All Insights Articles

What’s the best way to manage a secret project—one whose stakes, whether diplomatic or business, are very high? And what do your actions tell your opponents about your true intentions?

Every Election Day, politicians sporting flag pins step into voting booths and come out proclaiming their pride in the democratic process. But take a step back and things don’t look so rosy. Between badly run elections and a new wave of “dark money” entering campaigns, reformers fear that the very nature of our democracy is at risk.

Healthcare is an industry as much as a science. Innovations that enable the system to deliver better quality at a lower cost are as likely to come from IT, business processes, and design as from new medicines. Moving medicine fully into the digital world could be the linchpin of a more integrated, coordinated approach, if the technology can mesh neatly with the needs of patients, providers, and payers; existing business models; and the complexity of medicine itself.

Four experts gave a wide-ranging overview of how insights from behavioral economics are being applied in governments, businesses, and other organizations.

In a Fortune magazine op-ed, Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld says that in order to make a comeback, NBC anchor Brian Williams will need to find a new, public mission.

Where do the new ideas come from—the ones that change industries and societies? In a lecture at Yale SOM, Prof. Richard Foster explains what creativity is—and isn’t—and describes the kinds of traits, knowledge, and ways of thinking that lead to the moment of creative insight.

Should organizations favor the dependable efficiency of rules and standards or a less calculated but more flexible operation that bends to accommodate individual situations? How about both?

In a New York Times op-ed, Professor Robert J. Shiller explores the link between people’s feelings of uncertainty about the future and the unusual dynamics at work in today's economic world.

Defense spending has been a key driver of technology and innovation in the United States since the beginning of the Cold War, according to Yale SOM professor Paul Bracken. The Pentagon was a prime funder for the early growth of Silicon Valley and more recently quietly created another technology hub, focusing on defense, in northern Virginia.

Organic food is booming. Even after a dip during the financial crisis, organics have continued to grow at an impressive clip worldwide. But organic food remains a small fraction of total food consumption. Will organics will ever be able to break into the mainstream? Yale Insights talks with Denis Ring ’84, founder of organic chocolate company Ocho Candy and creator of Whole Foods’ 365 organic store brand.