When we started our first restaurant in 2004, our goal was to create a place where people wanted to not just eat but also to work. Just like Southwest Airlines or Starbucks, we recognized that a happy staff means happy customers and a more productive, profitable business. But what would this employee-centric vision look like in practice?

When we hear people talk about struggling to maintain work-life balance, our hearts sink a little. As one executive in a high-performing company we have studied explained, “If work and life are separate things—if work is what keeps you from living—then we’ve got a serious problem.” In our research on what we call Deliberately Developmental Organizations—or “DDOs” for short—we have identified successful organizations that regard this trade-off as a false one. What if we saw work as an essential context for personal growth? And what if employees’ continuous development were assumed to be the critical ingredient for a company’s success?

The proliferation of C-suite roles is an indication of the increasing strategic and operational complexity organizations face. Heightened expectations of expertise are also part of the picture — for instance, GE’s recent transition from asking executives to focus on breadth to focus on depth.

Does better data mean better employee performance and organizational outcomes? That’s the implication of the current emphasis on big data and the use of metrics in HR, but the answer isn’t an easy “yes.”

Decades of studies have demonstrated that male law firm partners earn considerably more than their female colleagues.

There are three popular explanations for the clear under-representation of women in management, namely

In the summer of 2008, I experienced a massive hormonal shift, moving from the largely-male, testosterone-charged environment of Harvard Business School, where I had spent the first 18 years of my career, to the nearly all-female realm of Barnard College, the all-women's liberal arts college where I now serve as president.

Americans are addicted to their smartphones. A recent report by Flurry Analytics revealed that Americans spend about 2 hours and 38 minutes a day glued to their mobile devices, with 80% of that time spent in/on mobile apps. With over 700,000 apps available for download in both Google Play and the Apple App Store, it is safe to say that apps have reached critical mass.

The promise of digital marketing continues to grow as big data gets bigger and is turbo charged with mobile and social. In theory, digital marketing should be more precise and better than traditional analog marketing.

Change is an arduous process. Whenever I have to make a big change in my life, I tend to go through three phases. First, I simply wish ("somehow it will happen"). When that doesn't work, I'll look for a quick Hail Mary fix. (Sadly, those specially formulated seaweed pills didn't help me lose 1 to 2 pounds a day). Finally, still stuck in the same situation, I realize that I have to confront the challenge and strategize to make things happen.