CEOs inspire sentiments from awe to wrath, but there is little debate over their importance in the business world. Their decisions change companies and lives. But what do CEOs do all day? Where do they go? Charles Farkas and Suzy Wetlaufer analyzed interviews with 160 chief executives around the world and examined the attitudes, activities, and behaviors that shape the answers to these questions. At the outset, the authors thought they might find 160 approaches to leadership. Instead, they identified only five, each with a singular focus: strategy, people, expertise, controls, or change.
Planning a major change in your organization? If so, chances are you have arranged a huge rally, rousing speeches, videos, and special editions of the company paper. Stop. This sort of communication is not working. If you want people to change the way they do their jobs, you must change the way you communicate with them. Drawing on their own research and the research of other communication experts from the past two decades, the authors argue that senior managers--and most communication consultants--have refused to hear what frontline workers have been trying to tell them: When you need to communicate a major change, stop communicating values, communicate face-to-face, and spend most of your time, money, and effort on frontline supervisors.
A successful strategy for selling your products or services depends on your ability to get into the minds of your targeted customers. But sometimes the customers themselves do not know what is in their minds. A simple tool called the ACE (Attribute Categorization and Evaluation) Matrix can help managers understand customers' behavior and bring hidden product attributes to the surface. It helps companies see that a product may have different salient attributes for different customer segments. The matrix gives companies an iterative process for validating assumptions about product attributes and for monitoring changes that occur because of competition.
The collapse of communism has led many in the West to declare that capitalism has triumphed. But Henry Mintzberg, professor of management at McGill University and INSEAD, says that this idea is overly simplistic. He argues further that the push for government to become more like business ignores both the value of the alternative forms of ownership we have in the West--including cooperative and nonprofit organizations--and the purpose of balance in our societies. A business model for managing government would treat its constituents as customers in an arm's-length trading relationship. But we are not merely customers of our government; we are also subjects (who have obligations), citizens (who have rights), and clients (who have complex needs). Thus we need a wide range of management models for providing public services.
In recent years, major industries in the United States have been deregulated--for example, telecommunications, airlines, and banking--and now the winds of change are blowing through the electric utility industry. But the experts do not agree on how much change is good for the country and how fast it should occur. Thomas R. Kuhn of the Edison Electric Institute, Pradeep ("Pete") Mehra of the Ford Motor Co., Robert L. Ball of Alcan Aluminum Corp., Richard C. Green, Jr. of UtiliCorp United, Donald E. Felsinger of San Diego Gas & Electric Co., David L. O'Connor of the Massachusetts Division of Energy Resources, Michael Shames of the Utility Consumers' Action Network, and John R. Hodowal of IPALCO Enterprises express their differing viewpoints in HBR's Perspectives, covering such topics as stranded costs, aggregation of small consumers, vertical deintegration, performance-based rate making, and retail wheeling of power.
In spite of top-notch efforts, many social-change initiatives fail. What goes wrong? How can the initiatives be presented more effectively? Analyzing the costs and benefits of the proposed change from the perspective of the targeted community can help marketers answer those questions. The authors present a framework to facilitate such an analysis and to help form effective marketing plans. When the proposed behavior change involves little cost to the targeted community and provides a significant personal benefit, conventional marketing methods--such as those used for marketing consumer goods--can be effective. When the proposed change involves a high cost, in terms of either money or some other measure (difficulty, for instance, in quitting smoking), the social marketer's job becomes harder. Social marketers face their greatest challenge in cases where the cost is high and the personal benefit is intangible.
The Internet promises a radical new world of business. But for many companies, it has yet to deliver. Although doing business in cyberspace may be novel and exhilarating, it can also be frustrating, confusing, and even unprofitable. Debora Spar and Jeffrey Bussgang argue that the problems companies face have little to do with a lack of technology or imagination. Their problems stem instead from a lack of rules. The authors explain why the informal rules that have developed on the Internet since the 1960s are no longer sufficient. Businesses thinking of allowing millions of dollars of transactions to occur on the wide-open Net need specific assurances. They require clear definitions of property rights, a safe and useful means of exchange, and a way to locate and punish violators of on-line rules.
Despite the best efforts of senior executives, major change initiatives often fail. Those failures have at least one common root: Executives and employees see change differently. For senior managers, change means opportunity--both for the business and for themselves. But for many employees, change is seen as disruptive and intrusive. To close this gap, says Paul Strebel, managers must reconsider their employees' "personal compacts"--the mutual obligations and commitments that exist between employees and the company. Personal compacts in all companies have three dimensions: formal, psychological, and social. Employees determine their responsibilities, their level of commitment to their work, and the company's values by asking questions along these dimensions. How a company answers them is the key to successful change.
Increasingly, work in today's corporations unfolds in small, temporary groups where the stakes are high, turnover is chronic, foul-ups can spread, and the unexpected is common. Karl E. Weick finds lessons for senior managers watching over such groups in an unusual source: Norman Maclean's 1992 book, Young Men and Fire, which reconstructs the circumstances of a deadly fire in Montana's Mann Gulch that claimed the lives of 13 young men. The author believes that corporate leaders can learn from this example by developing groups capable of improvisation, wise behavior, respectful interaction, and communication.
Traces the Cleveland community's efforts to move the city from economic, social, and political crisis in the late 1970s into revitalization and progress in the 1980s and 1990s. Special attention is given to the role of business leaders and the public-private partnership. This case covers the 1978-88 period of responding to the crisis and focuses particularly on the formation of Cleveland Tomorrow, a CEO-only group focused on community development.
Traces the Cleveland community's efforts to move the city from economic, social, and political crisis in the late 1970s into revitalization and progress in the 1980s and 1990s. Special attention is given to the role of business leaders and the public-private partnership. This case covers the 1989-96 period and initiatives in housing, education, and physical development.
Traces the Cleveland community's efforts to move the city from economic, social, and political crisis in the late 1970s into revitalization and progress in the 1980s and 1990s. Special attention is given to the role of business leaders and the public-private partnership. This case delineates challenges facing the community as it moves into the 21st Century.
Lex Service company has grown into a large multidivisional company with a substantial capital budget. In 1993, the board was reviewing its capital budgeting procedures. Specifically, it sought to determine the company's cost of capital and whether it should use different hurdle rates for different divisions.
A paper mill's paper machines are a bottleneck in the operation. The causes include poor scheduling, lack of investment, and ineffective process control. The plant manager is charged with improving this situation fairly rapidly and has a number of proposals for change from which to choose.
This is a condensed version of case 9A95E003. Western Mining Corporation is one of Australia's largest mining companies. This case tells the story of a large information system project from its inception through its development and to the eve of its rollout into the implementation phases. The Operations Management Project was commissioned to produce the Operations Management System (OMS), a new information system designed to provide operational personnel with better and more timely information to help them in their daily tasks. The project experienced significant delays and problems, from project management difficulties, to systems development methodology shortcomings, to steering committee dealings. Two additional cases on the Operations Management Project are also available: Western Mining Corporation (B), case 9A95E005, and Western Mining Corporation (C), case 9A95E006. The three cases together provide a rich and comprehensive description of the various challenges experienced by information systems personnel and operational personnel alike in the course of developing and implementing new information systems. Both the original case and the (B) case can stand on their own. The (C) case is best used in conjunction with the (B) case.
Volkswagen and Shanghai Sedan, have developed a joint venture to build western-quality autos in China. Having developed a supplier network capable of delivering quality components, the company now faces a need to expand capacity (demanding rapid expansion of their supplier network). In addition, Volkswagen is under pressure to bring more of the design activity over to China. A rewritten version of an earlier case.
Comprises three pieces. The first piece, which forms the body of the case, is adapted from a speech delivered by the author before the Harvard Business School Political Forum in early 1995. Originally entitled "The Economic Foundations of American Social Policy: Yesterday and Today," the speech attempts to place current discussions about a Third Industrial Revolution in historical perspective. The second piece, presented in the appendices, includes excerpts from speeches by three major policy figures--Representative Newt Gingrich, presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan, and Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. Each of these speakers identifies profound changes in the U.S. economy and suggests specific public policy responses. The 11 data exhibits that form the final piece of the case offer an overview of U.S. economic performance from 1960 to 1994. The primary theme linking these materials together is the notion that the United States is now in the midst of an economic transition. What remains uncertain, of course, is the precise nature of the transition. Is it really as profound or as far reaching as the various authors suggest?
Times Mirror Co. (TMC) owns a substantial block of Netscape common stock purchased prior to Netscape's IPO, on which it has substantial unrealized gains. TMC is restricted from selling the stock in a public offering and is therefore considering a proposal by Morgan Stanley to issue Premium Equity Participating Securities (PEPS) to monetize its Netscape holdings. These PEPS would pay interest quarterly and be redeemable in five years at a price tied to the value of Netscape shares, subject to certain formulas and call provisions effectively apportioning the upside in Netscape stock between TMC and the PEPS investors. The tax treatment of the PEPS, while unclear, is of significant importance.