The 2016 Warren Bennis Prize – which honors the previous year’s best Harvard Business Review article on leadership – has been awarded to Brad Staats, associate professor of operations at UNC Kenan-Flagler, and Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School.
HBR published their winning article “Why Organizations Don’t Learn” in November 2015.
“The late, great Warren Bennis believed that leaders need two essential attributes: emotional intelligence and an ability to keep learning” and “would have loved” the award-winning article, writes HBR editor-in-chief Adi Ignatius. The award is presented jointly by HBR and the USC Marshall School of Business, where Bennis taught for many years and founded the Leadership Institute.
Staats and Gino “analyzed why companies struggle to become or remain ‘learning organizations,’” says Ignatius. “They found that deeply ingrained biases often get in the way, causing employees to focus too much on success, take action too quickly, try too hard to fit in, and depend too much on experts. And they suggested ways to counter those biases and “unleash the power of learning.”
Staats researches how knowledge-intensive organizations can improve their operating capabilities. He identifies factors that permit individuals, teams and organizations to learn more effectively. His field sites for research are located around the world, with a particular focus on India.