The Conboy case can be used to examine the leadership and change strategies and behaviors critical in establishing one's credibility, crafting a vision for change, building agreement across stakeholders, generating urgency, and overcoming resistance. It also uniquely offers the ability to discuss the options available to a leader whose change effort may not be successful after expending significant social capital. While the case is situated in academia, many of the challenges Conboy faces as she becomes the new Provost of a small college in 2013 are salient across most industries. External challenges include a shrinking customer base, changing customer demands, increased demands for a higher ROI on tuition investment, intensified competition and unsustainable price wars. Internally, most employees were largely unaware of those external challenges, and were therefore frustrated by and suspicious of senior administrators' unilateral decisions to cut staffing and change the 'product'. The culture was marked by turf protection and silos. After initially conducting a 'listening tour', Conboy concludes that the general education curriculum, the courses all undergraduates are required to take, needs to be radically transformed. She is also convinced that the college could not afford to wait to build and then launch the change in a "normal" 2-3 year timeline. With plummeting admissions numbers, change had to start with the next entering class of students. The first hurdle in making that happen was to garner the formal approval of the faculty through a vote held December 2014.

It was late August 2012 and Madeleine Shaw (Shaw) and Suzanne Siemens (Siemens) were reflecting on 12 years of operation at Lunapads International Products Ltd. (Lunapads), a company based out of Vancouver, BC, Canada. The social business co-owned by these two women was providing a solution to the environmental and health concerns of disposable feminine hygiene products. Co-leading a social-impact business with a values-based approach had not been without its challenges. Lunapads had recently experienced a flattening of sales and reduced profitability as their niche market was becoming increasingly crowded with entrants whose products were not as ecofriendly, but were well-known brands. The company was committed to staying true to its mission but recognized their website and product offerings needed upgrading if they were going to be competitive with companies who had much deeper pockets and more extensive marketing budgets. Earlier in the week, Shaw and Siemens had met with the Chair of their recently-formed Advisory Board, Bob Elton (Elton), to discuss Lunapads' current organizational structure. They were steadfast on co-sharing the leadership role but had identified inefficiencies and challenges with this model. They had recently revisited their business strategy and roles in the organization and identified areas that needed to shift. Elton asked them to present their ideas for discussion at the quarterly Advisory Board meeting, coming up in two weeks. Tucked away at their regular corner table, steaming lattes delivered, Shaw turned to Siemens her close confidante, and said with a grin, "It's time to bust out of our comfort zones and make some decisions. Are you up for it?"

The Robert A. Toigo Foundation was created in 1990 "to change the face of finance" by increasing the number of talented underrepresented minorities at the highest executive levels of leadership within the industry. With support from several donors from the financial services industry, the Toigo Foundation offered a comprehensive mentoring program and financial support for Toigo Fellows, minorities who were pursuing finance-related careers at selective graduate business schools. Nancy Sims, a woman of color with extensive leadership experience in the financial services industry, became involved with the Toigo Foundation during its early years: first as a volunteer mentor to several Toigo Fellows, then as a member of the Foundation's Board of Directors, then ultimately as the Foundation's President & CEO in 1998. Over the next ten years, Sims led the nonprofit Foundation through periods of reorganization and growth, applying her business acumen to balance deftly the roles she played in leading the Foundation's efforts while simultaneously justifying the merits and the imperative of underrepresented racioethnic minorities to industry leaders and educational partners. Sims now faced a new challenge: how would the ongoing financial crisis of 2008 affect the Foundation's ability to fulfill its mission? What should Sims do?

This case focuses on succession planning for Southcentral Foundation's (SCF) long-time president and CEO, Katherine Gottlieb. The case opens with Gottlieb reflecting on a succession planning meeting with SCF's Board of Directors and on her twenty year leadership trajectory. It then transitions to provide information about the American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAIN) health care system and outlines SCF's mission, vision, and key tenants of the organization's culture: customer-ownership, core concepts and continuous improvement. After a subsequent section on SCF's approach to governance and workforce development, the case concludes with Gottlieb's main considerations in selecting the next CEO. Gottlieb is an extraordinary leader who has defined SCF's vision, mission and unique organizational culture for over two decades. Students will consider the challenges a new leader may face in sustaining the existing culture when Gottlieb retires, evaluate the benefits and pitfalls of choosing a homegrown versus external successor for the CEO position, and consider qualities that SCF's next leader must embody.

In July 2016, Jennifer Brown, a graduate student at Southwest State School of Public Health, had been asked to staff an Ethics Advisory Group (EAG) meeting at Mountain Health Insurance Company, a large, regional nonprofit health insurance company where she was employed as a summer intern. The mission of Mountain Health was "to improve the health of the people we serve and the health of society." Jennifer had been working with the ethics program director, Robert Jones, to review and update the program's ethical guidelines to reflect emerging ethical challenges in the financing and delivery of health care. This meeting was the first time that Jennifer had been given the responsibility of identifying the ethical issues that EAG should consider and what values should be applied in determining how Mountain Health should address them.

For most people, it is not easy to picture the buying and selling of cognitive capabilities that have traditionally been embedded in humans-things like judgment and decision-making. Yet, thanks to recent advances in machine learning, the author argues that precisely such a 'market for intelligence' is on the horizon. Given the potential of this market to transform the entire global economy, he argues, leaders and organizations must begin preparing for its emergence-now.

Technological innovation is on the brink of fuelling momentous change throughout the global economy, generating great benefits and challenges, in equal measure. So says the chairman of the World Economic Forum. He describes what he calls 'the fourth industrial revolution', which is based on three sets of megatrends: physical, digital and biological. To thrive in this environment, he argues, public-private research collaborations should increase, and should be structured towards building knowledge and human capital to the benefit of all.

Using Blockbuster as a prime example, the author describes the three paths to disruption for a modern business. He also explains three seminal theories of disruption: those of Schumpeter, Christensen and Henderson, and concludes that there are two key types of disruption: innovative and architectural. In the end, he shows that successful firms that are disrupted are not necessarily poorly managed: instead, they choose to continue on the path that brought them to success.

To be an innovative leader, you don't have to come up with all the ideas. You just have to set the stage for others to push boundaries, every day. So say the authors, who assessed more than 700 senior leaders using a multi-rater assessment called the Bates Executive Presence Index (ExPIâ„¢). They present their findings on the specific behaviors that leaders demonstrate to foster innovation, which include challenging other points of view in a constructive way and admitting they don't have all the answers. They conclude that, instead of shying away from differences, innovative leaders make it safe-and fun-to have a clash of perspectives.

Humans and businesses alike evolved in a world that was local and linear. But today we live in a world that is global and exponential. The problem, say the authors, is that our brains-and thus our perceptual capabilities-were not designed to process at this scale or speed. Using the example of Kodak's downfall, they show that our linear minds literally cannot grasp 'exponential progression'. They present a framework called 'the Six Ds of Exponentials', which is designed to help today's leaders navigate 'the age of exponentials'-and avoid being disrupted.

In this excerpt from the University of Toronto's Conference on Machine Learning and The Market for Intelligence, senior leaders from Uber, Bloomberg Beta, Stanford and AME Capital discuss how firms are embracing machine learning and artificial intelligence to either disrupt others or avoid being disrupted. They provide a cross-section of viewpoints on strategies to navigate what is becoming an increasingly disruptive economy.

The creative intensity of the global economy has grown substantially in recent years. However, 'Creative Class' workers are increasingly being propped up by a mass of hard-working routine workers, who are not participating in the economic upside. To prosper in the global economy, the authors argue that every region and industry must boost the creative content of all types of work, while continuing to encourage and support the growth of creative jobs.

Even in our global, technology-fueled economy, the authors argue that the quality of a firm's relationships-with customers, employees and suppliers-continues to be the single-best predictor of long-term success. The most deeply-networked organizations-like Wikipedia, eBay and Airbnb-soften the line between customers and employees to offer a wide range of relationship options, from 'strictly transactional' to 'enthusiastic participation'. This blurring of roles also influences the organization on the inside, improving employee retention by creating an environment where open communication and personal agency are encouraged.

Rapid progress in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) has pro¬voked intense debate about the implications of this trend for the modern workplace. Some see a driver of economic growth and boundless opportunities to improve living standards; while others see existential threats ranging from killer robots to widespread unemployment. The authors argue that employers face four choices when it comes to the automation of jobs: replace, automate, relieve or empower. They discuss the pros and cons of each, and the skills that will be most valuable in an increasingly automated work environment.

The CEO of Tangerine-formerly ING Direct Canada-describes his approach to leading and creating a disruptive business model in one of the most traditional industries: banking. In this wide-ranging interview, he explains how the culture he created embraces divergent views and encourages novel thinking. He also describes what happened when his firm was acquired by one of Canada's big banks (Scotiabank), and how the culture of disruptive innovation lives on at Tangerine.

Consumers of healthcare services throughout the world are imposing strong demands for efficiencies. At the same time, unconventional competition is arising from newly-converging technologies and services, creating a platform for transformative change in healthcare quality and access. The authors show how this disruption is challenging existing actors in the healthcare sector while at the same time, creating massive opportunities to create profitable businesses. More than ever, they argue, commercial players are at the centre of the opportunity to achieve a stronger balance of quality, cost and access to healthcare services.

The authors present research indicating that four key attributes are critical to a robust innovation strategy: an emphasis on speed; the use of technological platforms; well-run (and very often lean) R&D processes; and the systematic exploration of adjacent markets. They discuss how to accomplish each and present examples from the world's most innovative companies, including Zara, GE and W.L. Gore.

The author visited Afghanistan in 2003 as part of a U.S. delegation focused on improving the lives of women. Her idea was to start a business that would employ the women of that country to make a product she could sell in the United States. Some locally woven rugs caught her eye; she carried them back home and started looking for initial funding. She set up a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and began working to construct an entirely new and socially responsible supply chain. ARZU's goal was to create a sustainable business model linking well-paying jobs to behaviors that over time would shift the cultural norm. The company negotiated a "social contract" with male heads of household that set conditions for women in the home to become its weavers: All children (including girls) must attend government school full-time, and all adult women must be "released" from the family compound to attend ARZU's literacy classes or for transport to medical clinics when pregnant. Once the business model was in place, recruiting weavers required an intensive, house-to-house outreach. But as word spread that the company would pay the local rate as a salary (rather than piecework) and that women could earn a bonus for highest-quality work, families sought to join the program. Today ARZU has a waiting list. All the company's weavers are now literate (whereas 90% of Afghan women remain illiterate), and 20% are putting a child through university. Working and earning money has developed their dignity and self-esteem, and the men of their villages have come to view them as capable human beings.

After a relatively quiet period following the end of the Cold War, geopolitics is back. With the United States displaying a reduced appetite for violent confrontation, there are now no world policemen, few effective "neighborhood watch" schemes, and a growing number of vigilante groups and countries eager to challenge the existing rules of the game. Companies cannot assume, in any region of the world, that the strategic status quo will be sustained by neat balances of power or unbreakable promises of foreign-policy assistance from superpower states. In this new reality, the most successful multinational companies will be those that make expertise in international affairs central to their operations, adopting what John Chipman, the chief executive of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, calls a corporate foreign policy. A corporate foreign policy has two components. "Geopolitical due diligence" involves the assessment of local, regional, and transnational risks facing a company. "Corporate diplomacy" aims to enhance a company's ability to operate internationally and to ensure its success in each particular country with which it is engaged. Chipman lays out the principles of geopolitical due diligence and corporate diplomacy and argues that their successful execution can be a new source of competitive advantage for multinational businesses in a time of increased geopolitical volatility.

What consumers truly value can be difficult to pin down and psychologically complicated. But universal building blocks of value do exist, creating opportunities for companies to improve their performance in existing markets or break into new markets. In the right combinations, the authors' analysis shows, those elements will pay off in stronger customer loyalty, greater consumer willingness to try a particular brand, and sustained revenue growth. Three decades of experience doing consumer research and observation for corporate clients led the authors-all with Bain & Company-to identify 30 "elements of value." Their model traces its conceptual roots to Abraham Maslow's "hierarchy of needs" and extends his insights by focusing on people as consumers: describing their behavior around products and services. They arrange the elements in a pyramid according to four kinds of needs, with "functional" at the bottom, followed by "emotional," "life changing," and then "social impact" at the peak. The authors provide real-world examples to demonstrate how companies have used the elements to grow revenue, refine product design to better meet customers' needs, identify where customers perceive strengths and weaknesses, and cross-sell services.