manufacturing provides the foundation for many kinds of innovations. If manufacturing processes are immature or the know-how needed to develop the product or process to produce the product is tacit and not well codified, you cannot innovate in a country if the factories are on the other side of the world. R&D and manufacturing must be located close to each other so their people can together figure out how to develop a product that can be manufactured at a cost and level of quality that will make it a commercial success.

This is why I cringe when I see pharmaceutical makers shipping more and more of their production and development capability offshore, or when I see semiconductor tool makers move their manufacturing from the U.S. to Asia.

The bottom line is if a country loses the ability or the capacity to manufacture, its innovation space will be truncated. To me, that is why we have to manufacture in the United States.

This post is part of the HBR Insight Center on American Competitiveness.

Something odd and interesting happens to a lot of people who become very successful. Once the initial thrill wears off, they come to perceive their success as "a catastrophe" and even as "a kind of death," as the playwright Tennessee Williams famously put it, after The Glass Menagerie became a smash hit in 1944. Athletes, scientists, generals, entrepreneurs, executives, performers, and politicians have expressed this paradox in different words. Paul Samuelson, an economist who won the Nobel Prize in 1970, later concluded that, "After winners receive the award and adulation, they wither away into vainglorious sterility."

Understanding this bizarre inversion, or perversion, of success is one of the things that I set out to do in my book, Hannibal and Me: What History's Greatest Military Strategist Can Teach Us About Success and Failure, inspired by a famous line in a Rudyard Kipling poem: "Meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two Impostors just the same."

The idea that disaster, or failure, can be an impostor is in some ways more intuitive. In places such as Silicon Valley, it has become almost fashionable to fail fast, early, and often — in a sense, to fail into success and call it innovation. Even in our wider society, a lot of people are discovering that their personal disasters paradoxically liberated them to start anew, to live the life they actually wanted but needed an excuse to start living.

The other impostor — triumph, or success — can be the more sinister and cunning of the pair. Success adjusts its weapon to its victim. Some people succumb to hubris, the arrogant overconfidence that often follows success (think Tiger Woods or Eliot Spitzer). Others fall prey to less spectacular but more insidious manifestations of the impostor, such as distraction or paranoia.

But perhaps the subtlest ruse of success, and the one I will focus on in this post, is its way of imprisoning its owner. Specifically, it seems to be the successful person's imagination that is taken captive.

Success often comes from a feat of freedom by somebody's "impudent" imagination (Albert Einstein's word). Consider Pablo Picasso circa 1907. How did this young man (in his twenties) have the outrageous idea to draw a group of prostitutes in a brothel as though their faces were primitive African masks and their limbs disembodied cubes? Nothing of the sort had ever been done before. It was a leap of the imagination, a shocking transgression, an idea that required his imagination to burst out of all restrictions. And then it became a painting, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, which was Picasso's triumph.

Or take a similar feat of free imagination in a military context. In 218 BCE, the Carthaginian general Hannibal decided to attack the Roman empire. Hannibal was also in his twenties, and he too had an outrageous idea. He would invade Italy by marching a huge army, including war elephants, through Spain and France and then across the uncharted and terrifying Alps in the snow of winter. This was considered physically impossible. Reasonable people, such as the Romans, did not "allow" it as a strategy, and thus did not plan for it. But that's what Hannibal did. And then, in Italy, he routed and slaughtered the much larger Roman armies three times, killing about a quarter of Italian men in the process.

In the field of physics, Albert Einstein is an example of this intellectual freedom. "Imagination is more important that knowledge," he said. And what sorts of things did he imagine? All sorts of silly things, including what it would be like to ride alongside a beam of light at the same speed, how elevators would accelerate through space and how painters would fall downward through them, or how blind beetles would crawl on curved benches. This is the mental state whence, in the miracle year of 1905 (when he, too, was in his late twenties), sprang the series of short papers that changed forever how we think about time, space, light, energy and the universe.

But the question is what happens next to these triumphant heroes. What is it like to be successful, what is the equivalent of what Tennessee Williams called a "storm of royalty checks beside a kidney-shaped pool in Beverly Hills"?

Often, nothing much happens at first. Many successful people do not crash and burn. In Hannibal's case, he stayed in Italy for sixteen years in total, undefeated the entire time. Well into his middle age, he was still considered invincible. Nor, however, was he able to produce more triumphs to build on his early ones to achieve the end toward which his successes were supposed to be means, that end being the defeat of Rome. As we know today (just by looking around at the Roman columns on our government buildings), Rome would eventually win this war.

So Hannibal found, in Italy, his prison of success, a prison that was lush and huge and consisted of all Italy, but which was a prison nonetheless because it shackled his imagination. Yes, there were many factors involved (not least on the Roman side, which supplies the other main character in my book, an aristocrat named Scipio). But the relevant point to make here is this: If Hannibal had suffered a military disaster of some sort, Hannibal would have had to evacuate Italy. It would have been humiliating, but that disaster might have liberated him. He would have had to adopt a different strategy, and the overall war might have gone in a new direction. Hannibal was still victorious, however, and victors don't flee. Nor do they have big, bold ideas such as Alpine crossings.

Albert Einstein also enjoyed more than a decade of continued success after his miracle year in 1905. Like Hannibal, he remained "undefeated" in the world of physics. In fact, a solar eclipse eventually proved his theories right and made him a superstar. But from about 1925 onward, Einstein also saw himself as trapped in a frustrating mental prison. He himself could not accept ideas he had helped to bring about (such as quantum physics with its inherent uncertainties).

Instead, a new generation of up-and-coming young scientists was building on Einstein's ideas. They were freethinking, irreverent, imaginative, iconoclastic, and in every other way exactly as Einstein had been a few decades earlier. And Einstein could not handle it. As he grew older, he closed his mind. "He could no longer take in certain new ideas in physics," said Max Born, one of the younger generation. "Many of us regard this as a tragedy."

Every prison has a gate with a lock and a key. Tennessee Williams eventually found that key and produced more great and creative plays. Pablo Picasso also broke out, at least one more time (with Guernica). So it is possible, albeit difficult, to escape the prison of success before it turns into failure. The first step in any good escape is to realize that you're captive to begin with.

The realities of globalization, with increasing emphasis on emerging markets, present corporate leaders with enormous challenges in developing the leaders required to run global organizations. Too many multinational companies — particularly Japanese, Indian, German, and some American ones — still concentrate vital decisions in the hands of a small group of trusted leaders from their home country. They hire technical specialists, local experts, and country managers from emerging markets but rarely promote them to corporate positions. Instead, they groom future global leaders from the headquarters nation by sending them on overseas appointments.

This approach worked relatively well for companies selling standard products in developed markets, but as multinationals transition into truly global organizations relying on emerging markets for growth, it's far from adequate. In order to adapt to local cultures and market needs, companies must shift to decentralized, collaborative decision-making. That requires developing many leaders capable of working anywhere.

To address these needs, new approaches for developing global leaders are required:

• The diversity of top leadership should reflect the diversity of the firm's customers.
• Global leaders must be effective in aligning employees around the company's mission and values, empowering people to lead, and collaborating horizontally rather than managing vertically.
• Rather than concentrating on the on the top 50 leaders, global companies need to develop hundreds, even thousands, of leaders comfortable operating in a variety of cultures.
• Developing global leaders with cultural sensitivities and collaborative skills requires greater focus on emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and empowerment than on traditional management skills.

To understand these approaches, let's examine what leading global companies are doing:

Create diversity among senior leadership. To make sound decisions, companies need a diverse set of leaders who have deep understanding of their local customers, especially those in emerging markets. Opportunities at the highest levels, including C-suite and CEO, must be open to people of all national origins. Atlanta-based Coca-Cola is a pioneer in geographic diversity. As early as the 1960s, the company was run by South African Paul Austin. Since that time, Coca-Cola has had Cuban, Australian, and Irish CEOs, leading to today's CEO, Turkish-American Muhtar Kent.

Over the past decade two Swiss companies, Nestle and Novartis, have made dramatic shifts from Swiss-dominated boards and executive leadership to a diverse set of nationalities. Both now have non-Swiss majorities on their boards and several business units based outside Switzerland. Nestle's executive board represents ten different nationalities, while 80% of Novartis executives come from outside Switzerland.

Focus on values, not hierarchy. The characteristics of successful global leaders today are quite different than traditional hierarchical managers. They need high levels of emotional intelligence and self-awareness to unite people of different cultures, many who are new to the enterprise, around the organization's mission and its values and empower them to make decisions without waiting for higher-level directions.

Samuel Palmisano, IBM's chairman and former CEO, recognized that IBM's traditional hierarchical structure would not be effective in the 21st century because it was dominated by product and market silos. In 2003 he reorganized the company into an "integrated global enterprise" based on leading by values and collaboration, and uses special bonuses to empower leaders to extend IBM's culture globally.

Broaden the reach of leadership development. Collaborative organizations like IBM's require far more leaders than the traditional focus on a select group of top leaders. With flatter organizations and decentralization of power, corporations must develop savvy global leaders capable of operating locally and globally simultaneously. IBM's former chief learning officer recently estimated that IBM will need 50,000 leaders in the future.

Unilever has more than half of its business in Asia, and that percentage will continue to increase. The company has undertaken a major initiative to develop 500 global leaders in intensive leadership development programs to prepare them for expanded roles. According to CEO Paul Polman, "Unilever's Leadership Development Programme prepares our future leaders for an increasingly volatile and uncertain world where the only true differentiation is the quality of leadership."

To be effective in global roles, leaders require experience working and living in multiple countries. Extensive travel overseas is no substitute for living there, gaining fluency in local languages, and deeply immersing in the culture. German chemical maker Henkel, whose executives come from a diverse set of countries, insists they live in at least two different countries before being considered for promotion.

New methods for developing global leaders. Developing global leaders necessitates a shift from focusing on management skills to helping leaders be effective in different cultures by increasing their self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and resilience. Dean Nitin Nohria at Harvard Business School recently sent 900 MBA students overseas to work with companies in countries where they have neither lived nor worked.

It's not enough just to work overseas. To process and learn from their experiences, individuals should utilize introspective practices like journaling, meditation or prayer, and develop support networks of peers like True North Groups. There they can consult confidentially with people they trust about important decisions and have honest conversations about their dilemmas, mistakes, and challenges. These experiences enable leaders to develop the self-mastery and appreciation and acceptance of people from diverse backgrounds required to become effective global leaders.

These methods of developing global leaders for the future are still in their nascent phase, but there is little doubt that they will have a profound impact on developing global leaders in the years ahead.

The longest line on a busy Saturday afternoon in a celebrated New York department store is at the returns desk: bad news in these troubling times when every dime counts. First in line is 18-year old Jayne, decked out in the latest Ugg boots and designer jeans. Jayne is returning the dress she bought on Thursday and wore on Friday.

Next in line Dorothy Dodds, an elegant octogenarian, who is returning an expensive evening dress which she recently wore at two black-tie dinners on her voyage from England on Cunard's Queen Mary 2. Apparently, it was inexplicably tight. Having had her return garment accepted, Dorothy quickly secretes the $450 of store vouchers she has received in her recently-purchased crocodile skinned shoulder bag.

Further back in the line are Natasha and her baby son Louis. Natasha is returning a pashmina, worn recently at a cousin's wedding. She gives a broad grin and a knowing wink to the person behind her, as a refund of $225 is credited to her store credit card. She also receives a goodwill discount voucher of 10% as part of the store's customer loyalty initiative.

Meanwhile, in the store's security office two teenagers who have been apprehended for shop-lifting stand forlornly. But have they really committed a worse crime than the likes of Jayne, Dorothy or Natasha?

Welcome to the growing community of deshoppers, whose activities are costing U. S. retailers an estimated $16 billion a year. It is a significant part of the broader problem of retail crime which threatens the profitability and competitiveness of stores, products and retail businesses worldwide.

Over the last ten years we have been researching deshopping in Britain through two mass market retail case studies and surveys of 150 independent retailers and over 500 consumers. What we've found is disturbing:

• Deshopping seems to be addictive and a growing number of people are serial offenders. What's more, they pass on the dark arts to their family and friends.


• Increasingly, deshoppers are operating in packs when returning goods, suggesting that the activity is becoming organized.


• All types of shops are vulnerable: Small ones because they are perceived to have fewer defenses and shop assistants are more anxious to please and large chain stores because they provide more anonymity (you can buy in one location and return in another, for example).

Some corporations are responding by requiring stricter return criteria. This can be helpful but indiscriminately applied it can also create offense with customers making legitimate returns. A more nuanced approach to customer returns is required, and it should work on at least four fronts:

• Training. Managing returns effectively and fairly requires a dedicated, trained staff capable of distinguishing deshoppers from bona fide customers.


• Communication. Retailers should be up-front about the problem. By acknowledging the problem in customer and staff communications the chances of abusing genuine customers can be reduced and deshoppers may even be shamed into changing their minds before making a return.


• Comprehensive, consistent, and manageable policies and processes. Remember that unethical shoppers are more likely to succeed undetected if there is opportunity and weaknesses among internal controls.


• Watchfulness. Surveillance technology can help you identify serial unethical shoppers. Of course, it is imperative to measure the effectiveness of these tools and the effect they have on consumer behavior.

As retailers look to an uncertain future, they need to commit to making policy changes. Shaving just a small amount of shrinkage could make a substantial improvement to their bottom line.

Leverage is the mantra of the times in philanthropy, and rightly so. People want to know that the charities they support are using donations as effectively as possible. Donors and institutional funders are more demanding, more discerning, and less detached. They're no longer content with writing a check and securing their place in heaven. They want results.

But they're looking for them in the wrong places. They're missing the greatest leverage point of all: the multiplying effects of smart investments in fundraising. If you want to maximize the social effects of your donation, why would you buy, for example, $100,000 worth of great educational programming for inner city kids when the same $100,000 directed toward fundraising could generate enough money to buy $1 million worth of it?

Even the wealthiest and most sophisticated are oblivious to the opportunity — in fact, they actively avoid it. They follow conventional wisdom and direct their money to the programs of carefully vetted organizations, scrupulously avoiding fundraising support. Or they back new approaches by leading thinkers in philanthropy — models that also bypass fundraising investment — and think they're on the cutting edge. Either way, they're squandering the real and massive potential of their capital.

The venture philanthropy movement, for instance, gets it only half right. Donors are strongly urged to seek out the organizations with the best, most innovative programs and fund those programs. And we should be looking for organizations with breakthrough programs. But once we find them, we should direct giving not toward the programs but toward the organizations' fundraising and development operations so that they can multiply the funds available for programs.

The notion of catalytic philanthropy, while important, leaves the same half of the real potential unaddressed. In a nutshell, catalytic philanthropy exhorts the individual donor to take the bull by the horns. Instead of addressing a social problem by writing a check to an existing charity, donors create a new effort from the ground up. They take responsibility for all aspects of a particular social initiative, from accountability for results to mobilizing a campaign for change. But even here, donors aren't being coached to invest in the fundraising apparatus of their initiative. The founding donor can create a great model, but who's going to expand it and whence will those funds come?

Even capacity-building, though better than not-capacity-building, is missing the larger opportunity. It lumps fundraising in with finance, human resources, leadership training, technology, and other administrative functions. But fundraising alone has the capacity to multiply money. Indeed, it has the capacity to multiply the money available for the other components of capacity-building. So if you want to build capacity, don't fund technology and HR, fund the fundraising for those things.

The cutting edge is investment in fundraising. Yet everyone tries to suppress it, invoking a flawed theory of social change that says the less you spend on fundraising, the more you have for programs. That's true if it's a zero sum game. But it's not. Imagine a $10 million pie with $8 million going to programs and with the 20% fundraising slice taking $2 million away from programs. The last thing we want to do is make that a $3 million slice, leaving only $7 million for programs. But that's not how it works. If done correctly, the extra million enlarges the pie — substantially. A $10 million pie becomes a $15 million pie, and the $7 million available for programs grows to $12 million.

Charities invest in fundraising because the money they get back is greater than the money they put in. There are longstanding, proven correlations between the amount spent on the various fundraising methods and how much each will return. Those correlations are all positive. A Giving USA study found that a dollar invested in a major gift program produces, on average, $24 in revenue. A dollar invested in a direct mail program produces $10. A dollar invested in a special event produces $3.20.

Fundraising multiplies the potential of charitable gifts. There's nothing radical about this. It's only radical to those who have no experience with it. That lack of experience, endemic among donors, is a significant liability. It's one reason that charitable giving has remained constant in the U.S. at 2% of GDP ever since we have been measuring it, and has not budged. How could it? Donors don't want charities to spend money on fundraising. But imagine, if we could move that 2% to 2.5% or 3%, we could put our dreams on steroids. Each half a point represents $75 billion — annually.

That dream won't come to pass by funding programs, because program funding cannot multiply anything. It is a paradox, I know, but funding programs annihilates our real potential to fund programs.

The smart money is in multiplication.

My first reaction was panic. You know how it goes. First I heard about Pinterest. Then I heard that it grew 429% from September to December 2011. And I thought, Oh, my god, the future is preparing to leave without me...again.

So I raced to have a look. Pinterest was lots of images. Contained in several boxes. Lots of images, several boxes. OK, so this is ... what?

This is a critical moment. Do we stay and dig in? Or cut and run? The temptation is to cut and run because, well, what if we waste 20 minutes figuring out that this is nothing? What if we unwrap this package and there's nothing inside?

My theory, these days, is that the only real way to assess something in the digital world is to use it. And this means spending enough time dorking around to get the hang of it.

I use "dorking around" deliberately because you know how this goes too.

We don't really grasp what we are looking at, so we are obliged to proceed fitfully and awkwardly, trying this, trying that. And of course, there's always the small fear that we are about to do something stupid, as in the early days of email, when your colleague actually managed to message "Philips is a complete tool" to everyone in the company.

So it's a double bind. Refuse to use the technology and we end up behind the curve. Use the technology and we risk wasting our time or, worse, embarrassing ourselves.

I pressed on, because, as I say, you can't know unless you do. Pinterest makes things easy. It supplies categories like "Stuff," "Home," "Travel," "My Style." The idea is to fill these categories with images. We find something online we like, clip the URL, and enter it under "pin" and, hey presto, the images appear in the general stream and our own Pinterest page. We have "pinned" an image to a "board." (There's no theft of intellectual or creative property. Pinterest preserves the link and gives an acknowledgement.)

Not all of this is (p)interesting. As I write this, some knucklehead has just discovered Pinterest and has posted pictures of himself at the gym. Dude, get a shirt. (Adrian Chen at Gawker recently wondered whether Pinterest can survive the wave of "crudeness" that awaits it.) Other people appear to be finding the most obvious images they can. Under "Home," they put a generic image of a kitchen. It's not a test!

I filled in a couple of categories, trying just about anything. I actually made a category called "cats." I know. Then I did one called "places and spaces" and that was fun. Then I did "People I Admire" and put in Stewart Brand because really this guy is some combination of Waldo and Dr. Who, and has the astounding ability to turn up in exactly the right place at the exactly the right time.

And then I found a more original purpose. In May, I'm publishing a book called Culturematic. The manuscript is locked up but I am still finding examples. Pinterest proves to be the perfect place to put them. It's like filing in public. What used to be a file folder on my desktop is now a display space in the world. Yes, it's self-promotional, but I believe the deal here is that if you are interesting enough in what you pin, if you create as much value as you extract, then all is forgiven and Bob is your uncle. Notice how Estelle Metayer gently tells us about the projects she is working on. It's a very soft sell.

Categories are interesting to anthropologists. They are the "buckets" into which we organize the world. More exactly, they are the buckets with which we read the world. We have a bucket called "bird." Inside that is a bucket called "Robin." As spring approaches, we see winged creatures on our lawn and the buckets leap to the ready. Robin! Bird! Spring! This is culture in action.

From this point of view, Pinterest is a treasure. It's a chance to see American culture as if from a glass-bottom boat. Yes, some of it is a little reductive. But sometimes what people stuff into the categories is a chance for us to see exactly what they mean. Pinterest is a little Rosetta Stone, a table of equivalencies. Oh, so that's what YOU mean by home. Here's what I mean. In a culture that flowers with an increasingly diverse variety, this is useful.

Pinterest also lets us use our own categories. Susan Mazur-Stommen has a category called "Hacks" in which she collects innovations. As she puts it: "I have been collecting stuff on Google Reader for 2-3 years, but I think Pinterest may be exactly what I have been looking for — a great visual set of reminders of ideas I like!"

Isabelle O'Connor uses the following categories: Guilty pleasures, Fashun (sic), Awesome women, Dickheads, Spaces, 90s, Choker, Orthopedic shoes. I am sure there are many other categories that organize her world, but if we were to follow up each of these, we would have a useful map of the things that matter to her. A lot of anthropology, ethnography, and market research is a search for the categories in people's heads, so this is research for free, and the scholarly and commercial applications are extraordinary. Pinterest founders Ben Silbermann, and Evan Sharp are mapping American culture. Mapping not just the categories but the movements of our culture.

For some time now, and certainly since Clay Shirky's great work, we have been on notice that the new digital technology makes new categories and new cultural order possible. Pinterest helps us build and share these categories and to specify what we mean in a medium more telling than language. And this makes Pinterest an observation platform from which to study a culture that becomes ever more liquid, responsive, crowd-sourced and generally speaking dynamic. And this potentially makes Pinterest a place to detect early changes and to get early warnings, a pretty useful thing as our culture accelerates.

There has been some regrettable chatter online that Phoebe Connelly characterizes as "hating on the ladies." Specifically, some appear to think that Pinterest is a consumer wish list for women. One hater goes so far as to suggest that Pinterest is for "women who wish they were still planning their wedding." This is sexist drivel and deserves the contempt Donnelly shows for it. It misses much of what makes Pinterest exceptional and especially the way it can serve users as an opportunity for self-exploration/self-expression and the rest of us as a particularly rich view of a culture under construction.

Acknowledgments: thanks to fellow anthropologist Susan Mazur-Stommen for several useful links.

It's obvious to anyone paying attention that the United States needs well-educated, technically skilled workers if it's to remain competitive in the global marketplace. Just as obvious: We need a robust middle class with adequate disposable income and a sense that our economic system is working in a reasonably fair way. Yet business leaders and policy makers behave as if they don't believe either of those things:

• they tolerate K-12 student performance that's falling fast relative to that of comparable countries;


• companies invest far less than they used to in worker training;


• many jobs go unfilled because companies say they can't find workers with the skills they need;


• we have a large and growing population of people who have been unemployed for so long that they are no longer looking for work;


• wages have been stagnant for three decades (except in the case of top earners),


• the gap between high-income earners and lower- and middle-income workers is greater than at any time since the 1920s, and


• unions are attacked as part of the problem, not (as they could be) part of the solution to these challenges.

It's a perfect recipe for decline and a terrible legacy to leave to our children and grandchildren.

As I argue in the March issue of HBR, this disconnect is the result of a market failure. Simply put, what's good for individual U.S. companies is no longer automatically good for business nationwide, for U.S. workers, or for the economy. It often makes economic sense for individual firms to close a U.S. plant, to send work to wherever it can be done effectively at the lowest cost, and to minimize labor expenses through other means. Indeed, business executives will say that they owe it to shareholders to do exactly that.

But the overall needs of the U.S. business community are much better aligned with those of the U.S. economy as a whole. U.S. multinationals continue to derive 60% of their sales from the U.S. market, according to Commerce Department data. These firms rely on U.S. customers' personal-income growth and their purchasing power; a well-educated workforce that has the right technical skills; and a regulatory environment that rewards companies for taking a longer-term view. All of these objectives lie beyond the reach of individual firms but within their power to achieve collectively.

As in a classic market failure, individual firms are not shouldering the true costs of their actions. They benefit from minimizing their own labor costs while society picks up the tab in the form of slow economic growth, unemployment, welfare, and so on. Then there's the tension between short- and long-term objectives: Activities that make sense for individual firms at one end of the value chain, right now (for instance, shipping jobs overseas and cutting costs wherever possible) can backfire at the other end. Down the road, the middle class may not be robust enough to create demand, and the workforce may not be trained well enough to drive innovation.

It's impossible to fix this market failure without first fixing how we talk to each other. Leaders from government, business, labor, and education seem to have lost the knack of tackling problems together when the stakes are high — as we've done in other moments of national emergency, such as the Great Depression or World War II. Instead, we seem to delight in ideological posturing and finger pointing. In a future post, I'll suggest ways to jump-start a process for fixing the market failure I've described.

For now — what do you think of the "tragedy of the commons" I've described? Do you agree that there's a disconnect between individual companies' interests and the interests of the society at large? Should business leaders start working with other stakeholder groups to respond to this national emergency?

This post is part of the HBR Insight Center on American Competitiveness.