Latest from Harvard Business Review
Harvard Business Review
14 hours ago
- Business
- Harvard Business Review
Our Favorite Managements Tips on Communicating Like a Leader
Each weekday, in our Management Tip of the Day newsletter, HBR offers tips to help you better manage your team—and yourself. Here is a curated selection of our favorite Management Tips on communicating like a leader. Practice Gracious Communication Most of us want to communicate with kindness, but it can be challenging to convey warmth and compassion under frustrating, stressful, or maddening circumstances. Three practices can help you in your day-to-day interactions, as well as big, difficult conversations. First, meet confrontation with grace. This means wearing a smile and exuding patience and courtesy when an employee brings you difficult news or challenges your decision-making. An open-minded tone will signal that you're there to listen, process, and problem-solve—not to reprimand or enforce your own authority. Next, give credit whenever you can. Recognizing your employees and showing them gratitude will engender their enthusiasm, hard work, trust, and loyalty. Finally, give people space and clarity so you don't catch them off guard. Schedule conversations in advance or ask them if it's a good time to talk—and give them a quick preview of what you'd like to talk about. These kind, simple gestures will give your counterpart an opportunity to prepare, and make it clear that you're interested in listening to their response. This tip is adapted from ' The Simple Power of Communicating with Kindness,' by Sally Susman. . . . Communicating with Your Team When Times Are Tough When business challenges mount, your team doesn't need spin—they need clarity. Here's how to be transparent, steady, and constructive, even when you don't have all the answers. Acknowledge what's working. As you address uncertainty, point to areas of progress. Use a 'yes, and' approach: Yes, things are messy—and we're doing good work. Be honest about challenges without slipping into blame or false optimism. Make space for real questions. Don't redirect or minimize concerns. Ask your team what's weighing on them and how it's showing up in their day-to-day work lives. If no one speaks up, check in with trusted team members behind the scenes to get a fuller picture. Respond with care. When you don't have answers, explain what could influence the outcome. Share details only if they affect the team's reality; disclosing what's irrelevant or uncertain creates confusion. Stick to the facts. Avoid speculation. Use data and observable progress to ground your message. Reinforce how the team's work supports key business goals like revenue or efficiency. Model resilience. Show up with calm and clarity. In tough moments, consistency builds trust—and helps your team focus on what they can control. This tip is adapted from ' How to Communicate with Your Team When Business Is Bad,' by Rebecca Knight. . . . Deliver a Message That Sticks Whether you're giving a presentation, writing an email, or leading a meeting, it's important to communicate your message in a way that's memorable. By mastering a few strategies based in memory science, you can create messages that linger in the minds of your audience, leaving a lasting impact. Here's how. Chunk it up. Your audience can only handle three to four pieces of information at once. Organizing your key points under one central idea will help them retain details and connect the dots. Make it concrete. Abstract ideas are tough to remember. Use vivid, relatable examples that evoke sensory details to create a mental image your audience won't forget. Provide callbacks. Revisit earlier points to strengthen your audience's recall. Subtle reminders of previous content help reinforce memory and tie new information to existing knowledge. Spark curiosity. Don't just deliver answers—pose intriguing questions that highlight knowledge gaps. Curiosity fuels memory, making your message stick. This tip is adapted from ' How to Craft a Memorable Message, According to Science,' by Charan Ranganath. . . . Communicate Directly—Not Rudely Direct communication is an important work skill—especially for a manager. Being clear about what you want and need from people (and why) makes everything more efficient. But if you're too harsh, you can end up doing more harm than good. Here's how to toe the line between being direct and veering into rudeness. When delivering feedback, focus on facts. Remove your emotions from the conversation, and instead give the person honest, concrete evidence about their performance. Your goal is to help them grow, not to vent. When expressing an opinion, use 'I' statements. Avoid making accusations or casting blame, which will put your employee on the defensive. Instead of calling them out and pointing fingers, call them in by expressing your experience of their behavior. Turn a hard 'no' into a soft 'no.' As a direct person, your instinct may be to unambiguously reject an inessential work request that comes in when you just don't have the bandwidth to take it on. But if you're too blunt, you risk being perceived as someone who doesn't want to collaborate or help out. Instead, find the compassion to offer an alternative that works better for you and your schedule, or kindly explain why it's impossible for you to take on. When making a request, be considerate, not commanding. There's nothing wrong with giving clear, direct instructions and assignments. Just remember to be reasonable, express gratitude, and offer support if your employee needs it. This tip is adapted from ' How to Be Direct Without Being Rude,' by Yasmina Khelifi and Irina Cozma. . . . Communicating Difficult Decisions When You Can't Be Fully Transparent When you have to communicate a difficult organizational decision, it's hard to know how much information to provide, particularly when you can't be fully transparent yet. Saying nothing can undermine people's trust, and saying too much can leave people feeling overwhelmed. You can strike the balance by being candid—up to a point. Frame the situation's context clearly so people understand why the organization is considering big changes. Explain that you'll be as transparent as possible, use plain language (not corporate-speak), and respond to questions. People appreciate honesty, even if the message is incomplete or not what they want to hear. Be precise about what you can say now and when you'll say more, providing an overall timeline for the process. But avoid giving people running commentary as developments unfold; it can lead to unhelpful distractions and take up considerable management time. If possible, let employees in on the options you're considering, showing the logic behind your coming actions. This builds trust and helps mitigate the anxiety they may be feeling as they consider every combination of eventualities (including catastrophic ones). It also prevents them from feeling caught by surprise when you announce the final set of changes. This tip is adapted from ' Talking About a Difficult Decision—When You Can't Share All the Details,' by David Lancefield. . . . Sharpen Your Writing Skills Regardless of your job, rank, or industry, written communication is a skill that can set you apart from your peers. Here's a three-step framework to help you level up as a writer—whether you're writing an email, a formal document, a social post, or something else. First, determine the purpose of what you're writing. What result do you want to achieve? Are you looking to inform, persuade, or make a request? Let that purpose inform the substance and style of your communication from beginning to end. Then, identify exactly who your audience is and speak directly to them. This means using language that they understand and a voice that resonates with them. It also means anticipating and answering their questions—before they need to ask. Finally, what's your point? This is the essential substance of your writing. To locate the message you're aiming to deliver, ask yourself how you would explain it to your audience in 15 seconds or less. Then, get to the point early in your document, within the first 40 to 50 words. This tip is adapted from ' How to Take Your Business Writing From 'Average' to 'Great,'' by Elizabeth Danziger. . . . Great Leadership Is About Great Communication To be an effective leader, you need to become an exceptional communicator. Here are four strategies to help you motivate and inspire your team with your words. Use simple language to write about complex things. Long, complicated sentences make written ideas hard to understand because they demand more concentration. You'll win more supporters if you replace long words and sentences with shorter, more straightforward ones. Choose sticky metaphors. When you introduce a new or abstract idea, your audience will search for something they recognize to help them make sense of it. A metaphor is a powerful tool that compares or equates a new, abstract idea to a familiar image or concept. Humanize data. Slide decks with statistics and charts are helpful, but limited. The trick to making any data point interesting is to humanize it by placing the number in perspective. Any time you introduce numbers, take the extra step to make them engaging, memorable, and, ultimately, persuasive. Emphasize your mission. Shine a spotlight on your company's purpose across communication channels: meetings, memos, emails, presentations, social media, and marketing material. If your mission stands for something, then stand up for it.
Harvard Business Review
15 hours ago
- Business
- Harvard Business Review
How AI Is Reshaping Supplier Negotiations
AI is starting to play a major role in how companies negotiate with suppliers. These advancements are driven by the need for greater speed, scalability, and strategic agility due to increasingly complex supply chains and disruptions caused by external factors such as weather and trade wars. Once a cost-saving tool for automating low-value, repetitive negotiations, AI is now being used to make key decisions in procurement. However, adopting AI isn't straightforward. Companies must navigate hurdles such as data quality, regulations, and matching the right tools to the right situation. Drawing from our more than six years of research on human-AI collaboration and the use of AI to conduct autonomous supplier negotiations, we outline in this article how companies can unlock the full value of these advances. Our research includes studies of major companies at the forefront of applying AI in supply-chain management in a variety of industries, including retailing, pharmaceuticals, consumer packaged goods, logistics, and IT. What AI Can Do in Supplier Negotiations AI tools are getting better at handling the nuance of real-world negotiations. By 2027, Gartner predicts, half of all companies will use AI-powered tools to help negotiate supplier contracts. To keep abreast of the pack, companies need to begin building the following capabilities now. The Right Use Cases Most companies start small, using AI for simple, repeatable purchases—like packaging or raw materials. But the value goes beyond that. When products or services don't vary much from supplier to supplier, AI can compare offers and focus on optimal terms like price, delivery time, and reliability. Consider how Walmart began experimenting with AI negotiation tools in certain product categories and quickly expanded its use. The shift wasn't just about cost savings; it was also about speed and supply chain agility. Real-Time Market Awareness AI tools can track supply and demand, pricing trends, and competitor behavior as it happens. This is a tremendous benefit for categories affected by price swings or frequent renegotiation. Pactum, a supplier of AI for automating supplier negotiations has demonstrated that using chatbots for negotiations at a massive scale improves working capital, increases supply chain resilience, and cuts costs. Henkel applied this capability to products impacted by volatile prices, and Maersk used it for freight services within existing supplier and customer agreements or to automatically secure quotes when none was available. Operational Contextual Intelligence Companies can now combine internal data (like operations, budgets, and supplier scorecards) with external forces (like regulatory shifts, currency fluctuations, and geopolitical risks) to shape negotiations dynamically. This integration enables AI to tailor negotiations as contexts evolve—for example, by allowing companies to detect tariff announcements in real time and adjust sourcing, pricing, or logistics. Similarly, IDEXX Laboratories used AI to determine which of its 70+ global suppliers were vulnerable to Russian sanctions, allowing it to proactively adjust contracts. Smart Trade-Offs Currently, generative AI is also evolving to assess trade-offs more precisely, balancing cost, sustainability, delivery time, and financial risk. Instead of focusing only on price, AI can recommend the best supplier partnerships based on company goals. For example, L'Oréal's procurement strategy uses AI to negotiate sourcing deals that balance cost and sustainability for key cosmetic ingredients. A health company we studied uses a digital advisor to help negotiators balance market dynamics, pricing models, negotiation strategies, predictors of negotiation rates, and procurement terms to meet strategic targets across categories. The Shift Toward Autonomous Negotiation Companies aren't jumping overnight from manual processes to having an AI system close deals on their behalf. Instead, they're progressing step by step, moving from AI-assisted to semi-autonomous to fully autonomous negotiations. The Assisted Stage AI tools act as copilots but do not replace human decision-making. While some autonomous actions may occur, they don't extend to external parties. For example, Luminance's Legal-GradeAI system can generate automatic alerts. A multinational utilities company uses that feature to identify commercial risks and early-contract-renewal opportunities that include discounts. However, the system won't automatically send a renewal contract. Instead, it will flag the event internally, draft the contract, and may even prepare the renewal email. Similarly, San Francisco-based Regrello, which offers an AI operating system for manufacturing and supply chain management, uses AI agents to draft terms, flag risks, compare clauses, gather approvals, and integrate contractual terms with other operational systems. Its AI system can also simulate scenarios—for example, modeling a 15% tariff on key materials to anticipate cost impacts and prepare for price renegotiations—but leave it to humans to make the final negotiations. Semi-Autonomous Stage Such systems can accept pre-approved clauses or adjust prices in contracts within set limits, but critical decisions—like approving price constraints or validating risks—remain under human control. This hybrid model of AI with human oversight works well in regulated industries like energy, insurance, and telecom. NTT Data, for instance, worked with Luminance's AI-powered negotiation features to understand the organization's preferred negotiation positions, while customizing how the system defines contracts and clauses. At Maersk, AI grew smarter over time, delivering better price results after more rounds of negotiating with a specific supplier, but the human expert approves the final agreement. In the telecom sector, Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom used semi-autonomous AI systems to negotiate maintenance and operations contracts. Vodafone, which has over 300 million customers, achieved significant savings while maintaining high-quality service, showcasing how semi-autonomous negotiations can deliver real business impact. Fully Autonomous Stage These systems handle negotiations end to end—within guardrails. They use real-time inventory, supplier history, and market data to close dozens of deals at once. One example is Walmart's use of AI to negotiate replenishment terms with suppliers for frequently purchased, low-margin items without human approval. Another is Advanced Micro Devices' use of Luminance's Automark-up, an AI-powered tool that can markup legal contracts like non-disclosure agreements autonomously. How to Make the Journey Involving human expertise in the transition from AI-assisted to semi- or fully autonomous negotiations not only helps correct potential flaws but also fosters a two-way learning process, enabling both humans and algorithms to continuously refine and enhance their performance. Here are some good practices: Ensure the quality of the data is high. When using AI for contract negotiation and drafting, organizations must ensure that data on things like supplier performance, benchmarks, and market trends is accurate, timely, and complies with all local laws. AI negotiates with what it knows. This means that AI should be trained on domain-specific legal data to ensure it produces clear, enforceable contracts aligned with applicable law. Remember: In legal contexts, precision is non-negotiable. Prioritize better data over more data. Protect data privacy and security. Using AI for negotiations means sharing sensitive data. To safeguard it, companies need strong protections such as encryption, access controls, anonymization, and regular risk reviews. This isn't just about your own cybersecurity; it's also about building trust with suppliers and regulators. Establish clear accountability frameworks. If an AI tool makes a mistake—like incorrectly assessing a supplier—the company, not the software, is responsible. These errors can lead to serious legal or financial consequences. Therefore, companies should establish clear accountability guidelines with defined procedures for review, redress, and oversight. Companies should establish safeguards such as the obligations of parties to disclose the use of AI, how it operates, how the parties' data will be used, and how privacy will be protected. This is especially important in B2B contexts, where regulatory requirements may be less defined. Stay compliant with regulations. In many places, regulations such as the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation and the upcoming Artificial Intelligence Act, which was enacted last year and which is now gradually going into effect, require human oversight in sensitive decisions made by autonomous systems. These regulations aim to protect fairness, transparency, and accountability, especially for fundamental rights such as employment, housing, and healthcare. For example, while AI may assist by identifying contracts up for renewal or drafting contracts, it must not send them to suppliers without human approval. An effective way to demonstrate compliance is to track the stages in the process that require human verification. Build trust through explainability. It is difficult to trust decisions you don't understand. Use AI models that can explain their reasoning and avoid deploying black-box systems for high-stakes decisions. This transparency is essential for scaling adoption: Both Dell and Walmart reported stronger adoption once their tools showed how decisions were made, not just what they were. Rethinking the Negotiation Profession Some worry that automation could hurt career development in areas such as procurement—particularly for junior talent. But we believe such fears are overblown. Reviewing dozens of repetitive contracts doesn't necessarily make someone a better negotiator. Instead, automating those tasks frees up people to spend more time on more strategic, high-stakes negotiations, where human judgment remains essential. The shift to AI will not only drive efficiency, it will also free up talent for more strategic, higher-value tasks.
Harvard Business Review
a day ago
- Business
- Harvard Business Review
How Leaders Undermine Their Own Authority
Does your organization lack quality leadership? In this episode of HBR's advice podcast, Dear HBR:, cohosts Alison Beard and Dan McGinn answer your questions with the help of Peter Bregman, the CEO of Bregman Partners and author of the book Leading with Emotional Courage. They talk through what to do when your leaders are indecisive, unprofessional, or value the wrong things. Key episode topics include: leadership, decision making and problem solving, organizational culture, emotional intelligence
Harvard Business Review
2 days ago
- Business
- Harvard Business Review
From Single Stock to Diversified Portfolio: Mastercard Foundation's $42 Billion Asset Management Launch
(No reviews yet) Write a Review MSRP: Was: Now: $11.95 (USD) Quantity price applied Format information (No reviews yet) Write a Review Item: # 225096 Pages: 32 Publication Date: June 30, 2025 Publication Date: June 30, 2025 Source: Harvard Business School Related Topics: Summaries and excerpts of the latest books, special offers, and more from Harvard Business Review Press. Loading shopping cart, please wait...
Harvard Business Review
2 days ago
- Business
- Harvard Business Review
Continuous Transformation
Download the report. Despite years of focused investment, large-scale IT transformation remains elusive for many enterprises. Traditional 'big bang' approaches—intended to deliver sweeping change—frequently fall short, proving to be too rigid, risky, and resource-intensive.
