The twenty-first century poses new challenges for businesses, especially when it comes to velocity (the speed of now). This book looks at the intersections of leadership and velocity and offers key leadership competencies essential for our time; these competencies might be even more timely due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for effective leadership at all levels. There is a vital need for these competencies, but there are also contrasts in practice, leaders who are rising to the occasion and those whose lacking is clearly notable. Ten competencies are outlined throughout the text that can serve as a foundation for effective leadership. They are based on personal experiences, interviews with various leaders, and research. Written for managers and business leaders of all kinds, this book will help individuals and businesses establish their leadership brand and enhance their leadership practices. Chapter 7 explores how the leader can be a catalyst for change. Leaders inspire others and convince them change is needed, then lead the execution of those changes; however, continuous change can increase employee stress. Effectively leading change means following best practices from creating the change vision, communicating effectively, mitigating risk, and controlling the by-products, such as employee stress. This chapter looks at what drives change and how change looks at a practical level. How to be an effective change agent is also discussed; essential traits of change agents are outlined, including optimism, resilience, and empathy. Being adaptive and flexible is also essential to being an effective change agent. Several best practices for leading change are explored. The "three Cs" for effective change leadership are also introduced: communication, collaboration, and commitment. Beyond these three Cs, this chapter offers a new change framework, "C6." These six Cs include communication, collaboration, confidence, cohesion, climate, and conversion.

The twenty-first century poses new challenges for businesses, especially when it comes to velocity (the speed of now). This book looks at the intersections of leadership and velocity and offers key leadership competencies essential for our time; these competencies might be even more timely due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for effective leadership at all levels. There is a vital need for these competencies, but there are also contrasts in practice, leaders who are rising to the occasion and those whose lacking is clearly notable. Ten competencies are outlined throughout the text that can serve as a foundation for effective leadership. They are based on personal experiences, interviews with various leaders, and research. Written for managers and business leaders of all kinds, this book will help individuals and businesses establish their leadership brand and enhance their leadership practices. Chapter 8 looks at the importance of leaders being able to connect with people and build relationships that can help achieve an organization's vision. They network with others and foster a collaborative environment. Being able to network effectively is vital and will contribute to the entire team's success. This chapter explores the importance and history of networking as well as how leaders can be successful in this with the overwhelming velocity the world is in today. Individual connection, team connection, and organizational connection are all discussed. Leaders need to keep three main elements in mind when connecting their organization: vision, value, and voice. Each of these and their role in building bridges are briefly described. Leaders as connectors need to have humility and ensure psychological safety in the workplace; everyone should feel a sense of belonging and that their contributions are valued and utilized.

The twenty-first century poses new challenges for businesses, especially when it comes to velocity (the speed of now). This book looks at the intersections of leadership and velocity and offers key leadership competencies essential for our time; these competencies might be even more timely due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for effective leadership at all levels. There is a vital need for these competencies, but there are also contrasts in practice, leaders who are rising to the occasion and those whose lacking is clearly notable. Ten competencies are outlined throughout the text that can serve as a foundation for effective leadership. They are based on personal experiences, interviews with various leaders, and research. Written for managers and business leaders of all kinds, this book will help individuals and businesses establish their leadership brand and enhance their leadership practices. Chapter 9 discusses the need for leaders to be participants in securing, retaining, and developing talent. To be a leader as talent manager, three skill sets are needed: developing an ability to identify talent needs and establishing a process to secure that talent, being involved in the development and implementation of retention policies and practices, and being invested in employee professional growth. The labor force is getting more and more competitive, resulting in higher competition in talent recruitment. Two forms of talent recruitment are described: internal and outsourcing recruitment. Ideas for retention efforts are explored, including analyzing benefits and giving the option of telecommuting. Key actions of being a leader as talent manager are discussed, including having an active role in recruitment, having a talent-centric mindset, and transforming the organization's culture. Succession planning and internal pipeline growth are also essential.

The twenty-first century poses new challenges for businesses, especially when it comes to velocity (the speed of now). This book looks at the intersections of leadership and velocity and offers key leadership competencies essential for our time; these competencies might be even more timely due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for effective leadership at all levels. There is a vital need for these competencies, but there are also contrasts in practice, leaders who are rising to the occasion and those whose lacking is clearly notable. Ten competencies are outlined throughout the text that can serve as a foundation for effective leadership. They are based on personal experiences, interviews with various leaders, and research. Written for managers and business leaders of all kinds, this book will help individuals and businesses establish their leadership brand and enhance their leadership practices. This chapter looks at a leader's responsibility to help others reach their full potential, making the role of leader as coach and mentor vital. A coach and a mentor are two sides of the same coin; a coach knows when to motivate and how to instruct, while a mentor is more of a guide. Differences and similarities between the two are described. Leaders need to be able to transition between coach and mentor roles depending on the specific situation. The GROW model for mentoring and various approaches to mentoring are outlined. Attributes and actions of good and bad mentors are discussed. This chapter also offers ideas on how to develop this competency of being a coach, including asking instead of telling and being empathetic. Benefits of effective coaching and mentoring are briefly explored, including positive impacts on productivity and retention.

The twenty-first century poses new challenges for businesses, especially when it comes to velocity (the speed of now). This book looks at the intersections of leadership and velocity and offers key leadership competencies essential for our time; these competencies might be even more timely due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for effective leadership at all levels. There is a vital need for these competencies, but there are also contrasts in practice, leaders who are rising to the occasion and those whose lacking is clearly notable. Ten competencies are outlined throughout the text that can serve as a foundation for effective leadership. They are based on personal experiences, interviews with various leaders, and research. Written for managers and business leaders of all kinds, this book will help individuals and businesses establish their leadership brand and enhance their leadership practices. Chapter 11 discusses leaders as producers, those who execute on goals and objectives, drive results, and use feedback and experience to inform decisions. They need to not only create a compelling vision and strategy but also deliver the expected outcomes. Qualities of an effective leader as producer are described, such as efficiency, resourcefulness, and the ability to solve problems. Other areas in order to be a good producer are explored, including being a responsible leader, managing and delegating effectively, and analyzing critical data and information. This chapter also looks at how a leader can develop this competency of also being a producer, including how to execute on goals and objectives and how to drive tangible outcomes. A discussion of various actions a leader as producer can take is also offered. Anyone at any level of an organization can be a leader as producer.

The twenty-first century poses new challenges for businesses, especially when it comes to velocity (the speed of now). This book looks at the intersections of leadership and velocity and offers key leadership competencies essential for our time; these competencies might be even more timely due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for effective leadership at all levels. There is a vital need for these competencies, but there are also contrasts in practice, leaders who are rising to the occasion and those whose lacking is clearly notable. Ten competencies are outlined throughout the text that can serve as a foundation for effective leadership. They are based on personal experiences, interviews with various leaders, and research. Written for managers and business leaders of all kinds, this book will help individuals and businesses establish their leadership brand and enhance their leadership practices. Chapter 12 offers a summary of how leadership has changed in recent years. The ten competencies outlined throughout the book are suggestions on how to effectively lead in these fast-paced times when everything seems to be out in the open. Leaders need to be effective communicators, embrace differences, produce results, create processes for sustainable success, and participate in recruiting and retaining talent. The best leaders are humble enough to accurately self-assess. They confront their own competencies, seek feedback, delegate, and empower those around them. Ultimately, leaders should be life-long learners and continuously challenge their leadership assumptions, practices, and behaviors.

With "An ESG Puzzle", students get to use sustainability information paired with financial information for the first time. For the past twenty years, more and more companies around the world have started to supplement their GAAP reports with non-financial reports. This new reporting trend has become increasingly standardized but remains unregulated. While there is no one global agency to enforce non-financial reporting, international bodies like the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) or the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) propose measures and methodologies of reporting sustainability information. By solving this case, students will learn about Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), how to use the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which measure these sustainability factors and lastly, how to use this information in conjunction with common financial ratios which they have previously learned about and used in other finance and accounting courses.

Birla Cellulose, a part of India's large conglomerate Aditya Birla Group, manufactured viscose fibre, which came from wood and was naturally sustainable. In 2017, the Changing Markets Foundation (CMF) brought out a report titled Dirty Fashion, which described the environmental damage caused by manufacturing practices used in viscose fibre production. The report detailed impacts on the environment, bodies of water, and communities around viscose manufacturing plants. Birla Cellulose responded to the report by collaborating with CMF and making significant changes to its manufacturing processes to comply with the highest standards around the globe. It ensured that its raw materials were responsibly sourced and that its products were responsibly manufactured and then properly handled at the end of their lives. The company was proud of its achievements. At the same time, it recognized that it needed to do more. In late 2019, the company's business director wondered how to make the company even more sustainable. What level of investment would be required? How could it adapt to changing consumer preferences and still retain the benefits it had recently gained?

The Concorde, a British-French supersonic jet, captured the hearts and minds of aviators, business professionals, and celebrities around the world through its iconic design, superior features, and unique inflight experience. Despite its transcendent appeal, the jet became surrounded by controversy, catastrophe, an environmental movement, and changing consumer trends, all of which led to its grounding in 2003. In almost two decades, no aerospace program had been successful in recreating commercial supersonic air travel. The Concorde's story showed that these non-technical aspects of technology adoption and diffusion were strong enough to force the retirement of a superior, breakthrough technology and replace it with an inferior one. In 2021, did it make sense to aim to commercialize supersonic travel by imitating the good in the Concorde and tweaking the downsides, or was there a hidden reason why the Concorde had failed and supersonic transport had not been recreated?

Care Group is a coalition of Boston hospitals. In FY1998, it incurred an operating loss of over $34 million, and a decline in its equity of more than $104 million. This contrasts with very positive performance in the previous two years. The goal is to determine why this happened.

The chair of the anesthesiology is attempting to develop a compensation plan that will reward the physicians in his department for their performance in clinical, teaching, and research activities. His efforts are impeded by a variety of conflicting incentives.

mPharma pioneered electronic prescriptions in Ghana, and aimed to increase drug affordability and accessibility in Africa, but the company remained unprofitable. Following investor concerns about mPharma's business, CEO Gregory Rockson considered alternative business models and services that could increase mPharma's profitability and impact.

mPharma pioneered electronic prescriptions in Ghana, and aimed to increase drug affordability and accessibility in Africa, but the company remained unprofitable. Following investor concerns about mPharma's business, CEO Gregory Rockson considered alternative business models and services that could increase mPharma's profitability and impact.

In 2020, TikTok became the most valuable start-up ever. The short-form, video-sharing social media platform emerged as the crown jewel of the Chinese technology firm ByteDance, realizing 850 million monthly users and an estimated worth of $180 billion. However, a crusade against Chinese technology companies launched by the United States' Trump administration threatened to jeopardize ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming's creation. How could Zhang assuage foreign government's concerns about TikTok's data security practices without also running afoul of the Chinese government's desire to keep China's most successful technologies under wraps? This case follows Zhang's entrepreneurial journey, from creative ambition to being caught up in the U.S.-China tech war.

Shake Shack was a fast, casual restaurant chain with a strong focus and great efforts on sustainability and corporate responsibility. Despite its stated environmental commitments, however, its core product offering—the hamburger—was extremely taxing on the environment. Between 2009 and 2021, various new alternative protein sources had emerged that were much more sustainable and environmentally friendly. Shake Shack’s chief executive officer had to make some decisions. Should the company’s products shift away from beef toward alternative protein sources? If so, which of these new products should Shake Shack consider and over what timeline?

In August 2019, Oliver Jones, senior manager at the New South Wales Institute of Qualified Accountants, was following the case of the insolvency of Dick Smith Group. The company began when the founder started servicing radios and expanded to carry a wide range of electronics products. Over the years, the competitive consumer electronics industry saw Dick Smith undergo several strategic changes. The founder had sold the company to Woolworths before the supermarket retailer decided to exit the consumer electronics business. After private equity firm Anchorage turned the company around and sold it for a profit in 2014, Dick Smith again experienced financial troubles. Management had bought too much inventory, chose the wrong products to buy and ultimately assumed too much debt during its expansion phase. In 2016, Dick Smith went bankrupt. Subsequently, creditors began litigation against top Dick Smith executives for pursuing a "rebate maximising" strategy that prioritised rebates over customer demand. The auditor was also implicated. While Jones was unsure if the auditor was legally responsible for investor losses, he wondered how they had not found any risks worth flagging.

Analysts have often compared keeping up with Cybersecurity threats to running on a treadmill that keeps speeding up; the runner cannot move forward and often begins to slide backwards and fall behind. Set in July 2020, this case explores how one of the world's most renowned such cybersecurity "runners", FireEye, implemented AI-based solutions within the organisation to provide improved cybersecurity services to its clients. The case delves into the various strategies implemented by the firm for AI adoption using a specific example tool. FireEye used its conceptual AI framework called the 'Automatibility Spectrum' to determine the appropriate degree of automation for developing different solutions. Additionally, the firm implemented agile practices to build inter-team collaborations, cross-team workflow processes and changes in its organisational structure and culture to promote a mind-set shift towards automation. Tasks that involved decision making would typically incorporate human verification with repetitive tasks being performed by automated algorithms. This Human+AI approach had enabled FireEye to expand and scale its support services. However, cyber attackers were constantly 'upping their game', and rapid technology innovations were creating new threat exposures. The nature of cybersecurity threats and the supporting technical methods were changing rapidly and continuously, and some of the rules and approaches for threat protection and investigation applicable earlier were becoming irrelevant as cyber threats evolved and became more sophisticated over time. Was FireEye's existing approach of Human+AI capable enough to tackle the ever-changing challenges in cybersecurity?

This is a fictional roleplay based on the experiences of Daryn Dodson, the managing director of Illumen Capital, an investment firm that aims to leverage its power as an investor to deliver capital combined with evidence-based bias-reduction training and coaching for its portfolio of fund managers. Through Illumen Capital, Dodson worked to train portfolio fund managers to discern and eliminate implicit and explicit biases, thereby helping them to increase their returns by optimizing investment opportunities, hiring, and board selection. His approach included the "Illumen Impact Experience" in which Dodson linked slavery, lynching, and mass incarceration to the asset management industry to help people understand how assets became so imbalanced and created the huge disparities that contribute to suboptimal returns in investment portfolios. Dodson supported these historic linkages with current research, including a study conducted with Stanford SPARQ's Jennifer Eberhardt that revealed, counterintuitively, that the better Black, male fund managers performed, the greater the levels of bias they faced. Dodson is just wrapping up a pitch to the endowment of a university that was long ago saved from financial collapse by the sale of 272 slaves. The university had attempted several things to make amends for this, but Dodson thought they could do a lot more - and one was through management of the endowment. Should he, as a Black asset manager, bring up this history? If he brings it up, what tone should he use? What outcome would he be hoping for? How would bringing it up help, or hinder, his achieving the outcome? This is the elephant in the room. One student plays Dodson and the other plays the university investment officer in this roleplay that broaches on numerous issues related to race, justice, and the possibility of reparation.