The McKinsey Quarterly

2008

• September 2008 

  Seeing beyond the woman: An interview with a pioneering academic and board member

  Sandra Dawson addresses the changing role of women in business over the last 40 years.

• September 2008 

  The challenge of hiring and retaining women: An interview with the head of HR at eBay

  Beth Axelrod discusses how companies can do better at hiring, retaining, and promoting women.

• August 2008  

  Identifying the savings opportunities at investment banks

  US investment banks are cutting costs by shrinking employment, but they can trim other types of spending without causing serious damage to their culture or morale.

• August 2008  

  Making a remarkable career: Women discuss how they approach work and life

  In a series of vignettes, professional women highlight traits that have made them successful.

  Includes:

• July 2008 

  A talent shortage for European banks

  A shortage of strong internal candidates for critical positions will force European banks to overhaul their talent-management efforts in order to stay competitive and ensure strong growth.

• July 2008 

  How to address China's growing talent shortage

  The imbalance between business opportunities in China and qualified executives to manage them will get worse—a lot worse—before it gets better.

  Includes:

• May 2008 

  Why multinationals struggle to manage talent

  A survey shows a strong correlation between financial performance and best practices for managing talent globally.

  Includes:

• January 2008 

  Making talent a strategic priority

  The War for Talent never ended. Executives must constantly rethink the way their companies plan to attract, motivate, and retain employees.

  Includes:

• January 2008 

  Succeeding at open-source innovation: An interview with Mozilla's Mitchell Baker

  The company’s chairman and former CEO explains the power of the participatory, open-source model of collaboration.

2007

• December 2007 

  Building a competitive finance function: An executive roundtable

  By focusing on talent development, new roles for finance, and creative benchmarks, CFOs can deliver a competitive advantage to their companies.

• December 2007 

  McKinsey Global Survey of Business Executives: Economic and hiring outlook, Fourth Quarter 2007

  Executives in Western economies see inflation rising and economies declining over the next six months, but many say that their companies plan to hire. Their counterparts elsewhere are more optimistic.

• December 2007 

  The organizational challenges of global trends: A McKinsey Global Survey

  Executives know that their companies must come up with the right organizational response to maintain a competitive edge.

• November 2007 

  McKinsey Global Survey of Business Executives: Economic and hiring outlook, Third Quarter 2007

  Hiring plans remain strong, despite a dip in confidence as credit market troubles shook the global economy. Mainly because of competition, executives don’t expect to get increased pricing power.

• November 2007 

  What shapes careers: A McKinsey Global Survey

  Male and female executives—parents and nonparents alike—define the event that has had the most significant effect on their careers and report that factors at work are far more important than factors at home. Women are more likely than men to say they have had role models and mentors.

• October 2007 

  How companies approach innovation: A McKinsey Global Survey

  Executives say innovation is very important, but their companies’ approach to it is often informal, and leaders lack confidence in their innovation decisions. Top managers and other professionals agree that the biggest challenge is talent but disagree on why. Nonetheless, executives agree on some steps to improve innovation.

• July 2007 

  McKinsey Global Survey of Business Executives: Economic and hiring outlook, July 2007

  More than twice as many companies plan to increase their workforces as to shrink them, with most new jobs in the same country as headquarters. Executives are optimistic about prospects for the economies of their home countries, despite fear of rising inflation.

• May 2007 

  Better strategy through organizational design

  Redesigning an organization to take advantage of today’s sources of wealth creation isn’t easy, but there can be no better use of a CEO’s time.

• May 2007 

  Building the civilized workplace

  Nasty people don't just make others feel miserable; they create economic problems for their companies.

  Includes:

• April 2007 

  McKinsey Global Survey of Business Executives: Confidence Index, April 2007

  Executives around the world retain a positive economic outlook, despite less improvement in economic conditions than expected six months ago. Many plan to continue hiring, and the most senior executives are the likeliest to foresee larger workforces.

• April 2007 

  The role of networks in organizational change

  Companies shouldn’t focus so much on formal structures that they ignore the informal ones.

• March 2007 

  Building global champions in Latin America

  The region’s companies will fulfill their potential abroad only if they pursue clear global aspirations and find systematic ways to develop their talent and integrate cultures and organizations.

• January 2007 

  The McKinsey Global Survey of Business Executives: Confidence Index, January 2007

  With confidence unshaken, executives are keen to hire, particularly in Asia.

2006

• November 2006 

  When should CFOs take the helm?

  CFOs can bring much-needed skills to the CEO role, but the career path isn’t always a direct one.

  Includes:

• October 2006 

  Understanding supply chain risk: A McKinsey Global Survey

  Executives believe they face growing risk from disruptions to their supply chains—yet many are unprepared to manage those risks.

• August 2006 

  How global organizations develop local talent

  Successful companies take a multipronged approach to nurture not only prospective leaders but also the community as a whole.

• August 2006 

  Mapping the value of employee collaboration

  As collaboration within and among organizations becomes increasingly important, companies must improve their management of the networks where it typically occurs.

• August 2006 

  Who should—and shouldn't—run the family business

  Family-owned companies run by eldest sons account for a good deal of the managerial-quality gap between the countries in a study.

• June 2006 

  An executive perspective on employee benefits: A McKinsey Survey

  Executives say employee benefits help companies compete but have an incomplete understanding of benefits and how they perform.

• May 2006 

  Making a market in talent

  A 21st-century company should put as much effort into developing its talented employees as it puts into recruiting them.

• May 2006 

  The people problem in talent management

  Talent-management processes can't work if managers don't think it's important to develop their people.

2005

• November 2005 

  China's looming talent shortage

  To make the move from manufacturing to services, China must raise the quality of its university graduates.

  Includes:

• November 2005 

  The future of the global workplace: An interview with the CEO of Manpower

  Jeff Joerres explains how a rapid pace of change requires both companies and employees to take a new approach to work.

• September 2005 

  Ensuring India's offshoring future

  The country must not only produce more top-quality engineers but also show the world the depth and quality of its talent in other fields—and in cities beyond Bangalore and Mumbai.

  Includes:

• August 2005 

  A guide for the CEO-elect

  The days, weeks, or months between taking the job and assuming power are precious. Put them to good use.

• August 2005 

  Using branding to attract talent

  To win the best recruits, a company must know how they perceive its brand.

• May 2005 

  A dearth of HR talent

  European companies must redefine the skills and capabilities required of their human-resources personnel.

2004

• February 2004 

  Nonprofits' untapped resource

  Alumni represent a deep reservoir of time, money, and talent. Here’s how nonprofit organizations can foster enduring relationships with them.

2003

• November 2003 

  Do you know who your experts are?

  Companies need a new approach to finding their elusive experts.

• June 2003 

  Matching people and jobs

  Achieving the most productive combination of workers and work is about to become a great deal easier.

• February 2003 

  Getting what you pay for with stock options

  Companies now have an opportunity to rethink their use of stock options so that they serve shareholders as well as executives.

2002

• November 2002 

  Has pay for performance had its day?

  The way to get your employees to focus on both the present and the future is to adjust your culture and to weaken your financial incentives.

2001

• December 2001 

  Brains abroad

  Emerging markets can win in the global war for talent by leveraging the talents of their expats.

• December 2001 

  Shall we dance?

  Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater is undergoing its own Russian revolution.

• November 2001 

  Managing the asset manager

  A survey shows that the message on talent from asset-management employees to their bosses is an overwhelming "could do better."

• May 2001 

  Teamwork at the top

  When the top team isn’t working well, the whole company suffers. How can top teams fix themselves?

• May 2001 

  The war for talent, part two

  An update of McKinsey’s 1997 survey on the war for talent found that it is escalating—despite the current economic slowdown and the end of the dot-com boom.

2000

• August 2000 

  Stock options aren’t enough

  Compensation plans linking the pay of managers to the share values of their companies can reward or penalize them for events they don’t control. A new model is needed.

• August 2000 

  The war for technical talent

  A McKinsey survey of computer science and electrical engineering graduates, summarized in "The war for technical talent," found that falling numbers of middle-aged people, the movement of employees out of large corporations, and frequent job-hopping will force employers to offer top dollar to top performers.

• February 2000 

  How executives grow

  Talent can be bought, but the best companies develop their own.

• February 2000 

  The talent-growth dynamic

  Talent-dependent companies should be able to nurture enough high-flying managers internally to meet ambitious growth targets. An approach called the dynamic-resource view shows how.

1999

• November 1999 

  Think global, hire local

  Building a bedrock of local managers in emerging markets is essential to ensure long-term market leadership—but getting it right is hard.

• August 1999 

  Are you taking your expatriate talent seriously?

  To make the most of overseas opportunities, multinational companies must pay closer attention to the problems of executives transferred into them.

• August 1999 

  The US military is losing the war for talent

  Keeping good midlevel people is the real problem—and the draft wouldn’t address it.

1998

• August 1998 

  The war for talent

  Tell me again: Why would someone really good want to join your company? And how will you keep them for more than a few years? Yes, money does matter.

• February 1998 

  Help Wanted

  America’s service sector has created millions of new jobs. That’s the problem. Companies will need to segment labor markets or change the way they produce a service. Turning dead-end jobs into careers.

1997

• November 1997 

  A tougher game at the top

  Champion Paper pioneered team building in its mills. But building teams in the executive suite took ten years. Was it worth it?

• November 1997 

  Teamwork across time and space

  Can teams that don’t spend time physically together be effective? The answer is yes—so long as they can find a way to build credibility and trust.

1996