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A company's most important asset isn't raw materials, transportation systems, or political influence. It's creative capital--simply put, an arsenal of creative thinkers whose ideas can be turned into valuable products and services. Creative employees pioneer new technologies, birth new industries, and power economic growth. If you want your company to succeed, these are the people you entrust it to. But how do you accommodate the complex and chaotic nature of the creative process while increasing efficiency, improving quality, and raising productivity? Most businesses haven't figured this out. A notable exception is SAS Institute, the world's largest privately held software company. SAS makes Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For list every year. The company has enjoyed low employee turnover, high customer satisfaction, and 28 straight years of revenue growth. What's the secret to all this success? The authors, an academic and a CEO, approach this question differently, but they've come to the same conclusion: SAS has learned how to harness the creative energies of all its stakeholders, including its customers, software developers, managers, and support staff. Its framework for managing creativity rests on three guiding principles. First, help employees do their best work by keeping them intellectually engaged and by removing distractions. Second, make managers responsible for sparking creativity and eliminate arbitrary distinctions between "suits" and "creatives." And third, engage customers as creative partners so you can deliver superior products. Underlying all three principles is a mandate to foster interaction--not just to collect individuals' ideas. By nurturing relationships among developers, salespeople, and customers, SAS is investing in its future creative capital.

Boards of directors typically believe that transforming a company from good to great requires an extreme personality, an egocentric chief to lead the corporate charge. Think "Chainsaw" Al Dunlap or Lee Iacocca. But that's not the case, says author and leadership expert Jim Collins. The essential ingredient for taking a company to greatness is having a "Level 5" leader, an executive in whom extreme personal humility blends paradoxically with intense professional will. In this January 2001 article, Collins paints a compelling and counterintuitive portrait of the skills and personality traits necessary for effective leadership. He identifies the characteristics common to Level 5 leaders: humility, will, ferocious resolve, and the tendency to give credit to others while assigning blame to themselves. Collins fleshes out his Level 5 theory by telling colorful tales about 11 such leaders from recent business history. He contrasts the turnaround successes of outwardly humble, even shy, executives like Gillette's Colman M. Mockler and Kimberly-Clark's Darwin E. Smith with those of larger-than-life business leaders like Dunlap and Iacocca, who courted personal celebrity. Some leaders have the Level 5 seed within; some don't. But Collins suggests using the findings from his research to strive for Level 5--for instance, by getting the right people on board and creating a culture of discipline. "Our own lives and all that we touch will be the better for making the effort," he concludes.

In the early 1970s, when Canon took its first halting steps in reprographics, the idea of a fledgling Japanese company challenging Xerox seemed impossible. Fifteen years later, it matched the U.S. giant in global unit market share. The basis for Canon's success? A different approach to strategy, one that emphasized an organization's resourcefulness above the resources it controlled. In this McKinsey Award-winning article, first published in May 1989, Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad explain that Western companies have wasted too much time and energy replicating the cost and quality advantages their global competitors already experience. Familiar concepts like strategic fit and competitive advantage can foster a static approach to competition, while familiar techniques like portfolio planning and competitor analysis lead to strategies that rivals can easily decode. The sum total is a pathology of surrender that leads many managers to abandon businesses instead of build them. Canon and other world-class competitors have taken a different approach to strategy: one of strategic intent. They begin with a goal that exceeds the company's present grasp and existing resources: "Beat Xerox"; "encircle Caterpillar." Then they rally the organization to close the gap by setting challenges that focus employees' efforts in the near to medium term: "Build a personal copier to sell for $1,000"; "cut product development time by 75%." Year after year, they emphasize competitive innovation--building a portfolio of competitive advantages; searching markets for "loose bricks" that rivals have left underdefended; changing the terms of competitive engagement to avoid playing by the leader's rules. The result is a global leadership position and an approach to competition that has reduced larger, stronger Western rivals to playing an endless game of catch-up.

Groups don't become teams just because that is what someone calls them. Nor do teamwork values alone ensure team performance. So what is a team? How can managers know when the team option makes sense, and what can they do to ensure team success? In this groundbreaking March 1993 article, authors Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith answer these questions and outline the discipline that defines a real team. The essence of a team is shared commitment. Without it, groups perform as individuals; with it, they become a powerful unit of collective performance. The best teams invest a tremendous amount of time shaping a purpose that they can own. They also translate their purpose into specific performance goals. And members of successful teams pitch in and become accountable with and to their teammates. The fundamental distinction between teams and other forms of working groups turns on performance. A working group relies on the individual contributions of its members for collective performance. But a team strives for something greater than its members could achieve individually: An effective team is always worth more than the sum of its parts. The authors identify three kinds of teams: those that recommend things--task forces or project groups; those that make or do things--manufacturing, operations, or marketing groups; and those that run things--groups that oversee some significant functional activity. For managers, the key is knowing where in the organization these teams should be encouraged. Managers who can foster team development in the right place at the right time prime their organizations for top performance.

Executives know that a company's measurement systems strongly affect employee behaviors. But the traditional financial performance measures that worked for the industrial era are out of sync with the skills organizations are trying to master. Frustrated by these inadequacies, some man­agers have abandoned financial measures like return on equity and earnings per share. "Make operational improvements, and the numbers will follow," the argument goes. But managers want a balanced presentation of measures that will allow them to view the company from several perspectives at once. In this classic article from 1992, authors Robert Kaplan and David Norton propose an innovative solution. During a yearlong research project with 12 companies at the leading edge of performance management, the authors developed a "balanced scorecard," a new performance measurement system that gives top managers a fast but comprehensive view of their business. The balanced scorecard includes financial measures that tell the results of actions already taken. And it complements those financial measures with three sets of operational measures related to customer satisfaction, internal processes, and the organization's ability to learn and improve-the activities that drive future financial performance. The balanced scorecard helps managers look at their businesses from four essential perspectives and answer some important questions. First, How do customers see us? Second, What must we excel at? Third, Can we continue to improve and create value? And fourth, How do we appear to shareholders? By looking at all of these parameters, managers can determine whether improvements in one area have come at the expense of another. Armed with that knowledge, the authors say, executives can glean a complete picture of where the company stands-and where it's headed.

From a converted muffler repair shop, Ray Kelner launched RLK Media in 1985, selling its radical audio speakers to affluent connoisseurs for $20,000 a pop. By the 1990s, RLK had grown into a billion-dollar business. But things are no longer going so well, and chairman Keith Harrington lays it all at the feet of CEO Lars Inman. "Your margins have evaporated," he barks. "You're missing your numbers. People aren't buying the old product, and you don't have anything new." But RLK might just have something new: the iVid headset prototype is light-years ahead of the competition. All Ray needs is another 18 months (or so) and $6 million to hire 10 elite software developers and he could put RLK back on the map. Lars considers outsourcing software development to Inova Laboratories in India, which promises to move RLK from prototype to volume manufacturing in 12 months--at a fifth the cost. But Ray is adamant. His group is just too tightly knit. Should Lars outsource R&D anyway? Commenting on this fictional case study in reprints R0507A and R0507Z are Larry Huston, VP for innovation and knowledge at Procter & Gamble; former Xerox chief scientist John Seely Brown and consultant John Hagel III; Claremont Graduate University professor Jean Lipman-Blumen; and Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro, an IT services company based in Bangalore, India.

From a converted muffler repair shop, Ray Kelner launched RLK Media in 1985, selling its radical audio speakers to affluent connoisseurs for $20,000 a pop. By the 1990s, RLK had grown into a billion-dollar business. But things are no longer going so well, and chairman Keith Harrington lays it all at the feet of CEO Lars Inman. "Your margins have evaporated," he barks. "You're missing your numbers. People aren't buying the old product, and you don't have anything new." But RLK might just have something new: the iVid headset prototype is light-years ahead of the competition. All Ray needs is another 18 months (or so) and $6 million to hire 10 elite software developers and he could put RLK back on the map. Lars considers outsourcing software development to Inova Laboratories in India, which promises to move RLK from prototype to volume manufacturing in 12 months--at a fifth the cost. But Ray is adamant. His group is just too tightly knit. Should Lars outsource R&D anyway? Commenting on this fictional case study in reprints R0507A and R0507Z are Larry Huston, VP for innovation and knowledge at Procter & Gamble; former Xerox chief scientist John Seely Brown and consultant John Hagel III; Claremont Graduate University professor Jean Lipman-Blumen; and Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro, an IT services company based in Bangalore, India.

Tracks the development of the Kmart discount store chain from its inception in 1961 to its peak in 1990 and examines the contribution of each Kmart chief executive to the chain's success. In, parallel, compares the performance of Wal-Mart over the same period along a number of financial and strategic dimensions.

Jim Poss' enterprise, Seahorse Power Co. (SPC), was an engineering start-up that encouraged the adoption of designing products that were cheaper and more efficient than 20th century technologies. Poss was sure that his first product, a patent-pending, solar-powered trash compactor, could make a real difference. After funding the product development and testing, by may 2004, SPC had six team members. They had all been given an equity stake in exchanged for their part-time services. Poss was seeking funding to allow him to take the business to the next level--a larger production run with reduced component costs and increased production efficiencies. Chronicles the evolution of the company and places Poss at the critical juncture of deciding how best to deal with potential investors and funding alternatives.

Identifies several practical principles to keep in mind when changing a family business system.

Assist in thinking critically about facilitators and inhibitors to goals and preparing for change in a family business system.

In Fall 2003, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia's richest man and the CEO of Yukos, the second-largest Russian oil producer with a market capitalization of US$26 billion, was arrested and thrown into jail on charges of fraud. Several days later he resigned as CEO of Yukos. This case study tells the story of the rise and fall of a young man whom some would call a brilliant entrepreneur, and others would call a scoundrel. The case includes an interview with Khodorkovsky when he was still CEO, and offers a rare opportunity to examine the leadership philosophy of one of Russia's top business leaders.

In a maturing market, HPÂ’s attention moved from Return on Sales to Return on Net Assets. Mismatches between demand and supply, aggrevated by a long supply chain, were a burden on profit. HP realized that conventional logistics costs (warehousing, inventories, transport) were only the tip of the iceberg. Hidden underneath were large costs due to price protection, material devaluation, returns and obsoletes (Inventory Driven Costs). Uncovering all true demand/supply mismatch costs allowed HP to redress the situation and restore competitiveness.

Danfoss is one of Denmark's largest family firms, producing components for a wide range of industrial control activity. Spanning the period 1996-2004, the case begins by looking at Danfoss' globalisation strategy, then focuses on its specific experience and learning in China, before returning to the wider challenges that globalisation in China poses for Danfoss as a whole. The focus is on the Refrigeration & Controls (RC) division, the key Danfoss division to enter China.

This case describes the challenges faced by the cosmetics division of a large corporation when determining the set of products to develop in 2004. The key players involved are the centralized R&D center and the decentralized brands. The case provides data to estimate the utilization rate of the R and D center. It also describes how the R and D center is organized to develop various types of product lines. "

This case describes the challenges faced by the cosmetics division of a large corporation when determining the set of products to develop in 2004. The key players involved are the centralized R&D center and the decentralized brands. The case provides data to estimate the utilization rate of the R and D center. It also describes how the R and D center is organized to develop various types of product lines.

This case describes how IDEO adapt its famed innovation process (developed to design new products) to the particularities of services and their design. The case series describes four service design projects to show how IDEO has developed and codified a series of design methods, which constitute a toolbox from which teams can pick and choose depending on the innovation project.

This case describes the rights offering by CSM in 2002 which was largely judged to be a failure despite the company receiving the full planned proceeds. The case takes the reader through the rights offering process, and details the "hiccups" arising from adverse market conditions as well as process mismanagement. It also allows the reader to use actual data provided by several top broker research analysts to conduct a valuation exercise. Other questions addressed include: Does price matter in a rights offering? Are investors rational? How does one gauge the value of a project?

As a Harvard University freshman in 1992, Eric Dawson began working on a social service project known as Peace Games, a one-day festival to teach school-age children about peace and cooperation. Dawson, however, had bigger ideas for the program. Operating first within Harvard, and later through the independent nonprofit that he founded, Dawson transformed Peace Games from a simple celebration of community into a kindergarten-8th grade, year-long conflict-resolution curriculum that he hoped to implement in schools across the country. As challenging and as critical as the program design itself, however, was the need to create, fund, and manage an organization capable of carrying the project forward. This case tells the story of how Dawson developed Peace Games in the Boston area; established a Peace Games outpost beyond Massachusetts; and attempted to launch a major nationwide expansion deemed essential not only to reach significant numbers of children and communities, but to attract the funding the organization needed to survive. HKS Case Number 1795.0

As a Harvard University freshman in 1992, Eric Dawson began working on a social service project known as Peace Games, a one-day festival to teach school-age children about peace and cooperation. Dawson, however, had bigger ideas for the program. Operating first within Harvard, and later through the independent nonprofit that he founded, Dawson transformed Peace Games from a simple celebration of community into a kindergarten-8th grade, year-long conflict-resolution curriculum that he hoped to implement in schools across the country. As challenging and as critical as the program design itself, however, was the need to create, fund, and manage an organization capable of carrying the project forward. This case tells the story of how Dawson developed Peace Games in the Boston area; established a Peace Games outpost beyond Massachusetts; and attempted to launch a major nationwide expansion deemed essential not only to reach significant numbers of children and communities, but to attract the funding the organization needed to survive. HKS Case Number 1795.1