Daniel Quinn Mills consults with major corporations and governments and lectures about management, leadership, strategy, economics and geopolitics. He is an expert on the differences between Asian and Western leadership styles. His most recent article is “Asian and American Leadership Styles: How They Differ,” published in the Peking University Business Review, August, 2007. An American, Mills is also a member of the Innovation Council of Malaysia, a ministry level council chaired by the Prime Minister.
During the Vietnam War (1967-1974), Mills was responsible within the federal government for wages, prices, and production in the capital goods industries constituting some 14% of America’s Gross Domestic Product.
Mills arrived at the Harvard Business School in 1976 having taught at MIT's Sloan School of Management from 1968 to 1975. He remained at Harvard until 2007.
Mills has been interested in early stage businesses and as a director and investor has helped develop several firms. He has been a director of a publicly listed company, chairing its audit committee for several years.
A thought leader, Mills has written books on leadership, geo-politics, investments, capital markets, business strategy, network organizations, demographics, marketing, empowerment, and union relations.
His most recent book is Democracy and Its Elected Enemies, published in 2013 by Cambridge University Press also, Master of Illusions: Presidential Leadership, Strategic Independence and America’s Public Culture, published in 2007 by Cambridge University Press. The book explores America’s role in the world in the aftermath of the second Iraqi War.
Other recent books include three studies of executive leadership: Principles of Management; Leadership: How to Lead, How to Live; and Principles of Human Resource Management — each published in 2005 and 2006 by MindEdge Press.
Another book, Having It All: Six Steps for Putting Both Your Career and Your Family First, published in 2004 by Prentice-Hall, offers an effective approach for people to balancing their work and family lives.
Two books published early in this decade tell the story of equity market manipulations: Wheel, Deal and Steal: Deceptive Accounting, Deceitful CEOs, and Ineffective Reforms (published by The Financial Times/Prentice Hall, April 2003) and Buy, Lie and Sell High: How Investors Lost out on Enron and the Internet Bubble (published in 2002).
A 1996 book, Broken Promises, sets forth the strategy that IBM adopted in the 1990s to turn itself around, while another 1996 work, Staying Afloat, proposes business strategies for the world’s construction companies.
In the early eighties, Mills was one of the first to examine the impact of demographics on management and consumption. He studied the baby boomers in his book Not Like Our Parents (1987). Also, he helped start interest in moving from management to leadership in business with his Rebirth of the Corporation (1991), and helped define and establish the new management approach of empowerment through The GEM Principle (1994).
Mills’ earliest books dealt with economics and employee relations. As a government official he helped bring to a close the cycle of wage-push inflation which damaged the economy in the 1960s and ‘70s, and described these efforts in Government, Labor and Inflation (1975), Industrial Relations in Transition (1984), and his university-level textbook Labor-Management Relations (in five editions).
Widely and often quoted as well as seen in the national media, Mills has appeared on NBC’s Today Show, and been quoted in articles in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and Business Week. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources.
His MA and Ph.D., both in economics, are from Harvard. Mills received his undergraduate degree from Ohio Wesleyan University.
Democracy and Its Elected Enemies reveals that American politicians have usurped their constitutional authority, substituting their economic and political sovereignty for the people's. This has been accomplished by creating an enormous public service sector operating in the material interest of politicians themselves and of their big business and big social advocacy confederates to the detriment of workers, the middle class, and the nonpolitical rich, jeopardizing the nation's security in the process. The authors contend that this usurpation is the source of America's economic decline and fading international power and provide an action plan for restoring "true" democracy in which politicians only provide the services people vote for within the civil and property rights protections set forth in the Constitution.
After discussing higher education's potential contribution to Asia's economic progress and the characteristics (and limitations) of a leading university, Professor Emeritus Daniel Quinn Mills lays out his recommendations for building a world-class university in Asia, including how to hire faculty, build a curriculum, attract and retain students, and achieve top-quality research.
Mills, D. Q. eLeadership. Paramus, NJ: Prentice Hall Press, 2001. (Also published in translated edition in Portuguese, E-Liderazgo, Bilbao: Ediciones Deusto, 2002.)
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Mills, D. Quinn. "How To Stop Another Stock Bubble." Expert-View. International Forum: The Magazine for Staff of Deutsche Bank Group (September 2002), 58.
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Mills, D. Quinn, and Dirk Seifert. "New Concepts for Corporate e-Learning - The Use of Virtual Classes at Harvard Business School As Best Practice." Markt: Journal für Marketing (April 2002).
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Mills, D. Q., and G. B. Friesen. "Clusters: A New Style of Organization." Clinical Laboratory Management Review 6, no. 6 (November–December 1992): 499–513.
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Mills, D. Quinn. "An Opportunity-Based Strategy Process for Innovation." In Strategic Management in the Innovation Economy, edited by Thomas H. Davenport, Marius Liebold, and Sven Voepoel. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2006.
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Mills, D. Quinn, and Franziska Zellweger. "Management in Perspective: Lessons Learned from Harvard Business School." In E-Learning an Hochschulen. An Beispielen lernen, edited by Dieter Euler and Karl Wilbers, 89–96. Switzerland: Institut für Wirtschaftspädagogik, 2003, German ed.
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Mills, D. Quinn, Stephan A. Friedrich, Hans H. Hinterhuber, and Dirk Seifert. "The Leader as Partner: A Contrast of European and American Leadership Styles." Chap. 17 in Partnering: The New Face of Leadership, edited by Larraine Segil, Marshall Goldsmith, and James Belasco, 177–186. New York: AMACOM, 2002.
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Mills, D. Quinn, and Dirk Seifert. "The Use of Virtual Classes at Harvard Business School: A Successful Model for Corporate e-Learning." Chap. 13 in Corporate e-Learning. Edited by Reiner Neumann, Ralf Nacke, and Alexander Ross, 171–180. Wiesbaden, Germany: Gabler Verlag, 2002.
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Mills, D. Q., and G. Bruce Friesen. "Empowerment." In Financial Times Handbook of Management, edited by S. Crainer and D. Dearlove. New York: Prentice Hall, 2000.
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Mills, D. Q., and J. Pumo. "Managing Change in Higher Education: A Leader's Guide." In Renewing Administration: Preparing Colleges and Universities for the 21st Century, edited by Diana G. Oblinger and Richard N. Katz. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company, 1999.
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Mills, D. Quinn, and Carole Winkler. "Leadership Forum: Building Great Careers (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 307-104, April 2007.
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Leadership: Can I learn it, how do I do it, and how can I use it to advance my career? How is today's world different from the one our teachers entered years ago, and how does that affect me? The two videos on this DVD address these and other questions typically asked by students trying to make challenging and life-altering career decisions. The videos may be used in whole or in part with background from: Mills, D. Quinn. Leadership: How to Lead, How to Live. Waltham, Mass.: MindEdge Press, 2005; Thomas, D. A., and John J. Gabarro. Breaking Through: The Making of Minority Executives in Corporate America. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press, 1999; Mills, D. Quinn. Principles of Management. Waltham, Mass.: MindEdge Press, 2005; Mills, D. Quinn, Sasha Mattu, and Kirstin Hornby. Having It All ... And Making It Work: Six Steps for Putting Both Your Career and Your Family First. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 2004. The videos may also be supplemented by an excellent by an excellent on-line course that is available at the Winchester Center for Management Development, accessed via www.execlearn.com.
Mills, D. Quinn, and Carole Winkler. "Leadership Forum: America's International Leadership (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 307-082, April 2007.
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Describes how Siemens Medical Solutions (MED) accomplished a remarkable turnaround from a money-losing operation to one of Siemens' most profitable divisions. By late 1996, a challenging market environment in the health care industry as well as inefficiencies in the company's manufacturing, logistics, and sales/service processes had a negative impact on MED's profitability. Reacting to these challenges, CEO Reinhardt defined and implemented a comprehensive turnaround program centered around people, processes, and products. The case highlights the most important aspects of the company's turnaround and later expansion and provides an outlook for the company's future challenges and opportunities.
Daniel Meyers, chairman and CEO of First Marblehead Corp., provides financial engineering services to educational institutions. This case deals with the market for student loans.
Mills, D. Quinn, and Matt Salloway. "First Marblehead Corporation (A)." Harvard Business School Case 301-069, January 2001. (Revised September 2002.)
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In the early 1990s, Acer, Inc. set two goals: to be a top-five PC company worldwide in 1995 and to be a global consortium of companies by the year 2000. The company identified potential obstacles concerning capital, image, number of experienced international managers, and marketing experience in foreign markets, and devised a strategy to reach its goals. This case examines the company's strategy in the context of changes in the PC industry.
D. Quinn Mills, Brock W. Orwig, Janet M. Pumo, Todd C. Stilson and Richard C. Wei
In the midst of dramatic changes in the information systems industry and declining profits at the ABC Co., the vice president in charge of the sales and service division, Jeff, and his managers attempt to transform their division. The transformation gets off to a good start but soon runs into problems as the managers are forced to lay off employees and to cancel a conference intended to move the transformation forward. Jeff wonders what he should do next as some members of his management team resign and morale is low.
Describes four basic organizational forms--hierarchy, division, matrix, and cluster. Diagrams of each are included. Their strengths and weaknesses under different business environment conditions are detailed. There is a table comparing the forms on several key organizational dimensions and a second table that describes key management practices in each form.
Describes People Express business strategy and whether it was successful. Describes changing environment in the airline industry and asks students to make decisions concerning a new business strategy for People Express. Follow-up to the (A) case.
Describes situation facing Don Burr at People Express in May of 1985. Purpose is to get students to make a business policy decision. Follow-up to People Express - March 1984.
Mills, D. Quinn, and G. Bruce Friesen. "American Communications (A), Teaching Note." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 486-094, March 1986.
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Mills, D. Quinn, and G. Bruce Friesen. "Higgins Equipment Co. (B) and (B) (AMP), Teaching Note." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 486-059, October 1985. (Revised March 1986.)
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Mills, D. Quinn, and Richard O. von Werssowetz. "Coal Strike of 1977-78 (C)." Harvard Business School Case 679-133, July 1979. (Revised December 1984.)
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Mills, D. Quinn, and Mary Lou Balbaky. "LEP Corp. (C)." Harvard Business School Supplement 383-023, September 1982. (Revised August 1983.)
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Mills, D. Quinn, and Richard O. von Werssowetz. "Coal Strike of 1977-78 (A)." Harvard Business School Case 679-131, July 1979. (Revised December 1981.)
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Mills, D. Quinn. "Next Generation Learning via Next Generation Content." MindEdge Press White Paper Series, MindEdge Press, Waltham, MA, December 2005.
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