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A short case recounting Caitlin Elliot's history at a company called Microenterprises Incorporated and her negotiation with its CEO, George Baker, about a promotion and a bonus. The case is good for discussion about what makes negotiating for oneself in an organization more difficult than negotiating on behalf of others. The video can be analyzed using a moves and turns framework and it ideal for management and leadership courses in addition to negotiation and conflict resolution courses.

When the chief executive of Maclaren USA learned about a rise in finger injuries to children involving the hinges on his strollers-which were similar to those used for almost all strollers on the market-he and his colleagues immediately began working with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to plan a voluntary "recall," during which the company would send protective hinge covers to anyone who wanted them. Maclaren saw this as an opportunity to educate parents about stroller safety as well as to protect children. But news of the recall was leaked early in a sensationalist report, and the company was unprepared to cope with the response. Thousands of concerned parents tried to reach Maclaren, causing its communications systems to crash: Callers got a busy signal; e-mails went into the ether; the website froze. The company's executives realized they would need four times as many extra employees and three times as many hinge covers as they'd originally thought. Rastegar explains how and why their careful planning fell short, discusses the lessons he and Maclaren learned, and affirms his commitment to pursuing industrywide safety standards.

HBR asked top management thinkers to share what they were resolved to accomplish in 2011. Here are their answers: Joseph E. Stiglitz will be crafting a new postcrisis paradigm for macroeconomics whereby rational individuals interact with imperfect and asymmetric information. Herminia Ibarra will be looking for hard evidence of how "soft" leadership creates value. Eric Schmidt will be planning to scale mobile technology by developing fast networks and providing low-cost smartphones in the poorest parts of the world. Michael Porter will be using modern cost accounting to uncover-and lower-the real costs of health care. Vijay Govindarajan will be trying to prototype a $300 house to replace the world's poorest slums, provide healthy living, and foster education. Dan Ariely will be investigating consumers' distaste for genetically modified salmon, synthetic pharmaceuticals, and other products that aren't "natural." Laura D. Tyson will be promoting the establishment of a national infrastructure investment bank. Esther Duflo will be striving to increase full immunization in poor areas of India. Clay Shirky will be studying how to design internet platforms that foster civility. Klaus Schwab will be undertaking to create a Risk Response Network through which decision makers around the world can pool knowledge about the risks they face. Jack Ma will be working to instill a strong set of values in his 19,000 young employees and to help clean up China's environment. Thomas H. Davenport will be researching big judgment calls that turned out well and how organizations arrived at them. A.G. Lafley will be proselytizing to make company boards take leadership succession seriously. Eleven additional contributors to the Agenda, along with special audio and video features, can be found at hbr.org/2011-agenda.

The capitalist system is under siege. Recently business has been criticized as a major cause of social, environmental, and economic problems. Companies are widely thought to be prospering at the expense of their communities. Trust in business has fallen, leading governments to set policies that undermine competitiveness and sap economic growth. Business is caught in a vicious circle. A big part of the problem is firms' narrow approach to value creation. Focused on short-term financials, companies overlook the broader influences on their long-term success. Why else would they ignore the well-being of their customers, the depletion of vital natural resources, the viability of suppliers, and the economic distress of the communities in which they produce and sell? It doesn't have to be this way. Companies could bring business and society back together if they redefined their purpose as creating "shared value"-generating economic value in a way that also produces value for society by addressing its challenges. Firms can do this in 3 ways: by reconceiving products and markets, redefining productivity in the value chain, and building supportive industry clusters near their locations. A number of leading firms have already embarked on such initiatives. Nestle, for example, redesigned its coffee procurement, providing small, impoverished farmers advice on agricultural practices; helping them secure plant stock, fertilizers, and pesticides; and paying them a premium for better beans. Higher yields and quality increased the growers' incomes, the environmental impact of farms shrank, and Nestle's reliable supply of good coffee grew significantly. Shared value was created. Shared value could transform capitalism. It could also drive the next wave of innovation and growth as it opens managers' eyes to immense human needs to be met, large new markets to be served, and the internal costs of social deficits-as well as the competitive advantages available from addressing them.

To survive over the long haul, a company must reinvent itself periodically, jumping from the flattening end of one business performance curve to the rising slope of another. Very few companies make the leap successfully when the time comes. That's because they start the reinvention process too late. Once existing business begins to stall and revenue growth drops significantly, a company has less than a 10% chance of ever fully recovering. Accenture's Nunes and Breene, reporting on the results of their long-running High Performance Business research program, point to a striking difference between companies that have successfully reinvented themselves and those that failed. High performers manage their businesses not just along the growth curve of their revenues but also along three much shorter, though equally important, S curves: tracking the basis of competition in their industry, renewing their capabilities, and nurturing a ready supply of talent. By planting the seeds for new businesses before revenues from existing ones begin to stall, these companies enjoy sustained high performance.

Many Western multinationals expect to find most of their future growth in emerging economies. But they have frequently struggled to exploit the opportunity, relentlessly cutting costs and accepting profit margins close to zero. The problem, say the authors, who are all with the innovation consultancy Innosight, is not that these companies can't create viable offerings but that simply transplanting their domestic business models to the new markets won't work. They must devise fundamentally new models-by identifying an important unmet job consumers need to do; performing that job profitably at a price the customer will pay; and carefully implementing and evolving the model by constantly testing assumptions and making adjustments. Drawing on their experience investing in, incubating, and consulting for companies that have created 20 new business models in developing markets, the authors describe the vast potential demand represented by the "middle market" in emerging economies-the millions of people who have the desire and wherewithal to pay for goods and services, from refrigeration to clothes washing to money transfers, that will help them do the "jobs" no current offering adequately can.

With product life cycles growing ever shorter and competition cropping up in unexpected places, nearly every industry is facing disruption. How can you tell if your model is running out of gas? For starters, if your next-generation innovations provide smaller and smaller improvements and your people have trouble thinking of new ways to enhance your offering. Pay heed to the signs and start experimenting with several new options until you find one that will turn your threat into an opportunity.

Most executives believe that competing through business models is critical for success, but few have come to grips with how best to do so. One common mistake, the authors' studies show, is enterprises' unwavering focus on creating innovative models and evaluating their efficacy in standalone fashion-just as engineers test new technologies or products. However, the success or failure of a company's business model depends largely on how it interacts with those of the other players in the industry. (Almost any business model will perform brilliantly if a company is lucky enough to be the only one in a market.) Because companies build them without thinking about the competition, they routinely deploy doomed business models. Moreover, many companies ignore the dynamic elements of business models and fail to realize that they can design business models to generate winner-take-all effects similar to the network externalities that high-tech companies such as Microsoft, eBay, and Facebook often create. A good business model creates virtuous cycles that, over time, result in competitive advantage. Smart companies know how to strengthen their virtuous cycles, undermine those of rivals, and even use them to turn competitors' strengths into weaknesses.

Fending off new competitors is a perennial struggle for established companies. Govindarajan and Trimble, of Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, explain why: Many corporations become too comfortable with their existing business models and neglect the necessary work of radically reinventing them. The authors map out an alternative in their "three boxes" framework. They argue that while a CEO manages the present (box 1), he or she must also selectively forget the past (box 2) in order to create the future (box 3). Infosys chairman N.R. Narayana Murthy mastered the three boxes to reinvigorate his company and greatly increased its chances of enduring for generations.

In 1977 John Mackey moved into a vegetarian co-op, became its food buyer, and went to work in a natural foods store, putting him on the path to founding Whole Foods. An iconic brand, Whole Foods dominates natural-foods retailing in the United States. Mackey talked to HBR about how top management functions at the company (decisions are made by consensus), his sustainable seafood initiative, and what he means by "conscious capitalism." Among other things, conscious capitalism recognizes the stakeholder model, whereby customers, employees, investors, suppliers, larger communities, and the environment are all interdependent. Conscious leadership and a conscious company culture-which allows the organization to fulfill its higher purpose-are important ingredients as well. Part of Whole Foods' higher purpose is realized through the Whole Planet Foundation, which has set up microlending organizations in the communities where the company actually trades. "Nothing we've ever done in our history has created more goodwill with our team members than that," Mackey says.

Private moments of doubt and fear come even to managers who have spent years on the job. Any number of events can trigger them: An initiative is going poorly; you get a lukewarm performance review; your new assignment is daunting. HBS professor Linda Hill and executive Kent Lineback have long studied the question of how managers grow and advance. Their experience brings them to a simple but troubling observation: Most bosses reach a certain level of proficiency and stay there-short of what they could and should be. Why? Because they stop working on themselves. The authors offer what they call the three imperatives for every manager who seeks to avoid this stagnation: Manage yourself. Who you are as a person, the beliefs and values that drive your actions, and especially how you connect with others all matter to the people you must influence. Manage your network. Effective managers know they cannot avoid conflict and competition among organizational groups; they build and nurture ongoing relationships. Manage your team. Team members need to know what's required of them collectively and individually and what the team's values, norms, and standards are. The authors include a useful assessment tool to help readers get started.

Corporate strategy often seems abstract to managers on the ground, who struggle to translate it into a realistic plan of action. But a process called strategy briefing, which originated with the military, can help them overcome that challenge. Bungay, the director of the Ashridge Strategic Management Centre, describes in this article how briefings can move managers and their reports from confusion about a complex set of goals and performance measures to clarity about just which objectives each person needs to focus on and in what order. Using a fictional case study as an illustration, Bungay outlines the five critical steps of the process: (1) State your intent, or what you are expected to do and why, (2) Revise it in the context of your company's situation, (3) Determine which measures indicate whether you're achieving your goal, (4) Define the tasks implied by your intent, (5) Define the boundaries, or constraints, that limit your team. A single strategy briefing can help a team perform better, but the real magic happens when briefings roll down through an entire organization. When that occurs, the company's strategy is broken into a cascade of discrete but linked elements. In the end, people will be strategically aligned and operationally autonomous-a combination that is one of the hallmarks of high-performance organizations.

Many philanthropists have big ambitions, but even the richest individuals and largest foundations don't have enough money to end poverty, reverse climate change, or cure cancer. And many donors impose substantial costs on their grantees by, for instance, becoming excessively involved in program design or imposing burdensome reporting requirements. To achieve breakthroughs, donors need a multiplier effect-an approach that delivers many dollars' worth of impact for each dollar invested. In short, they need an investment model. To develop a sound model for philanthropy, donors must understand the methods of change that breakthrough results require. These include building robust nonprofit organizations, modifying public policy, establishing intermediaries, and facilitating research. The Draper Richards Foundation, for example, helps direct-service nonprofits build their capacity and capabilities; the James Irvine Foundation created an intermediary organization to improve high school education in California. Donors must also understand how they can best support those efforts-through the roles they play, the resources they devote, and the relationships they develop. Michael J. Fox, for instance, has used his celebrity and credibility in his foundation's efforts to cure Parkinson's disease. Developing a clear investment model doesn't have to be complicated or expensive, just deliberate. Without one, donors risk adding little value and imposing steep costs.

Now that the global recession is officially over, multinationals are starting to weigh their options for foreign investment. But everywhere they look, negatives vie with positives, and government actions and contradictory economic trends confuse the picture: Brazil is planning to spend while Australia is cutting back. Trade tensions are rising between the United States and China. Indonesia tempts inflation by keeping rates low. Managers need a way to cut through the chaos and figure out which countries are the best bets and which pose the greatest risks. The authors, drawing on Eurasia Group's political analyses and on economic databases, have assigned scores to a selection of countries on the basis of their macroeconomic conditions and foreign investment environments. The result is a practical guide for determining where growth is likely, which governments are encouraging or impeding foreign investment, and which sectors provide the greatest opportunities. Some of the results are surprising.

After working with hundreds of leaders in a wide variety of organizations and in countries all over the globe, the authors found one very clear pattern: When it comes to meeting their leadership potential, many people unintentionally get in their own way. Five barriers in particular tend to keep promising managers from becoming exceptional leaders: People overemphasize personal goals, protect their public image, turn their competitors into two-dimensional enemies, go it alone instead of soliciting support and advice, and wait for permission to lead. Troy, a customer service manager, endangered his job and his company's reputation by focusing on protecting his position, not helping his team; when a trusted friend advised him to change his behavior, the results were striking. Anita's insistence on sticking to the tough persona she'd created for herself caused her to ignore the more intuitive part of the leadership equation, with disastrous results-until she let go of the need to appear invulnerable and reached out to another manager. Jon, a personal trainer who had virtually no experience with either youth development programs or urban life, opened a highly successful gym for inner-city kids at risk; he refused to be daunted by his lack of expertise and decided to simply "go for it." As these and other examples from the authors' research demonstrate, being a leader means making an active decision to lead. Only then will the workforce-and society-benefit from the enormous amount of talent currently sitting on the bench.

Within a period of 23 months, Lois Quam found herself with a dizzying level of responsibility, both at work-as research director at UnitedHealthcare and head of the company's public-sector services division-and at home, with newborn twins and a toddler. But rather than bend under the weight of either pressure, Quam found ways to thrive in both areas of her life. Namely, she focused on big-picture goals, doing what was required to be the kind of mother and manager she wanted to be. She wasn't shy about letting her worlds overlap, taking her children to work and even allowing their visibility to work in her favor as she advocated for affordable health care for families. Now head of her own successful company, Quam carved out a place for herself as a successful working mother before work/life balance was a corporate buzzword.

Many luxury brands are able to command high prices because of their excellent quality, solid reputation, and limited availability. But it can be tricky both to maintain that cachet and continue to grow if the next generation of consumers is completely priced out of your market. Fictional winemaker Chateau de Vallois, a traditional estate with centuries of experience in producing luxury wines, faces that dilemma and is now considering whether to launch an affordable brand. A new wine of good quality at a lower price could attract younger fine-wine drinkers who might then upgrade to more expensive wines later on. On the other hand, the estate must be careful to preserve its exclusive image and avoid damaging the perceived value of its existing high-end wines. Should Chateau de Vallois stick with what it does best or branch out and begin producing a new brand? The authors of this fictional case study are Daniela Beyersdorfer, who is a research associate at Harvard Business School's Europe Research center, and Vincent Dessain, the center's executive director. Commentary is offered by Corinne Mentzelopoulos, the owner and CEO of Chateau Margaux, a first-growth estate in the Bordeaux region of France; Philippe Sereys de Rothschild, the vice chairman of Baron Philippe de Rothschild, a family firm that manages both first-growth and branded wines; and HBR's readers.

Wynton Marsalis grew up in a family of New Orleans jazz musicians and received his first trumpet as a sixth birthday present from bandleader Al Hirt. At 14 he debuted with the Louisiana Philharmonic; at 17 he moved to New York, where he attended Juilliard, joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, assembled his own band, and began a prolific composing and recording career. He talks here about leadership and creativity.

Many luxury brands are able to command high prices because of their excellent quality, solid reputation, and limited availability. But it can be tricky both to maintain that cachet and continue to grow if the next generation of consumers is completely priced out of your market. Fictional winemaker Chateau de Vallois, a traditional estate with centuries of experience in producing luxury wines, faces that dilemma and is now considering whether to launch an affordable brand. A new wine of good quality at a lower price could attract younger fine-wine drinkers who might then upgrade to more expensive wines later on. On the other hand, the estate must be careful to preserve its exclusive image and avoid damaging the perceived value of its existing high-end wines. Should Chateau de Vallois stick with what it does best or branch out and begin producing a new brand? The authors of this fictional case study are Daniela Beyersdorfer, who is a research associate at Harvard Business School's Europe Research center, and Vincent Dessain, the center's executive director. Commentary is offered by Corinne Mentzelopoulos, the owner and CEO of Chateau Margaux, a first-growth estate in the Bordeaux region of France; Philippe Sereys de Rothschild, the vice chairman of Baron Philippe de Rothschild, a family firm that manages both first-growth and branded wines; and HBR's readers.

Many luxury brands are able to command high prices because of their excellent quality, solid reputation, and limited availability. But it can be tricky both to maintain that cachet and continue to grow if the next generation of consumers is completely priced out of your market. Fictional winemaker Chateau de Vallois, a traditional estate with centuries of experience in producing luxury wines, faces that dilemma and is now considering whether to launch an affordable brand. A new wine of good quality at a lower price could attract younger fine-wine drinkers who might then upgrade to more expensive wines later on. On the other hand, the estate must be careful to preserve its exclusive image and avoid damaging the perceived value of its existing high-end wines. Should Chateau de Vallois stick with what it does best or branch out and begin producing a new brand? The authors of this fictional case study are Daniela Beyersdorfer, who is a research associate at Harvard Business School's Europe Research center, and Vincent Dessain, the center's executive director. Commentary is offered by Corinne Mentzelopoulos, the owner and CEO of Chateau Margaux, a first-growth estate in the Bordeaux region of France; Philippe Sereys de Rothschild, the vice chairman of Baron Philippe de Rothschild, a family firm that manages both first-growth and branded wines; and HBR's readers.