The Atlanta Opera (B): New (and Old) Challenges
Citation:
Tushman, Michael L., and Kerry Herman. "The Atlanta Opera (B): New (and Old) Challenges." Harvard Business School Supplement 419-025, March 2019. View Details|
Article Harvard Business Review (website) January 4, 2019 How Companies Can Balance Social Impact and Financial Goals |
Abstract
It’s notoriously difficult for a business to manage two separate-but-equal goals—making money and creating social value at the same time, for example, or managing an existing business at the same time that you invent a new one. Most attempts at managing these ”strategic paradoxes” fail because they’re not managed carefully and consistently. (It’s easy to write a great purpose statement or to dream up a new business model but way more difficult to follow through when it’s time to make actual tradeoffs between the goals.) Three organizational mechanisms can help: guardrails that protect the weaker of the two goals, dynamic decision-making that treats high-level goals as sacrosanct but tactical decisions as provisional, and leaders dedicated to “both/and” thinking.
Keywords: Goals and Objectives; Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Profit; Decision Making;
Citation:
Besharov, Marya L., Wendy K. Smith, and Michael Tushman. "How Companies Can Balance Social Impact and Financial Goals." Harvard Business Review (website) (January 4, 2019).
