The DNA of Leadership: Creating Healthy Leaders and Vibrant Organizations is a 9-chapter book published by Business Expert Press in 2017 and written by professional coaches Myron Beard and Alan Weiss. It is the result of the authors' work with thousands of executives; Beard and Weiss reviewed these executives and identified what is needed for high levels of success. They provide readers with powerful and practical ways to change their behavior in order to become outstanding leaders. Each chapter has a "Coach's Corner" that outlines the lessons of the chapter and challenges executives to identify behaviors they need to change to become better leaders. The book then encourages readers to create "Personal Goal Plans" to achieve their goals. In Chapter 6, the authors discuss hiring practices. They provide ways to decide whether to hire externally or internally and outline the most common mistakes that managers make when hiring. They then provide a step-by-step guide to conducting a search process, hiring, and giving the new hire a good start in the company. They highlight the different qualities millennials are bringing to the workplace and instruct companies to adjust their hiring practices accordingly.

The DNA of Leadership: Creating Healthy Leaders and Vibrant Organizations is a 9-chapter book published by Business Expert Press in 2017 and written by professional coaches Myron Beard and Alan Weiss. It is the result of the authors' work with thousands of executives; Beard and Weiss reviewed these executives and identified what is needed for high levels of success. They provide readers with powerful and practical ways to change their behavior in order to become outstanding leaders. Each chapter has a "Coach's Corner" that outlines the lessons of the chapter and challenges executives to identify behaviors they need to change to become better leaders. The book then encourages readers to create "Personal Goal Plans" to achieve their goals. In Chapter 7, the authors describe communication as essential when working with others but recognize that it is something that many cannot do well. They outline three types of people who get communication wrong: the sparse communicator, the excessive communicator, and the poor communicator. They also lay out five rules for effective communication they argue everyone should follow. These rules include reviewing and organizing the information you deliver into clear "types" of messages, using language that gets your point across, taking into account the audience of your message, choosing an appropriate delivery method, and confirming that the right people receive and understand your message. They conclude with descriptions of scenarios in which communication is not appropriate.

The DNA of Leadership: Creating Healthy Leaders and Vibrant Organizations is a 9-chapter book published by Business Expert Press in 2017 and written by professional coaches Myron Beard and Alan Weiss. It is the result of the authors' work with thousands of executives; Beard and Weiss reviewed these executives and identified what is needed for high levels of success. They provide readers with powerful and practical ways to change their behavior in order to become outstanding leaders. Each chapter has a "Coach's Corner" that outlines the lessons of the chapter and challenges executives to identify behaviors they need to change to become better leaders. The book then encourages readers to create "Personal Goal Plans" to achieve their goals. In Chapter 8, the authors discuss insecurity, highlighting that even the most successful people have issues with their self-confidence. They write that people who struggle with insecurity have some of the same patterns of thought in common: they discount their success, measure themselves against others, and look to please others. The authors outline four types of insecure leaders, characterized by their coping mechanisms: narcissistic leaders, avoidant leaders, dependent leaders, and obsessive leaders. They then provide concrete ways for leaders to develop their self-confidence.

The DNA of Leadership: Creating Healthy Leaders and Vibrant Organizations is a 9-chapter book published by Business Expert Press in 2017 and written by professional coaches Myron Beard and Alan Weiss. It is the result of the authors' work with thousands of executives; Beard and Weiss reviewed these executives and identified what is needed for high levels of success. They provide readers with powerful and practical ways to change their behavior in order to become outstanding leaders. Each chapter has a "Coach's Corner" that outlines the lessons of the chapter and challenges executives to identify behaviors they need to change to become better leaders. The book then encourages readers to create "Personal Goal Plans" to achieve their goals. In Chapter 9, the authors discuss ways to yourself motivated in achieving your goals. They highlight the importance of setting goals and provide guidance on how to determine your goals and translate them into a plan. They then provide an example of a client's Personal Goal Plan.

Two experienced healthcare leaders that participated in the Advanced Leadership Initiative at Harvard University worked together to improve the nation's healthcare system through the early stage company Empathetics (an organization that teaches empathy to healthcare professionals and staff to improve the patient experience). With their guidance the company seems to make progress on staffing and funding, but despite Mandato's and McNerney's experience and optimism, the Empathetics team faced a great deal of uncertainty. Do they have the right team in place? Will they successfully raise their next round of funding? Can they penetrate the complex and crowded market and build a thriving business? Can the Empathetic products be perceived and recognized as a pain killer as opposed to a nice to have? How should they align themselves with hospitals and insurance companies? Can Empathetics fundamentally change the healthcare industry and normalize empathy training as an essential part of clinical and administrative training?

"Hacking Heroin" was the first hackathon that Annie Rittgers, founder of Cincinnati-based 17a, had organized or even attended. "There will continue to be a lot of preventable overdose deaths and wasted potential if the opioid crisis continues unabated," she said. "Bright spots and positive momentum matter when it comes to directing the energy that exists in Cincinnati toward addressing the epidemic." Now though, days before Hacking Heroin in June 2017, it wasn't clear that Rittgers's intercession would prove to be one of these "bright spots." Not quite 50 people had registered for the free event, and there was no guarantee that they would attend. Sponsorships for the event had been slow to materialize. The eight challenges that she and the team planned to pose to hackathon participants were mostly, but not entirely, settled. Some, but not all, of the key hospital leaders had signed on to participate in the event. Rittgers wondered what she could do to nudge the hackathon towards success. Were these just expected hurdles, and it would all turn out okay? Were they warning signs that warranted remedy? Or were they cues that hackathon skeptics had been right all along-what kind of way was this to address a problem of epidemic proportions anyway?

Considers the decision faced by state pension fund manager Rod Calhoun as he decides whether to invest $200 million in Bain Capital's eleventh global buyout fund: Bain Capital Fund XI. For the fund, Bain was offering its limited partners a choice among three different fee structures: first, a "conventional" fee structure of a 1.5% management fee with 20% carried interest and a 7% preferred rate of return; second, a 1% management fee with 30% carried interest and a 7% preferred rate of return; or third, a 0.5% management fee, 30% carried interest, and a 0% preferred rate of return. Should Calhoun invest in Bain? If he should, which fee structure should Calhoun choose?

A fellow named J. T. Funk is fascinated with the fact that there were often clear winners and clear losers in the competitive retail arena, and it did not seem to matter whether a retailer was big or small, old or new because any retailer could fail. Funk wonders if there would be any clues in the retailer financial statements he has in his possession that pointed to strength or portended weakness, and if so, what were the indicators of either?

A fellow named J. T. Funk has reviewed the financial statements of two retail companies and now adds a third company's financial statements to review for strength or portended weakness, and if so, to find what are the indicators of either.

In 2016, the founder and chief executive officer of Red Star Macalline, China’s largest furniture shopping mall operator, was finalizing the company’s new growth plan—the “1001 Strategy.” The plan was to be implemented in two phases: first, building 1,000 brick-and-mortar shopping malls, focused on home improvement products, and then integrating the malls into a seamless ecosystem through a single overarching Internet platform. The company faced challenges in being the first in the Chinese home improvement industry to forge such a path. Could the chief executive officer sustain the company’s first-mover advantage? Would his overall strategy work? Did he need a reality check for the execution plan?

AquaSafi Purification Systems Pvt. Ltd. (AquaSafi) was a social enterprise that aimed to provide clean water to people in the developing world. The organization assembled and sold its water purification technology, at cost, to villages and non-governmental organizations in rural India. Before deciding to change AquaSafi’s current operating model, the executive director thought it would be useful to perform a cost/benefit analysis to see how the company’s cash flow would differ at a new water filtration plant under the current and proposed operating models. He also wondered whether it made sense for AquaSafi to change its operating model as it expanded its operations, since the company’s current operating model had been well received in the villages.

In June 2016, the augmented reality game Pokémon GO quickly became one of the hottest topics in the world, changing both the online and offline behaviours of players. Pokémon GO was jointly developed by the San Francisco-based firm Niantic Inc. and The Pokémon Company, based in Japan, and was underwritten by the Japanese video game giant Nintendo. The game, which overlaid virtual items and creatures onto the physical world, allowed smartphone users to seek out and capture a variety of virtual monsters in real-world locations. With easy-to-follow game rules, Pokémon GO rapidly picked up a wide range of players and, within a relatively short period of time, generated considerable income through in-app purchases. The sudden popularity (and the eventual decline in interest) of the new game provoked debates about the technology behind it. How could developers use augmented reality technology to satisfy customer needs, address business challenges, and promote social welfare?

In 2016, the managing director of Eco Tasar Silk Private Ltd., an organization that sold handloom Tasar silk products created by low-income artisans in rural, underdeveloped areas of India, faced issues with his sales team. The managing director’s dedication and perseverance, coupled with his past experience in a non-governmental organization in a similar field, had helped his company grow quickly over a short period of time. However, as the company scaled up operations, members of the sales team appeared to be either unconvinced of the company's business model or insufficiently competitive to ensure the business’s sustainability. How could the managing director identify and recruit sales professionals who both understood and supported the business’s unique value proposition and were sufficiently sales-oriented to ensure the business’s longevity?

In January 2017, a Canadian farmer and entrepreneur faced a challenging decision about the future of his two businesses: a farming operation and a trucking operation. After the hectic 2016 farming and trucking season, he began to compare his 2016 and 2015 financial statements for the farming business, Meakin Farms Inc., and the trucking business, Meakin Industrial Ag Corp. While both organizations remained viable, he wondered what he should do for 2017 and beyond, given the unique structure of the businesses and the vast uncertainty of the agricultural industry. Should he pursue an expansion, a contraction, or should he maintain the current levels of business? He needed to identify a strategic direction that would balance the size and scope of his businesses while accounting for environmental risks.

In 2016, the chief executive officer of the ibibo Group, one of the largest players in India's online travel sector, faced a major decision. MakeMyTrip, India's market leader in online travel, had expressed interest in acquiring the ibibo Group. Should the ibibo Group's chief executive officer accept the offer and give up partial or total control of the company, in return for growing with the market leader? Or should he continue with the business he had launched in 2007, and rely on outside investment or the parent company to fund his efforts at growing the business? It was time to evaluate his strategic options.

In 2016, LinkedIn was the largest online platform connecting people to job opportunities and training. The company's goal was to innovate and co-create with stakeholders a stable, yet emergent online platform that could serve a global business community undergoing rapid transformation in technology, job requirements, and the structure of work itself. <br><br>LinkedIn had a leadership role in this transformation; the company vision, market penetration, and expertise promised to help address major problems of global unemployment and underemployment. The company's Economic Graph, a massive data set of employment information, was part of the response, but LinkedIn had some challenges to address. How could LinkedIn co-create with stakeholders a stable, increasingly scaled online platform that could serve a global business community, while the structures of those stakeholders inhibited interconnectivity, the skill sets for workers were evolving, and the requirements for and nature of work itself was going through rapid, uncertain transformation? How could it expand to include less educated adults and connect people in regions with different business cultures, values, and practices? How could it better coordinate open-source information among stakeholders? How could it define "soft skills" and connect people with good soft skills with hiring managers?

In June 2014, MannKind Corporation announced that after years of development and billions of dollars in expenses, the FDA had finally approved its drug, Afrezza. MannKind would thus be the only company with an inhalable insulin on the market. As an alternative to injectable rapid-acting (or mealtime) insulin, Afrezza boasted a potential market of at least 4 million diabetic patients. Shortly thereafter, Sanofi, a company with vast experience in the diabetic space, became MannKind's marketing partner and helped launch Afrezza in February, 2015. Although the drug had a black box warning and required doctors to perform a lung test on patients, expectations were high, with some analysts predicting peak sales of up to $4 billion a year. However, those lofty hopes were quickly dashed when Afrezza generated lackluster first-year sales, driving Sanofi to terminate its short-lived contract with MannKind in January, 2016. MannKind's management attributed the launch's failure to a poor marketing approach, convinced that Sanofi, despite its strong global presence and experience, did not effectively address critical barriers to adoption. The company now planned to overhaul Afrezza's entire marketing strategy. This included rethinking: which patients and physicians to target, how to position the drug to engender interest and adoption, how to lower end consumer price, through which media to convey Afrezza's benefits, and how to streamline the process of performing the lung-test and getting the drug into the hands of patients. But would all these changes and initiatives, no matter how well executed, be enough to turn sales around? Would Afrezza ever realize the potential that Alfred Mann, the late founder and former CEO, saw in the novel treatment?

Student spreadsheet for case W17407.

In February 2017, disruption in the carbonated soft drink value chain in the fictional city of Utopia has raised opportunities for prospective entrants to explore new business-to-business (B2B) partnerships at all levels in the value chain. This in-class, action-oriented strategic B2B partnership exercise has been designed to give learners experience in deciphering how B2B partnerships are built. In teams, participants assume the roles of the key value chain players in the soft drink industry (i.e., strategy heads of beverage companies, bottlers, big retailers, and small retail store owners). Teams are provided with an industry description and specific role information highlighting relevant constraints and opportunities. The teams then work to negotiate contracts during this in-class exercise.