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When Mindy Grossman was approached to head the parent company of Home Shopping Network, she had no television experience, no direct-to-consumer experience, and no experience in most of the product categories HSN sold. She'd never even watched a home shopping channel. But after a crash course consisting of channel surfing, she had an "aha" moment: she realized that HSN needed to become more of a lifestyle network that would inspire people through products. That pitch won her the job. Then she visited headquarters--where the staff appeared downtrodden and the organization seemed frozen in time. Grossman saw that she would need to dramatically alter the company culture, understand and reposition the brand, and devise a new product strategy. She began with white paint and new office chairs.

Executives don't realize it, but a hierarchy of managers exacts a hefty tax on any organization: Managers are expensive, increase the risk of bad decisions, disenfranchise employees, and slow progress. In fact, management may be the least efficient activity in any company. Yet it's clear that market mechanisms alone can't provide the degree of coordination and control that many companies require. Is there any way to get the flexibility of a market system and the discipline of a tightly knit hierarchy--without a management superstructure? Morning Star, the global market leader in tomato processing, proves there is. Morning Star, which has seen double-digit growth for the past 20 years, has no managers. That's right--no bosses, no titles, no promotions. Its employees essentially manage themselves. Workers negotiate responsibilities with peers, anyone can issue a purchase order, and each person is responsible for acquiring the tools needed to do his or her work. Compensation decisions are handled by local committees elected by the employees, and pay reflects the contributions that people make--not their status. And if staffers find themselves overloaded or spot a new role that needs filling, they simply go ahead and initiate the hiring process. Morning Star's self-management model has two cornerstones: the personal mission statement, and the Colleague Letter of Understanding, or CLOU. In a personal mission statement, each employee outlines how he or she will help the company achieve its goals. The CLOU, which must be hammered out every year with colleagues, is an operating plan for fulfilling it. A CLOU covers as many as 30 activity areas and spells out relevant performance metrics. The system isn't without its challenges, and it isn't for everyone. But it has produced a dedicated workforce with exceptional initiative and expertise. And its success shows that it's possible for organizations to transcend the seemingly intractable trade-off of freedom versus control.

When the dot-com bubble burst 10 years ago, the ensuing collapse wiped out half of all online retailers. Today, e-commerce is well established and much digital retailing is now highly profitable. As it evolves, digital retailing is quickly morphing into something so different that it requires a new name: omnichannel retailing. The name reflects the fact that retailers will be able to interact with customers through countless channels--websites, physical stores, kiosks, direct mail and catalogs, call centers, social media, mobile devices, gaming consoles, televisions, networked appliances, home services, and more. If traditional retailers hope to survive, they must embrace omnichannel retailing and also transform the one big feature Internet retailers lack--stores--from a liability into an asset. They must turn shopping into an entertaining, exciting, and emotionally engaging experience by skillfully blending the physical with the digital. They must also hire new kinds of talent, move away from outdated measures of success, and become adept at rapid test-and-learn methodologies. A successful omnichannel strategy should not only guarantee a retailer's survival--no small matter in today's environment--but also deliver a revolution in customers' expectations and experiences.

When Johnson joined Apple, in 2000, as the senior vice president for retail, conventional wisdom held that a computer maker couldn't sell computers. Johnson promptly tossed out the retailing rule book and built the Apple Store from scratch. "The Apple Store succeeded not because we tweaked the traditional model," Johnson says. "We reimagined everything." Today, Apple stores are the highest performing stores in the history of retailing. In November, Johnson took the reins as CEO of the venerable J.C. Penney department store. Times are tough for many retailers, but Johnson, characteristically, sees the chance to reinvent the department store as a great opportunity. He also understands the challenges ahead. "A store has got to be much more than a place to acquire merchandise," he says. "It's got to help people enrich their lives." In this edited interview, Johnson discusses his vision of the future of retail and shares insights about innovation, leadership, and why he trusts his gut.

Shoppers once relied on familiar salespeople to help them find exactly what they wanted--and sometimes to suggest additional items they hadn't even thought of. But today's distracted consumers, bombarded with information and options, often struggle to find products or services that meet their needs. Advances in information technology, data gathering, and analytics are making it possible to deliver something like the personal advice of yesterday's sales staffs. Using increasingly granular customer data, businesses are starting to create highly customized offers that steer shoppers to the "right" merchandise--at the right moment, at the right price, and in the right channel. But few companies can do this well. The authors demonstrate how retailers can hone their "next best offer" (NBO) capability by breaking the problem down into four steps: defining objectives, gathering data (about your customers, your products, and the purchase context), analyzing and executing, and learning and evolving. Citing successful strategies in companies such as Tesco, Zappos, Microsoft, and Walmart, they provide a framework for nailing the NBO.

In the past few years, some companies have not just weathered the economic storm: They've emerged stronger than ever. How did such players as Four Seasons, Sephora, and Standard Chartered Bank defy conventional logic? Instead of pursuing a single ambition, such as profits, employees defined a collective ambition. As a result, those organizations deepened their engagement with employees and other stakeholders and became sustainably profitable. Purpose, a company's reason for existence, is the central element of collective ambition. The other elements--vision, targets and milestones, strategic and operational priorities, brand promise, core values, and leader behaviors--must be aligned to serve the company's purpose. Articulating the elements of collective ambition can give everyone in the organization a better sense of the company's purpose and how they can contribute to it. Purpose does not have to be about saving the world; providing excellent entertainment or banking services is just as meaningful a purpose as improving health care in emerging economies--as long as it is an authentic representation of why the company exists. To shape and then achieve a collective ambition, companies must strengthen their organizational glue (the collaborative engagement that creates a unified culture) and grease (the disciplined execution that enterprisewide change initiatives require).

In many companies, the top management team is officially responsible for helping the CEO make a company's big decisions. But another, unofficial group usually does that job de facto. That's the way it should be, argues Frisch, of the Strategic Offsites Group, provided that the CEO is deliberate in devising the role of this informal and unnamed "kitchen cabinet." Problems can nevertheless arise when senior executives learn about important decisions after the fact, mistakenly assume that they have real power to protect their departments, and find themselves in a system where the way decisions are actually made goes unacknowledged. The key, according to Frisch, is to make better use of senior executives' time and talents by giving them specific responsibilities that complement--but do not overlap--the advisory duties of the kitchen cabinet. A CEO who explicitly acknowledges the role of her cabinet and strikes the right balance between it and her official advisory group of executives can get the best from both.

In the past 25 years, major original equipment manufacturers have delegated the management of their supply chains to a handful of first-tier suppliers. Although this approach frees OEMs from the tasks of building and supervising supply subsystems, speeds up product introductions, and helps manufacturers secure larger volume discounts, it has gone too far. In this article, Choi, of Arizona State University, and Linton, a former chief procurement officer of LG Electronics, point out the dangers of relinquishing so much power to first-tier suppliers: it weakens an OEM's ability to control costs, stay on top of critical technology developments and shifts in demand, and ensure that suppliers are operating in a socially and environmentally sustainable fashion. The solution is for an OEM to selectively establish direct relationships with key lower-tier suppliers. Specifically, an OEM should form close ties with vendors that have a significant impact on the OEM's cost of goods sold, have strong innovation potential, don't pose sustainability risks, and can provide insights into important trends. Implementing this approach isn't simple--it may require reshaping the entire purchasing function. But it's essential for manufacturers that want to stay ahead of competitors.

When terrorists attacked the Indian city of Mumbai in 2008, employees of the Taj Mumbai hotel displayed uncommon valor. They placed the safety of guests over their own well-being, thereby risking--and, in some cases, sacrificing--their lives. Deshpande, of Harvard Business School, and Raina, of the HBS India Research Center in Mumbai, demonstrate that this behavior was not merely a crisis response. It was instead a manifestation of the Taj Group's deeply rooted customer-centric culture that, the authors argue, other companies can emulate, both in extreme circumstances and during periods of normalcy. The key ingredients of this Taj-style customer centricity include: 1) a values-driven recruitment system that emphasizes integrity and duty over talent and skills; 2) training of customer ambassadors who serve the guest first and the company second; and 3) a recognition-as-reward system that values well-earned plaudits--from customers, colleagues, and immediate supervisors--over money and advancement. Each of the three elements has important features and nuances, which the authors explore in detail so that your company can take its cues.

Your next internal assignment is your next chance to create results--for your organization and for your career--and a smart investment of time and effort up front can mark the difference between getting by and truly excelling. A key factor in your transition will be knowledge--not only substantive information about the project or field, but an understanding of how others inside and outside the organization have tackled similar assignments, what challenges and opportunities lie ahead, what resources are available, and how to mobilize those resources to overcome any obstacles you may encounter. The authors provide practical steps that will help you not only get smart for your next assignment but also stay smart, building knowledge capital to excel in new roles throughout your career. They expand on these steps, which they call phase zero, learning tour, and affinity groups.

Adam Baker is a promising young COO at Straus Event Specialists and the protege of CEO Merwyn Straus, who acquired him along with his failed company, Tallyrymple, a few years ago. Adam suggested that SES and two partners invest in a chain of hotels, and now he wants to run the new business. "That door isn't open to you" is Merwyn's response. "Let it go," says Adam's friend Kaleeb. "Be more aggressive," says Kaleeb's wife. Adam must decide whether to push Merwyn to give him the job. Commentary by Marshall Goldsmith, a leading executive educator and coach, and Richard C. Kessler, the CEO of a group of 10 boutique hotels in the U.S.

HBR interviews fashion designer Kenneth Cole on a career that has combined work, family, and community activism.

Adam Baker is a promising young COO at Straus Event Specialists and the protege of CEO Merwyn Straus, who acquired him along with his failed company, Tallyrymple, a few years ago. Adam suggested that SES and two partners invest in a chain of hotels, and now he wants to run the new business. "That door isn't open to you" is Merwyn's response. "Let it go," says Adam's friend Kaleeb. "Be more aggressive," says Kaleeb's wife. Adam must decide whether to push Merwyn to give him the job.

Adam Baker is a promising young COO at Straus Event Specialists and the protege of CEO Merwyn Straus, who acquired him along with his failed company, Tallyrymple, a few years ago. Adam suggested that SES and two partners invest in a chain of hotels, and now he wants to run the new business. "That door isn't open to you" is Merwyn's response. "Let it go," says Adam's friend Kaleeb. "Be more aggressive," says Kaleeb's wife. Adam must decide whether to push Merwyn to give him the job. Commentary by Marshall Goldsmith, a leading executive educator and coach, and Richard C. Kessler, the CEO of a group of 10 boutique hotels in the U.S.

Provides practical guidelines for conducting market research to explore and validate demand for entrepreneurial offering. Explains how the research objectives of entrepreneurs might differ from those relevant to managers evaluating product or service offerings to established markets. For each of several research techniques, specifies conditions under which the technique is most likely to yield valuable insights; describes how the technique should be adapted for use in an entrepreneurial context; and offers tips and cautions about applying the technique. The techniques include customer surveys, usability tests, market trials, split tests, and Net Promoter Score. Appendices discuss the use of focus groups and conjoint analysis in an entrepreneurial context. The Note is therefore suitable for use in MBA, Executive Education, Field Study, or project contexts where the focus is startups, new business development, product development, or innovation.

Provides practical guidelines for conducting customer visits to explore and validate demand for an entrepreneurial offering. Reviews conditions under which visits will yield superior insights, compared to other research methods. Describes criteria for selecting visit sites; how to plan for visits; how to conduct them most effectively; and how to debrief after visits. The note is therefore relevant to MBA, Executive Education, Field Study, or project contexts where the focus is startups, entrepreneurial management, new product development, business development, or innovation.

It was June 2010, and Kevin Crutchfield, CEO of Alpha Natural Resources, and his team of senior executives were facing several critical issues for the coal business. These issues were top of mind as he prepared a presentation he was expected to deliver the following Monday to ANR shareholders at the annual meeting. For fiscal year 2009, the company had revenues of $2,495 million, an increase of 1% compared with 2008, and $58 million in net income. This was relatively good considering the economic environment, but the company's long-run future was what had Crutchfield really concerned.

This case is about the multinational company ABB, the development of its sustainability strategy, and its dilemmas in supplying hydropower dam projects. Adam Roscoe, head of sustainability at ABB Group, had to evaluate the content and the business consequences of a letter written by the non-profit organization (NGO) International Rivers. The letter discussed the alleged violations of sustainability criteria when building the Nam Theun 2 dam in Laos. Roscoe needed to assess what implications the letter had for ABB. ABB had a large stake in the outcomes of the project. As ABB had a well-developed sustainability practice in its core business, such a letter from a large well-known NGO might affect ABB's policies and practices in sustainability. On the one hand, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank had a large stake in seeing that the project was successful in its environmental and social aspects. The dam project would be providing the country with much needed economic development: supplying rural areas of Laos as well as Thailand with electricity, bringing in a large source of revenues that would be used in poverty reduction programs for Laos, and lastly providing a non-carbon-based energy source. On the other hand, ABB had to consider the position of its stakeholders including customers, investors, media and NGOs. If ABB was associated with a dam project that did not comply with international regulations outlined by the World Bank and the Equator Principles of financial institutions, the company could face a reputation risk associated with the project. This could lead to negative publicity and, potentially, loss of business. Adam thus faced two interweaved questions: Would the International Rivers' letter pose a reputation risk for ABB? What would this example mean for ABB's sustainability criteria and objectives and would this need to be acknowledged, and, if so, how?

In the 1990's, Red Hat established itself as a leading proponent of the open source software movement and sought to carve out for itself a significant role in the open source marketplace. As of 2011, the company reported $177 million in Non-GAAP operating income in FY2010, based on revenues of $748 million. Red Hat's market capitalization was set at $8 billion as of January 25, 2011. It operated 65 offices worldwide, including 12 Global Support Service Centers, and employed 3,580 people. The Red Hat brand is most closely associated with Linux even though their stable of product offerings grew to include a number of other noteworthy system software and middleware products, such as JBoss and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization. As Red Hat's Linux product line came to be widely accepted as a enterprise software platform, the company transformed its thinking about and delivery of customer support. This case study explores the innovative ways that Red Hat went about this transformartion process.

The case describes the introduction of a human resources (HR) system named "Project Vishwamitra" (PV) in 2000 in a large, technocratic public sector organization, TP Engineering Corporation (TPEC). PV was introduced with considerable leadership support and visibility. It was intended to provide every engineer trainee at TPEC a friend and guide to ease their entry and socialization into the organization. The senior managers assigned to guide the trainees were called "mentors." For the first four to five years, the project ran smoothly. The trainees distinctly felt supported whenever they needed some help. At the same time, the mentors were happy to guide trainees. After four to five years, certain important changes took place in the organization in staffing of leadership positions. With expansion and new projects, the growth trajectory of TPEC also showed a sharp increase. With earlier people moving out and a significant rise in the number of trainees being recruited, PV ran into difficult waters. Yet, no changes were made in the system or processes. PV started to get ritualized - meetings between trainees and mentors became more infrequent and in certain areas, there was total absence of any contact between the two. In the midst of degeneration, one of the leaders was able to revive the project in Unit Chelpur. With highly ambitious growth plans, the number of trainees was expected to increase from 450 in 2010 to 750 in 2011. The company faced a choice regarding the form in which PV should continue.