You can’t know what your employees are really thinking. That’s why one CEO went undercover to find out. He worked, in disguise, for two weeks on 10 different sites. His goal was to hear what workers said when they were uncensored. The biggest lesson he learned?

Internet pioneer Esther Dyson continues to work as a venture capitalist in Eastern Europe and also sits on the board of Yandex, a Russian-language search engine described as the “Google of Russia” even though it started first, in the late 1980s. A few lessons from Yandex:

By almost any standard, Sara Blakely was living an ordinary life. Blakely had never taken a business course and was clueless on patent law. But doggedly, without quitting her day job, she did the research and took time off to get her invention manufactured and sold. She named it SPANX ...

“The core of leadership is intentional influence,” says Tim Tassopoulos, Chick-fil-A's COO. He knows that his success depends on whether his employees behave in ways that improve results. How do leaders influence behavior change?

In the days leading up to his start as host of The Tonight Show, Conan O’Brien said he felt like a racehorse being led to the gate, rearing and bucking and eager to get started ...

Years ago, a landmark study at General Electric found its performance appraisal counterproductive and ineffective. Praise had no effect on performance, and criticism led to backsliding. What was going on?

When Jan Carlzon, former CEO of Scandinavian Airlines, wanted to give customer service representatives more autonomy, he feared the board of directors would balk. Even if the board members initially approved it, they might reverse course when faced with any backlash ...

Chris Gardner’s life story, turned into a book and movie The Pursuit of Happyness, strikes a chord because it’s really the story of everybody who makes good. Gardner offers maxims for success, including: Without a plan, a dream is just a dream. To help crystallize your plan, be clear, concise, compelling, committed and consistent.

When HR director Kris Dunn is in recruiting mode and gets your phone’s answering machine, he uses the occasion to judge you as a leader. “Good energy and kind of dynamic-sounding in your voice mail greeting? Cool. I’m more interested,” he says.

There’s a reason successful start-ups often require teams of two. You need talent and a network. Case en pointe: The Malaysian shoemaker Jimmy Choo made a name for himself creating custom, handmade shoes for an elite clientele including Diana, Princess of Wales. But his brand never would have shot into the stratosphere without Tamara Mellon.

As I see it, there are 6 factors responsible for any individual’s success or lack thereof, especially in business and wealth building.

A former “Star Trek” writer started wondering why: Why the six television series? Why the 11 “Star Trek” movies? Why the video games, conventions and cookbook? Why? Even non-Trekkies recognize something special about the franchise, acknowledges Leonard Mlodinow, who wrote for the second TV series. But what is it?

Spotting insights from fields far outside your own is one characteristic of an innovative leader. That’s what 49ers coach Bill Walsh does. Walsh, who led the San Francisco 49ers to three Super Bowl wins, invented the West Coast offense. And where did he get the idea?

Lead your team using Google’s “wisdom of crowds” model ... Lay the foundation for tomorrow’s workforce by developing virtual teams ... Close the gap between leader and followers by demonstrating visibly that you value employees.

The journal Chief Executive again rated its 20 best companies for leaders last year, with 3M shooting up to the top from 15th place the year before. One thing that may account for 3M’s rapid rise was a greater reliance on peer assessment.

Common sense and experience can help you make decisions, but they’re not enough. An expert can provide options. But only the decision-maker knows all the circumstances, so make sure you have a reliable method for reaching a decision. Seven steps to help you get there:

Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft chief executive, says that he and Bill Gates used to like meetings where the presenter took the long and winding road—or where a presenter describes his winding path of exploration and his ultimate conclusion. Now, though, Ballmer feels the practice is inefficient. He espouses a different approach to meetings.

The key to not letting gossip drain energy from your workplace is teaching supervisors to effectively address employees’ concerns, such as rumors about layoffs. “Write a script, so that everyone is speaking in the same voice,” advises management expert Quint Studer.

This month's collection of real-world quick tips from American business leaders, brought to you by members of The Alternative Board.

If you're relying solely on your memory to evaluate employee performance, you're making appraisals far more difficult than necessary. That's why it's best to institute a simple recording system to document employee performance. The most useful, easy-to-implement way is to create and maintain a log for each person. Follow these six steps:

There’s good reason for gathering data. Make sure the “facts” in your head conform to reality. Take the case of Gordon Livingston, a newly minted lieutenant in the 82nd Airborne Division, trying to orient himself one day on a field problem at Fort Bragg, N.C.

At 26,000 feet in the air and only 400 feet from the summit of Broad Peak in Pakistan, two climbers were forced to stay in a snow cave for the night. The pair strategized a survival plan. Three things are critical to survival in those conditions, which work in other situations when you have to hunker down:

Fixating on setting and meeting goals creates tunnel vision. How? Take what happened when General Motors set out to recapture 29% of the American car market a few years ago. GM execs sported lapel pins with the number 29 on them, but the company never did regain that market share.

There’s a hefty price to pay when a company doesn’t trust its employees, and employees don’t trust their company. Stephen M.R. Covey, son of the 7 Habits author, argues that if you don’t have a high-trust organization, you’re actually paying taxes on everybody’s suspicions.

When it comes to complex decisions, it may be better to toss the pros and cons spreadsheet and switch on autopilot. Recent research shows that many of our best decisions are made in the absence of conscious thought.