Defense sector

The armed services have been in the business of leadership development much longer than the corporate world has. Today's military leaders need tools and...

Author’s note: Alistair Hanna, Michael Reopel, and Stuart Flack, all of McKinsey & Company, contributed to this article. The U.S. defense industry is struggling to reorganize itself for growth, if not for survival. The disappearance of the communist threat and the desperate need to revive the U.S. economy have taken the defense industry for a […]

The U.S. Navy operates on the front lines of climate change. It manages tens of billions of dollars of assets on every continent and on every ocean, which...

Control your narrative.

How to lead through turbulent times.

A $200 billion market has appeared on your business horizon, but you may not have noticed it. It's the new U.S. military. Virtually all aspects of the...

Six ways to get started.

Cumbersome old Pentagon procurement processes are falling away, and VCs are paying attention.

Even though discrimination against them is illegal.

In 2005, the host unit of North Dakota's Grand Forks Air Force Base had to reinvent itself to stay relevant. Its large fleet of tanker aircraft was being...

Predictability and routines are important.

Business has undergone a dramatic transformation in recent years. So has warfare. Every executive knows firsthand the daunting challenges of the 21st...

The battle plan for Operation Iraqi Freedom called for a rapid, responsive force capable of identifying and removing threats immediately. Commercial supply...

As a young woman, Bachelet was tortured and exiled by the Chilean government. She went on to become the country's first female president. Here's a look...

When leaders don't fire incompetent executives, they send a bad message to the whole organization. A case in point is the U.S. Army. "To study the change...

Leadership is often presented as an abstract undertaking, a matter of vision and values rather than practical details. But in the author's world, the...

Eight lessons from some of history's greats.

Craft your vision in pencil, not ink.

The world economy has entered a new era of industrial competition. Every major advanced industrial nation—and a growing number of developing ones—are all competing in the same crucial technologies. A 1989 “Critical Technologies Plan” published by the Department of Defense identified 22 technologies essential to future military security, but the technologies are also indicators of […]

Corporate America and the U.S. Navy share one big problem: employee retention. Today's knowledge workers hop from start-up to start-up. And 40% of the...