Harvard Business Review

Serving on boards is a vital part of what venture capitalists do. VCs who succeed at this will enjoy advantages, including building their own brand, increasing deal flow, and helping the companies they invest in perform better. To navigate board rooms more successfully, follow these seven tips.

When multinational firms enter new markets, they have to choose how to manage the formal and informal local rules that can vary greatly. Local institutions and rules matter, and there are clear risks for top executives at headquarters who don’t take them seriously. But constantly adapting to local practices could jeopardize a company’s ability to integrate operations across markets. A study of five globally successful Scandinavian companies identified six tactics that firms can use to address local rules while maintaining competitive advantage: Avoid, alter, adapt, imitate, influence, and innovate.

Many firms struggle to attract a diverse talent pool, particularly women. To stand out, companies often tout flatter organizational structures in their recruitment materials, assuming these unique features will appeal to a more diverse group of prospective employees. However, new research uncovers a surprising finding: highlighting a flatter hierarchy may, instead, diminish women’s representation in the applicant pool. Additional findings suggest that women tend to perceive flatter organizations as more difficult to fit into, burdening them with a heavier workload, and offering fewer career advancement opportunities. This research indicates that companies should carefully consider how they present their organizational structure to job seekers to avoid unintentionally discouraging women from applying.

Organizations worldwide are reaping the rewards of adopting digital technologies and AI in their sales forces. But these gains are far from universal. Many sales leaders are aware that their teams are falling behind as digital laggards, yet the hurdles they face seem daunting. Organizations may encounter up to three key obstacles in adopting digital technologies for sales: knowledge gaps, perceived complexity and risk, and inertia. With a proven playbook, commitment from top leadership, and a sustained focus on people, your company can address and overcome these challenges to digital adoption.

Practical steps you can take to look beyond the short-term planning horizon.

If you’re struggling with bureaucracy and politics in your organization, this episode is for you.

Despite progress in the past decade, gender equity still remains uneven in U.S. companies. Coupled with recent political attacks on the very concept of DEI and declines in corporate commitments to racial and gender equity, there’s concern that the next decade may not bring as much progress as the last one — which is why we need to keep our foot on the accelerator when it comes to achieving gender parity at work. According to the latest Women in the Workplace report from Lean In and McKinsey, many of the tactics experts and scholars have been recommending to company leaders for years have been paying off and yielding progress for women in the workplace.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has served a critical role in advancing accessible and equitable communications for deaf and hard of hearing individuals. But as companies race to automate their customer service operations in recent years, many are inadvertently creating new barriers for deaf and hard of hearing people. Leaders can lean on the vision and spirit of the ADA to create more inclusive and accessible customer service programs in this era of AI. First, they should design customer experiences to be inclusive from the start by considering the requirements of deaf and hard of hearing individuals at every stage of service delivery. Second, they can repurpose a portion of the efficiencies gained from automation to support more complex customer service needs. Third, they should use an expansive mindset when engineering customer experiences by offering multiple channels of communication. Fourth, they must demonstrate socially responsible practices and highlight them in marketing and customer communications.…

Can Uncle Nearest co-founder Fawn Weaver get the capital she needs to expand her successful whiskey brand into an alcoholic beverages conglomerate?

What you do before you start a leadership role is critical to your success in the first 90 days and beyond. It’s tempting rely on what you know and what’s served you well before, but you risk jumping to the wrong conclusions and heading off in the wrong direction. Instead, be intentional about how you leave, replenish your energy and relationships, and learn about what it takes to succeed in your new role.