Morning Advantage: Even a Daredevil Needs a Great Team
HBR.org 2012-07-06
Later this summer, if all goes well, Felix Baumgartner will ascend 23 miles in a balloon, and then jump out. He will travel at speeds in excess of 350 MPH before deploying his parachute and landing. When his boots touch the ground, his last name will join the ranks of Armstrong and Earhart, and he’ll claim the title as the bravest person on Earth. Even so, says Mark Betancourt at Air & Space, what really sets Baumgartner apart isn’t his steel nerves or his space-aged equipment; it’s his organizational structure. Sponsored by Red Bull, his team includes Jon Clark, a former NASA surgeon, and Joe Kittenger, a retired Air Force Colonel and the holder of the space-dive record that Baumgartner is trying to break. The team’s aim isn’t just to break records, though. If successful, they hope that the protocols they’ve developed will help “advance the science of survival at extreme altitudes.” The story, at the very least, should serve as a friendly reminder to all the Earth-bound leaders down here: innovation is never a solo endeavor.
Buying Behaviors of Emerging Middle Classes (Kellogg Insight)
Alberto Salvo and Alon Eizenberg state in their new study that newly-minted members of Brazil’s middle class seem to have developed immunity to soda brandwashing. Despite a rise in disposable income, these consumers tended to stick with cheaper generic brands instead of paying for higher-price premium alternatives such as Coca-Cola. So companies should act quickly: “If they wait too long, a substantial mass of the ‘new middle class’ might be captivated by the generic habit.”
Learning on the Job: Myth vs. Science (Psychological Science)
If a training session has ever felt to you like a skull-numbing high-school class, new research has confirmed your suspicions. The most depressing part? Over the past thirty years the science of training has improved, but many employers haven't incorporated the findings into their training programs; instead they've continued to rely too much on their intuition. So bad practices continue to spread — lectures, workbooks, tests, videos — even though research has shown that the best training is less a cram session than a hands-on-experience. The biggest problem is that the new skills we’ve been taught usually decay by 90 percent over the course of a year. But there’s an easy fix for that: refresher sessions. Whether that’s good news or not is anyone’s guess.
Travel Fare
Business Travel: Getting a Seat Upgrade is Worth the Effort (New York Times) How Anonymous Takes Organizations Down (Wired) An Executive Dream Team of Disruptors (CNN Money)