McKinsey Quarterly Five Fifty

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Making AI work for workers

Employees are ready for AI. How can their leaders help them unleash new levels of creativity and productivity?
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An image of a person sitting at a desk workspace, engaging with a touchscreen computer monitor. To the right of the person sits a bird, and to the person’s left, a mug with steam rising from it. In the background and surrounding space are mountain peaks and forest trees, giving the impression that the person’s workspace is in the middle of nature.
Healthy workplace, healthy workers
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By creating supportive workplaces that help alleviate employee burnout and improve well-being, employers can enable both their...
An image of a person wearing a raincoat holding an umbrella. The person has an outstretched hand as if trying to check if it’s raining. Overhead, cutout images of the world’s continents are arranged in a jumbled, overlapping manner and are shaded to look like storm clouds. Bolts of lightning emit from the group of continents.
A proactive approach to geopolitics
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As the 2025 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum kicks...
An illustration of a woman on a sidewalk in an urban setting, walking two dogs. In the background, different building facades show portions of feature illustrations from past editions of the McKinsey Quarterly Five Fifty.
High five: Scrolling through 2024
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From navigating the CEO journey to boosting employee engagement to discovering your company’s superpower, here are this...
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Getting performance reviews right
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Year-end review season is here. How can organizations deliver performance reviews that motivate employees and support their development?...
In the digital space, people collaborate on floating platforms, each engaged in specific tasks working with cutting-edge technology to process vast streams of data. These platforms are seamlessly interconnected, enhancing efficiency and communication.
The data-driven enterprise
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Organizations have more data than ever, but scaling it remains a challenge. Here’s how companies can benefit from the data...
A figure sits in a contemplative pose within a circle as the petals begin to unfold, revealing a wild and chaotic pattern. In a moment of introspection, the light transforms from muted to vibrant, highlighting the fresh designs on the petals. Surrounding the figure, people engage with each other, each positioned along a path that weaves them together.
A human-centric approach to CEO leadership
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Successful leaders constantly reinvent themselves and their organizations. Critical to this reinvention is adopting...
An illustrated animation of a cube that expands and reveals a glowing sphere in its center.
Unleashing your superpower
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Organizations that have a distinctive capability can set themselves apart from the competition. It’s time to build your...
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What it takes to create a winning transformation
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Successful organizations move a transformation from ambition to action. Here’s what it takes.
An animation of different groups of workers collaborating among various technology-related imagery, including parts of a circuit board, graph lines, and digital dialogue boxes.
Gen AI’s second wave
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Generative AI is here to stay. As the novelty wears off, companies must figure out how to implement the technology to create...
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Engage your workforce
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Many workers are disengaged, and that’s destroying productivity and value. Here’s how employers can help boost morale...
An animation of a spinning carbon dioxide molecule: a gray sphere, representing a carbon atom, sits between two blue spheres, representing oxygen atoms. As the molecule rotates, one of the blue spheres transforms into a flower, whose petals have opened to reveal the flower’s filaments inside. As the molecule continues to spin, the flower closes to form a sphere again.
Adapting to the new net-zero reality
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The world is not on track to meet net-zero targets. Yet opportunities remain to accelerate efforts and help meet decarbonization...