INDUSTRY INSIGHTS YOUR PEERS ARE READING
There certainly is no shortage of candidates from our nine decades of publishing — from Ted Levitt's "Marketing Myopia" to Michael Porter's "How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy.". Harvard Business Review was launched precisely 90 years ago this month with an ambitious agenda — to produce a "business theory," based on rigorous research, to help managers run their companies more effectively. MORE
Theodore Levitt says, “Discretion is the enemy of order, standardization, and quality.” Here is a portion of an article on Systematic Thinking, a key tool in a leader's arsenal. The full article is available on the TEAM site. MORE
The Marketing Imagination (Expanded Edition) Theodore Levitt Free Press (1986) Do not be misled by the date of this Expanded Edition: Of the more than 27 gazillion books on marketing now in print, none has had a greater impact than has this one. It is truly a masterpiece. By way of background, in 1960 (in [.]. MORE
Levitt and. Levitt and Stephen J. Evaluation & Control Program Recommended Resources book review business book business management evaluation and control freakonomics Stephen Dubner Steven Levitt strategydriven MORE
Saul quotes Theodore Levitt (Harvard Business School Professor), “People don’t want a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole.” Quick, tell me your organization’s business model. Can you? Can you tell me what a business model is? MORE
Some fifteen years ago, in a period that seemed full of change and uncertainty in marketing, I asked my colleague Ted Levitt where he saw our field heading. Levitt, who had a marvelous talent for speaking in epigrams, responded, "The future of marketing will be more like its past than anyone imagines." Today, as the internet, social media, new analytics, and mobile devices upend the work of marketing, it may seem strange to say he was right. MORE
Many years ago I read Theodore Levitt’s The Marketing Imagination. Branding Leadership Marketing Strategy Advertising Consurmer Packaged Goods Social Media Theodore Levitt Vision MORE
A team of economic researchers led by Harvard University’s Roland Fryer (and including Steven Levitt of Freakonomics fame) recently flipped the incentive model on its head and tested on one of the most incentive-resistant professions in America: schoolteachers. Incentives have been with us for a long time. As a tool drive performance, there is nearly 100 years of solid argument for their use in organizations. More recently, however, their use has been called into question. MORE
In 1960, the editor of the Harvard Business Review, Theodore Levitt, wrote that the failure of railroads could be explained in part by the myopic view that they were in the railroad business and not the transportation business, which left them vulnerable to competition from cars, trucks, and planes. Levitt argued that it's always better to define a business by what consumers want than by what a company can produce. What Business Are We In? MORE
The marketing orientation focuses the purpose of the firm towards serving customer needs profitably – an orientation supported by the late greats Peter Drucker and Theodore Levitt. MORE
View my complete profile Previous Posts The First 30 Days as CEO The Laws of Charisma Jim's Longevity Diet Broth The Next Level Book Review The Intangibles of Leadership Conscientious Equity Book Report Nando Parrado and James Cameron Blue Ocean Strategy Professor Joseph Stiglitz and Al Gore Steven Levitt - Freakonomics Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on this site. MORE
Alan M. Webber is an award-winning, nationally-recognized editor, author, and columnist. In 1995, he launched Fast Company magazine, a fresh, dynamic entry in the business magazine category. Headquartered in Boston, MA, the magazine became the fastest growing, most successful business magazine in history. Fast Company won two national magazine awards—one for general excellence, one for [.]. Bob's blog entries "Business As War" "global detective” Alan M. MORE
As Ted Levitt pointed out 55 years ago, companies develop significant myopia over time, only seeing things that are squarely in the mainstream of their market. Through the past 15 years my colleagues and I have wrestled with disruption in many contexts. MORE
The term was coined by the late Harvard Business School marketing professor, Theodore Levitt, in a 1960 article by the same name (republished in 2004). ” As Levitt used to tell his students, “People don’t want a quarter-inch drill. Paul Garbett for HBR. MORE
It's hard to overestimate the influence Ted Levitt's "Marketing Myopia" has had on the world of marketing and beyond. Like Harold Bloom's Anxiety of Influence in literary criticism or Donald Norman's The Design of Everyday Things in product design, Levitt's half-century-old treatise on examining what business your company is really in hovers over and continues to influence entire schools of thought. This post is part of the HBR Insight Center Marketing That Works. MORE
Steve Levitt - Author of Freakanomics and Super Freakanomics , Steve was superb. MORE
The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker Leaders by Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus Thinking About Management by Theodore Levitt Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl Wooden On Leadership by John Wooden and Steve Jameson Management of the Absurd by Richard Farson Parkinson's Law by C. I've been asked of provide a list of books that I'd recommend for managers. MORE
Michael Levitt, CEO of BreakfastLeadership.com. Becoming A Healthy Leader There are plenty of ways to become a healthy leader. I’ve shared various ways you can become a healthy leader over the last couple of weeks. MORE
Revised and Expanded Edition): How Net Promoter Companies Thrive in a Customer-Driven World Theodore Levitt HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Strategic Marketing HBR Editors and various contributors Harvard Busxiness Review Press (2013) How the right strategy can help create or increase demand for whatever is offered This is one in a series of volumes that anthologizes what the editors of the Harvard Business Review consider to be the “must reads” […]. MORE
Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner William Morrow/An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers (2014) How and why mastering the economic approach will produce better answers to questions and better solutions to problems In their latest book, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner cite […]. Levitt The Book The conventional wisdom is often wrong The Gambler Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Van Halen group William Morrow/An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Zappos MORE
Theodore LevittIt can be said with confident certainty that wherever the articulate and persuasive rationalizer for constantly or frequently poor performance regularly shows up, the company will surely slow down and go under. MORE
The late economist and marketing professor Theodore Levitt famously said “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole.” Most data-driven healthcare IT (HCIT) providers aren’t going to survive. Their business models are at serious risk of failure in the next three to five years. To beat those odds, they need to evolve dramatically, and fast, to a point where they are not selling data at all. MORE
” The books Chip has found most helpful for his professional life include Watership Down by Richard Adams, Marketing for Business Growth by Ted Levitt, and The Purple Cow by Seth Godin. MORE
Martin Seth Godin Steve Jobs Steve Steinhilber strategic alliances The Complete Guide to Mergers and Acquisitions The Effective Executive Execution The Executive’s Compass The Marketing Imagination The Opposable Mind Theodore Levitt Thomas Edison Thomas Watson Sr. MORE
More generally, the results affirm that applying behavioral insights has great potential for increasing economic and individual well-being at low cost, as the recent work of Daniel Kahneman, Steven Levitt, Cass Sunstein, Richard Thaler, and others has shown. Ryan McVay/Getty Images. With U.S. household credit card debt at an all-time high of more than $1 trillion , delinquent payments can be more costly than ever. MORE
Grove’s 1980 question remains as ruthlessly relevant to C-suites as Ted Levitt’s 1960 classic, “What business are you in?” Aggravated and depressed by the decline of their core memory business in the 1980s, Intel’s top management struggled for strategic clarity. MORE
In New York magazine , Freakonomics co-author Steven Levitt talks about his new venture: a speakers bureau with an audience of one MORE
Kotter, Jim Stroup, James Autry, Theodore Levitt, Stanley McChrystal, Daniel Coyle, Tim Ferriss, Ronald Heifetz, and more and more and more Marcus Aurelius, Thucydides, Peter Drucker, John Boyd, Arthur Elliott Carlisle, C. Northcote Parkinson, James Q. MORE
Theodore Levitt Marketing is not just a business function. It is a consolidating view of the entire business process. MORE
Dick Remember to Breathe Saint Paul’s 1 Corinthians 13:12 Simon Pont: An interview by Bob Morris Steven Levitt Super-Toys Last All Summer Long Tao Te Ching the “300 pound digital goliath” The Better Mousetrap: Brand Invention in a Media Democracy the Great Man theory of decision making and organizational performance the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom The Princess Bride Tom Davenport Vizeum Voltaire William GoldmanSimon Pont is a writer, commentator and brand-builder. MORE
In January 1980, Harvard's Ted Levitt wrote an article titled " Marketing Success Through Differentiation of Anything." Levitt argued that products were more complicated to consumers than most manufacturers considered. Levitt asserted that companies could differentiate themselves — to a limited degree — by providing a variety of expected features to the consumer (i.e., MORE
In 1960, Harvard professor Theodore Levitt published a landmark paper in Harvard Business Review that urged executives to adapt by asking themselves, “What business are we really in?” Which brings us to something else Theodore Levitt said, “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole.” Jennifer Maravillas for HBR. MORE
In fact this book reads a bit like Freakanomics , the blockbuster by U of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and New York Times journalist Stephen Dubner. MORE
Maybe it's a good time to dredge up a chestnut from Ted Levitt's classic HBR article, "Marketing Myopia." Levitt analyzed the fall of the railroads, and notes that the railroads "assumed themselves to be in the railroad business rather than in the transportation business. Charles Dickens was killing it in 1842. MORE
Thursday September 15th, 2011: The Financial Times and Goldman Sachs today announced the shortlist for the seventh annual Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award (www.ft.com/bookaward), which aims to identify the book providing the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues. The shortlist is: [.]. MORE
Theodore LevittThere is no such thing as the right way for a manager to operate or behave. There are only ways that are appropriate for specific tasks in specific enterprises under specific conditions. MORE
Rust Scott Cook Suj Krishnaswamy Susan Fournier Taddy Hall The Marketing Imagination Theodore LevittHarvard Business Review on Reinventing Your Marketing Various Contributors Harvard Business Review Press (2011) How to use innovative thinking to improve how you create or increase demand for what you offer Those who aspire to maximize the impact of their marketing initiatives will find the material in this HBR book invaluable. It is one of [.]. MORE
In 1960, marketing legend Ted Levitt provided perhaps his seminal contribution to the Harvard Business Review : “ Marketing Myopia.” To avoid that, Levitt exhorted leaders to ask themselves the seemingly obvious question – “What business are you really in?” Levitt agreed, noting that the trouble starts when over time companies come to define themselves not by what they do for customers but by the products they sell or the categories in which they compete. MORE
Karl Ronn is the managing director of Innovation Portfolio Partners. Based in Palo Alto, he helps Fortune 500 companies create new businesses or helps entrepreneurs start category creating new companies. He is a co-founder of VC-backed Butterfly Health that sells Butterfly body liners nationally. He is also developing a software company building diagnostic competency for […]. MORE
Theodore Levitt In truth, there is no such thing as a growth industry. There are only companies organized and operated to create and capitalize on growth opportunities. Industries that assume themselves to be riding some automatic growth escalator invariably descend into stagnation. MORE
In Theodore Levitt’s The Marketing Imagination , the renowned marketing professor said there was no such thing as a commodity, only people who think like commodities. MORE
With apologies to Ted Levitt , a new “Marketing Myopia 2.0” While working with a huge Russian hydrocarbon company in Texas last year, our innovation conversation quickly zeroed in on customers. Who was the energy giant’s most important customer? MORE
Levitt Related Topics 
Joseph Lalonde
MARCH 14, 2018
Michael Levitt, CEO of BreakfastLeadership.com. Becoming A Healthy Leader There are plenty of ways to become a healthy leader. I’ve shared various ways you can become a healthy leader over the last couple of weeks.
In the CEO Afterlife
JULY 2, 2013
Many years ago I read Theodore Levitt’s The Marketing Imagination. Branding Leadership Marketing Strategy Advertising Consurmer Packaged Goods Social Media Theodore Levitt Vision
First Friday Book Synopsis
JUNE 8, 2014
Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner William Morrow/An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers (2014) How and why mastering the economic approach will produce better answers to questions and better solutions to problems In their latest book, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner cite […]. Levitt The Book The conventional wisdom is often wrong The Gambler Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Van Halen group William Morrow/An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Zappos
Execupundit
SEPTEMBER 4, 2014
Theodore Levitt The future belongs to people who see possibilities before they become obvious.
First Friday Book Synopsis
NOVEMBER 26, 2014
Karl Ronn is the managing director of Innovation Portfolio Partners. Based in Palo Alto, he helps Fortune 500 companies create new businesses or helps entrepreneurs start category creating new companies. He is a co-founder of VC-backed Butterfly Health that sells Butterfly body liners nationally. He is also developing a software company building diagnostic competency for […].
Strategy Driven
JUNE 6, 2013
Levitt and. Levitt and Stephen J. Evaluation & Control Program Recommended Resources book review business book business management evaluation and control freakonomics Stephen Dubner Steven Levitt strategydriven
Execupundit
JUNE 14, 2014
Theodore Levitt Marketing is not just a business function. It is a consolidating view of the entire business process.
First Friday Book Synopsis
MARCH 4, 2011
The Marketing Imagination (Expanded Edition) Theodore Levitt Free Press (1986) Do not be misled by the date of this Expanded Edition: Of the more than 27 gazillion books on marketing now in print, none has had a greater impact than has this one. It is truly a masterpiece. By way of background, in 1960 (in [.].
Execupundit
NOVEMBER 12, 2014
Steven Levitt Business people, especially in front of their bosses, have an almost unlimited ability to sit back and mint answers they don''t know.
Execupundit
APRIL 17, 2017
Theodore LevittThere is no such thing as the right way for a manager to operate or behave. There are only ways that are appropriate for specific tasks in specific enterprises under specific conditions.
First Friday Book Synopsis
JANUARY 30, 2013
Dick Remember to Breathe Saint Paul’s 1 Corinthians 13:12 Simon Pont: An interview by Bob Morris Steven Levitt Super-Toys Last All Summer Long Tao Te Ching the “300 pound digital goliath” The Better Mousetrap: Brand Invention in a Media Democracy the Great Man theory of decision making and organizational performance the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom The Princess Bride Tom Davenport Vizeum Voltaire William GoldmanSimon Pont is a writer, commentator and brand-builder.
First Friday Book Synopsis
APRIL 30, 2011
Alan M. Webber is an award-winning, nationally-recognized editor, author, and columnist. In 1995, he launched Fast Company magazine, a fresh, dynamic entry in the business magazine category. Headquartered in Boston, MA, the magazine became the fastest growing, most successful business magazine in history. Fast Company won two national magazine awards—one for general excellence, one for [.]. Bob's blog entries "Business As War" "global detective” Alan M.
First Friday Book Synopsis
SEPTEMBER 15, 2011
Thursday September 15th, 2011: The Financial Times and Goldman Sachs today announced the shortlist for the seventh annual Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award (www.ft.com/bookaward), which aims to identify the book providing the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues. The shortlist is: [.].
First Friday Book Synopsis
OCTOBER 3, 2011
Rust Scott Cook Suj Krishnaswamy Susan Fournier Taddy Hall The Marketing Imagination Theodore LevittHarvard Business Review on Reinventing Your Marketing Various Contributors Harvard Business Review Press (2011) How to use innovative thinking to improve how you create or increase demand for what you offer Those who aspire to maximize the impact of their marketing initiatives will find the material in this HBR book invaluable. It is one of [.].
First Friday Book Synopsis
MARCH 2, 2011
Martin Seth Godin Steve Jobs Steve Steinhilber strategic alliances The Complete Guide to Mergers and Acquisitions The Effective Executive Execution The Executive’s Compass The Marketing Imagination The Opposable Mind Theodore Levitt Thomas Edison Thomas Watson Sr.
Execupundit
MAY 29, 2011
In New York magazine , Freakonomics co-author Steven Levitt talks about his new venture: a speakers bureau with an audience of one
Execupundit
FEBRUARY 2, 2018
Kotter, Jim Stroup, James Autry, Theodore Levitt, Stanley McChrystal, Daniel Coyle, Tim Ferriss, Ronald Heifetz, and more and more and more Marcus Aurelius, Thucydides, Peter Drucker, John Boyd, Arthur Elliott Carlisle, C. Northcote Parkinson, James Q.
Execupundit
MARCH 5, 2013
Theodore LevittIt can be said with confident certainty that wherever the articulate and persuasive rationalizer for constantly or frequently poor performance regularly shows up, the company will surely slow down and go under.
Execupundit
MAY 23, 2013
Theodore Levitt In truth, there is no such thing as a growth industry. There are only companies organized and operated to create and capitalize on growth opportunities. Industries that assume themselves to be riding some automatic growth escalator invariably descend into stagnation.
Execupundit
JANUARY 18, 2012
The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker Leaders by Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus Thinking About Management by Theodore Levitt Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl Wooden On Leadership by John Wooden and Steve Jameson Management of the Absurd by Richard Farson Parkinson's Law by C. I've been asked of provide a list of books that I'd recommend for managers.
In the CEO Afterlife
AUGUST 5, 2015
In Theodore Levitt’s The Marketing Imagination , the renowned marketing professor said there was no such thing as a commodity, only people who think like commodities.
Lead Change Blog
APRIL 1, 2016
” The books Chip has found most helpful for his professional life include Watership Down by Richard Adams, Marketing for Business Growth by Ted Levitt, and The Purple Cow by Seth Godin.
CEO Blog
NOVEMBER 11, 2010
View my complete profile Previous Posts The First 30 Days as CEO The Laws of Charisma Jim's Longevity Diet Broth The Next Level Book Review The Intangibles of Leadership Conscientious Equity Book Report Nando Parrado and James Cameron Blue Ocean Strategy Professor Joseph Stiglitz and Al Gore Steven Levitt - Freakonomics Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on this site.
Mills Scofield
APRIL 15, 2012
Saul quotes Theodore Levitt (Harvard Business School Professor), “People don’t want a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole.” Quick, tell me your organization’s business model. Can you? Can you tell me what a business model is?
Harvard Business Review
AUGUST 22, 2016
The term was coined by the late Harvard Business School marketing professor, Theodore Levitt, in a 1960 article by the same name (republished in 2004). ” As Levitt used to tell his students, “People don’t want a quarter-inch drill. Paul Garbett for HBR.
LDRLB
AUGUST 13, 2012
A team of economic researchers led by Harvard University’s Roland Fryer (and including Steven Levitt of Freakonomics fame) recently flipped the incentive model on its head and tested on one of the most incentive-resistant professions in America: schoolteachers. Incentives have been with us for a long time. As a tool drive performance, there is nearly 100 years of solid argument for their use in organizations. More recently, however, their use has been called into question.
Bird's Eye View
OCTOBER 19, 2011
In fact this book reads a bit like Freakanomics , the blockbuster by U of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and New York Times journalist Stephen Dubner.
N2Growth Blog
OCTOBER 7, 2010
Steve Levitt - Author of Freakanomics and Super Freakanomics , Steve was superb.
Strategy Driven
MARCH 30, 2011
The marketing orientation focuses the purpose of the firm towards serving customer needs profitably – an orientation supported by the late greats Peter Drucker and Theodore Levitt.
Harvard Business Review
JULY 11, 2011
It's hard to overestimate the influence Ted Levitt's "Marketing Myopia" has had on the world of marketing and beyond. Like Harold Bloom's Anxiety of Influence in literary criticism or Donald Norman's The Design of Everyday Things in product design, Levitt's half-century-old treatise on examining what business your company is really in hovers over and continues to influence entire schools of thought. This post is part of the HBR Insight Center Marketing That Works.
Harvard Business Review
OCTOBER 3, 2011
In January 1980, Harvard's Ted Levitt wrote an article titled " Marketing Success Through Differentiation of Anything." Levitt argued that products were more complicated to consumers than most manufacturers considered. Levitt asserted that companies could differentiate themselves — to a limited degree — by providing a variety of expected features to the consumer (i.e.,
Orrin Woodward
MARCH 8, 2011
Theodore Levitt says, “Discretion is the enemy of order, standardization, and quality.” Here is a portion of an article on Systematic Thinking, a key tool in a leader's arsenal. The full article is available on the TEAM site.
Harvard Business Review
NOVEMBER 29, 2011
Some fifteen years ago, in a period that seemed full of change and uncertainty in marketing, I asked my colleague Ted Levitt where he saw our field heading. Levitt, who had a marvelous talent for speaking in epigrams, responded, "The future of marketing will be more like its past than anyone imagines." Today, as the internet, social media, new analytics, and mobile devices upend the work of marketing, it may seem strange to say he was right.
Harvard Business Review
JANUARY 13, 2014
In 1960, marketing legend Ted Levitt provided perhaps his seminal contribution to the Harvard Business Review : “ Marketing Myopia.” To avoid that, Levitt exhorted leaders to ask themselves the seemingly obvious question – “What business are you really in?” Levitt agreed, noting that the trouble starts when over time companies come to define themselves not by what they do for customers but by the products they sell or the categories in which they compete.
Harvard Business Review
MAY 5, 2016
Grove’s 1980 question remains as ruthlessly relevant to C-suites as Ted Levitt’s 1960 classic, “What business are you in?” Aggravated and depressed by the decline of their core memory business in the 1980s, Intel’s top management struggled for strategic clarity.
Harvard Business Review
OCTOBER 16, 2012
There certainly is no shortage of candidates from our nine decades of publishing — from Ted Levitt's "Marketing Myopia" to Michael Porter's "How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy.". Harvard Business Review was launched precisely 90 years ago this month with an ambitious agenda — to produce a "business theory," based on rigorous research, to help managers run their companies more effectively.
Harvard Business Review
OCTOBER 18, 2016
In 1960, Harvard professor Theodore Levitt published a landmark paper in Harvard Business Review that urged executives to adapt by asking themselves, “What business are we really in?” Which brings us to something else Theodore Levitt said, “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole.” Jennifer Maravillas for HBR.
Harvard Business Review
JUNE 1, 2011
Maybe it's a good time to dredge up a chestnut from Ted Levitt's classic HBR article, "Marketing Myopia." Levitt analyzed the fall of the railroads, and notes that the railroads "assumed themselves to be in the railroad business rather than in the transportation business. Charles Dickens was killing it in 1842.
Harvard Business Review
JUNE 14, 2017
The late economist and marketing professor Theodore Levitt famously said “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole.” Most data-driven healthcare IT (HCIT) providers aren’t going to survive. Their business models are at serious risk of failure in the next three to five years. To beat those odds, they need to evolve dramatically, and fast, to a point where they are not selling data at all.
Harvard Business Review
SEPTEMBER 13, 2012
In 1960, the editor of the Harvard Business Review, Theodore Levitt, wrote that the failure of railroads could be explained in part by the myopic view that they were in the railroad business and not the transportation business, which left them vulnerable to competition from cars, trucks, and planes. Levitt argued that it's always better to define a business by what consumers want than by what a company can produce. What Business Are We In?
Harvard Business Review
NOVEMBER 18, 2015
As Ted Levitt pointed out 55 years ago, companies develop significant myopia over time, only seeing things that are squarely in the mainstream of their market. Through the past 15 years my colleagues and I have wrestled with disruption in many contexts.
Harvard Business Review
JULY 26, 2018
More generally, the results affirm that applying behavioral insights has great potential for increasing economic and individual well-being at low cost, as the recent work of Daniel Kahneman, Steven Levitt, Cass Sunstein, Richard Thaler, and others has shown. Ryan McVay/Getty Images. With U.S. household credit card debt at an all-time high of more than $1 trillion , delinquent payments can be more costly than ever.
Harvard Business Review
JANUARY 26, 2015
With apologies to Ted Levitt , a new “Marketing Myopia 2.0” While working with a huge Russian hydrocarbon company in Texas last year, our innovation conversation quickly zeroed in on customers. Who was the energy giant’s most important customer?
12 
Let's personalize your content