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The Lie That Perfectionists Tell Themselves

Harvard Business

Employers in a number of manufacturing industries have similarly found that they could maintain output and quality while decreasing employees’ hours. Meb Keflezighi, 2014 Boston Marathon winner, associates the connection between speed and form (i.e., I think about my feet, where they’re going to land.

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For Some Platforms, Network Effects Are No Match for Local Know-How

Harvard Business

What Grab has shown us is that there are sectors where digitalization favors the local players, or players who possess deep know-how about the specifics of their industries. Spurred on by the internet revolution in the early 2000s, the company added verticals such as real estate, the bridal industry, travel, beauty salons, and restaurants.

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Research: When Retail Workers Have Stable Schedules, Sales and Productivity Go Up

Harvard Business

Sales in stores with more stable scheduling increased by 7%, an impressive number in an industry in which companies work hard to achieve increases of 1–2%. Labor productivity increased by 5%, in an industry where productivity grew by only 2.5% per year between 1987 and 2014. Our estimate is that Gap earned $2.9

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The Tragic Crash of Flight AF447 Shows the Unlikely but Catastrophic Consequences of Automation

Harvard Business

AF447 precipitated the aviation industry’s growing concern about such “loss of control” incidents, and whether they’re linked to greater automation in the cockpit. Commercial aircraft fly on autopilot for much of the time. But while overall air safety is improving, loss of control incidents are not.

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