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This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Nearly every aspiring entrepreneur or innovator has a business plan, and virtually all of these individuals believe that their business plan -- what we call Plan A -- will work. They can probably even imagine how they'll look on the cover of Fortune or Inc. And they are usually wrong. But what separates the ultimate successes from the rest is what they do when their first plan sputters. Do they lick their wounds, get back on their feet and morph their new insights into great businesses, or do they stick to their original plan? If the founders of Google, Starbucks or PayPal had stuck to their original business plans, we'd likely never have heard of them. Instead, they made radical changes to their initial models, became household names and delivered huge returns for themselves and their investors. How did they get from their Plan A to a business model that worked? Why did they succeed when most new ventures crash and burn?

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Google. Wikipedia. Threadless. All are platinum exemplars of collective intelligence in action. Two of them are famous. The third is getting there. Each of the three helps demonstrate how large, loosely organized groups of people can work together electronically in surprisingly effective ways -- sometimes even without knowing that they are working together, as in the case of Google. In the authors' work at MIT's Center for Collective Intelligence, they have gathered nearly 250 examples of web-enabled collective intelligence. After examining these examples in depth, they identified a relatively small set of building blocks that are combined and recombined in various ways in different collective intelligence systems. This article offers a new framework for understanding those systems -- and more important, for understanding how to build them. It identifies the underlying building blocks -- the "genes" -- that are at the heart of collective intelligence systems. It explores the conditions under which each gene is useful. And it begins to suggest the possibilities for combining and recombining these genes to not only harness crowds in general, but to harness them in just the way that your organization needs.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. When Peter Drucker first proposed his "marketing concept" back in 1954, the notion that meeting customer needs better than your competition as the driver of business success was a radical idea. Today most managers agree that achieving sustainable profit growth requires having a clear, relevant customer promise; delivering on that promise; improving it; innovating; and supporting all of that with an organization that's open to new ideas and market feedback. However, achieving all of this is difficult. Despite management's tendency toward wishful thinking, the authors believe managers can come to terms with their company's weaknesses by posing a set of five questions specifically designed to uncover their vulnerabilities. Drawing on examples from companies including Apple, Google, Procter & Gamble and Toyota, the authors explain the importance of each of these questions. "For those who are prepared to ask the tough questions and willing to hear the answers," they write, "the potential benefits to the business are significant.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Companies are surprisingly obtuse, the authors say, when it comes to the formation of new alliances. What often happens is that a business unit will form a partnership that serves its own parochial interests. All too often, however, the value that such alliances add at the business-unit level is negated by the resulting harm to the company due to the incompatibility of the new alliance with existing ones. Forming a partnership with a company that is an arch rival of an existing partner, for instance, can create such ill will that it leads to the overall destruction of value in the company. The solution, the authors argue, lies in both structure and process: Companies should create a central "alliance function"-an individual or a department at the corporate level that is charged with overseeing and coordinating the formation of new alliances. And the decision of whether to enter into a proposed alliance should be subject to a rigorous set of analytical steps in which the company examines the costs and benefits of the proposed alliance, not only for the business unit that is directly involved but also for the company as a whole.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. "Dysfunctional momentum" occurs when people continue to work toward an original goal without pausing to recalibrate or reexamine their processes, even in the face of cues that suggest they should change course. In the authors' study of firefighting teams as a metaphor for business organizations, where dysfunctional momentum arises daily, they found that it has at least five possible causes: (1) an overemphasis on action and decisiveness, which often precludes meaningful assessment along the way; (2) evaluating people, processes and outcomes against plans rather than reevaluating the plans themselves; (3) the cumulative effects of small changes that can ripple and grow throughout the organization; (4) the tendency to ignore or co-opt disconfirming evidence; and (5) deference to authority even when leaders are not especially in the know. To overcome dysfunctional momentum, the authors conclude, we have to create interruptions -points at which we can ask: What's the story now? Is it the same story as before? If not, how has it changed? And how, if at all, should we adjust our actions? The people in charge need to stop and reassess what is happening around them. Two interconnected factors tend to be instrumental, say the authors. First, individuals have to recognize their own inability to understand fully and predict the unfolding situation by themselves -they have to develop "situated humility."Second, they must actively create or seek out disruptive information -they have to accept interruptions so that people may reevaluate the story they are maintaining in their minds.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. User-generated content platforms, open source software, crowdsourcing and knowledge markets -these are all possible only because of the "social web," the interlinked virtual universe that to so many executives seems to offer the irresistible promise of providing something -ideas, work, decisions -for (almost) nothing, if only they could manage it right. Managing it right means understanding that even though the new platforms are all about harnessing crowds and communities, in the end those crowds and communities are nothing but a sum of individuals. And your company's social web efforts will succeed only to the extent that you are able to attract good individuals, motivate them to perform good work, and empower them to get to know and trust one another enough to collaborate toward the end goals of the community. The question is, How do you do that? The answer: by capitalizing on the motivational power of in reputation -that is, by designing and building an online reputation system that triggers and nourishes the kind of web community that will serve your company's needs. Using examples such as Amazon, eBay, Epinions and Yelp, the author describes how design choices of a reputation system can profoundly affect a community's culture, making an otherwise collaborative and cordial community into a competitive and even combative space.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Should coworkers have sex with each other? Should employers try to stop them? The answer to the first question is that the question isn't worth answering -because office romance is inevitable anyway. The answer to the second is more interesting. And due to recent shifts in the legal climate, for companies, it's also more scary. There is a misunderstanding at the epicenter of the office romance debate, even as it attracts increasing scrutiny due to famous examples such as the recent episode involving CBS's "Late Show With David Letterman" host. Contrary to some commonly misread signals, managers are not interested in stamping out employee dating. However, sexual relationships and romances change office dynamics in potentially problematic ways, presenting legal challenges such as allegations about sexual harassment and a hostile work environment, and those challenges need to be managed skillfully This article explores the changing legal and managerial landscape regarding office romance, and explains what practices companies should take to avoid trouble.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Many companies see customers' product returns as a major inconvenience and an eroder of profits. But recent studies have begun illuminating the potential benefits of allowing customers to return products with impunity. This research finds that when a company has a lenient product-return policy, which allows customers to return almost any product at any time, customers are more willing to make other purchases, thereby raising the company's revenues from sales. The authors' own research extended these studies by exploring the trade-offs between the costs of product returns -particularly when customers deem such experiences satisfactory -and their long-term benefits to the company. Analyzing six years of purchase, product-return and marketing-communications data from "Company 1"-a large national catalog retailer that sells apparel and accessories -they confirmed that ignoring product return behavior, or even trying to discourage it directly by not marketing to customers who return products (such as by not sending them catalogs), would be a mistake. In fact, managers should embrace customers' product-return behavior and offer them a satisfactory experience. In a field experiment with a second catalog retailer, "Company 2,"which sells footwear, apparel and other accessories through the Internet and mail-order catalogs, the authors found that under a lenient product-return policy, customers' purchases, induced profits and referrals were greater than under a strict policy (which discourages and limits product returns). These measures could be raised even further through a catalog-mailing strategy that takes into account the expected future profits from each customer and the relationship between purchases and product-return behavior -i.e., through an optimal allocation strategy.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Editor's Note: MIT Sloan Management Review first published "Business Crime: What to Do When the Law Pursues You" in our spring 2000 edition. In the article, author John L. Akula examined the state of how white-collar crime was being prosecuted in the United States. Given recent changes in both regulatory and legal standards affecting managers, we asked the author to explain how the landscape has changed for managers. His additions are published here alongside the 2000 article, annotating the original text.

At the end of 2009, The Dannon Company was considering pro actively communicating its CSR efforts to consumers. With the strong connection between Dannon's production of health foods and its commitment to health and nutrition-based CSR activities, communicating these activities to consumers could enhance the company's success, but risked tainting its deeply ingrained CSR as a marketing ploy. Dannon wanted to maintain its holistic approach to social responsibility and commitment to social values. Dannon's CSR focused on three areas: Nutrition and Health, People and Nature. The case follows the perspectives of various stakeholders within the organization, including members of the Marketing, Human Resources and Corporate Affairs departments. Some of the specific questions examined are: Should we communicate Dannon's CSR activities? What would be the best means to do so? Should it be a corporate or brand level campaign? How would the parent company, Danone, respond? Can CSR remain sincere when being leveraged for PR purposes?

In a January 2010 public statement, Google threatened to stop censoring its search results on its Google.cn website, as required by Chinese authorities. Should Google exit China? Or attempt a compromise with the Chinese government?

A senior Blackstone director is deciding how aggressively to bid for Travelport, a travel distribution business containing several key services and platforms. Travelport's most important properties were Galileo, one of the top 3 global distribution systems (GDSs), CheapTickets and Orbitz, two online travel agencies. Blackstone was competing in an auction against several other large private equity firms with multi•billion dollar investment funds. The auction was about to enter its final round of bidding, with bids having reached $4 billion in the prior round. The Blackstone director (Schorr) and his team have to make three key judgments regarding Travelport. First, they need to develop a point of view on the structural attractiveness of the travel GDS industry. Secondly, they need to decide whether Travelport was a good business to own and identify the key sources of its value. The Travelport business is composed of many different sub•businesses that play in different parts of the travel value chain and some of these sub•businesses are more strategic than others. Thirdly, like most leveraged buyouts, Travelport will need to support a significant amount of debt as a result of the transaction. Chip and his team need to make a judgment on the stability of Travelport's businesses and its ability to generate consistent, predictable cash flows to service its debt obligations.

This short case presents the epilogue of The Auction for Travelport (A). Blackstone decided to bid on its own, acquired Travelport for $4.3 billion and subsequently went on to acquire another GDS, Travelspan, for $1.4 billion. It then merged the two GDSs and partially spun off in an IPO its online travel businesses, re-named Orbitz Worldwide; it retained the GDS and wholesale travel businesses. By the end of that year (2006), Blackstone had generated cost savings of $270 million. In 2007 Blackstone also undertook a major capital market transaction with Travelport, issuing a new $1.1 billion Senior Unsecured PIK Term Loan, which allowed Blackstone to take back all of its equity in the transaction. Subsequently, during the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, Blackstone and Travelport repurchased the majority of the $1.1bn PIK loan and other debt in the open market at prices ranging from 18% to 57% of par value, generating a $610 million gain.

School of One was a start-up with a new approach to learning. Instead of one teacher delivering the entire math curriculum to a class of 20-25 students, School of One utilized a technology platform that allowed several teachers to collectively oversee the learning of a larger group of students. Each student followed a personalized pathway to mastery of a set of math concepts through a mix of teacher-led instruction, live and virtual tutoring, and online lessons and games. Teachers could specialize in the concepts and instructional approaches they were best at and work with students who were ready to learn new material. The case explores the model and questions about growth and scalability.     

Don't pin your hopes on the rising savings rate. Consumers aren't going to spend the cash and reinvigorate the economy; instead, they're using it to pay off their enormous debts.

Television viewers both recall and like fast-forwarded ads-as long as they've seen the commercials at least once at regular speed.

Boards bow to shareholders, but a look at the law shows that they don't need to.

Companies shouldn't involve outside firms in their innovation efforts when product complexity is very low or high. When it's somewhere in the middle-that's another story.

Imitation is vastly underappreciated, says Oded Shenkar, a professor at Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business. Nearly 98% of the value of innovations is captured by copycats. Look at McDonald's, Visa, and Wal-Mart, which all far outran the path breakers they followed. Successful imitation, however, requires as much discipline as innovation does. To improve their odds, imitators need to understand "true" imitation, develop the capabilities that enable its effective use, and learn to deploy the right strategies.

If you're like most brand managers, you're unaware of or turned off by "extreme consumers"-people so crazy about the brand that they spend more than 10% of their lifetime income on it. But they can be your most powerful marketers.