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For years, partners at professional service firms considered the leap from professional to partner a function of "natural selection"--a test of survival of the fittest. But that model is on the verge of extinction: in today's firms, securing and retaining talent is becoming paramount as young MBAs, once willing to log years of hard labor in hopes of being made partner, are leaving in hordes for hot new Internet companies. So how can companies keep the talent they've worked so hard to cultivate? One way, Ibarra says, is to have partners take a more active mentoring role in helping junior professionals create a partner persona. She explains the three steps that senior colleagues can take to guide junior professionals on this journey. The first has to do with observing role models. By taking a collage approach, young professionals can survey a broad range of personalities and so accumulate a larger repertoire of possible styles to choose from. For their part, partners can assist in this observation process by communicating explicitly what styles work for them and why. The second step partners can take is to encourage professionals to develop a repertoire of role models; by working with many senior professionals, junior colleagues are more apt to find just the right mix of mentors. And third, senior people can take extra care to support young professionals at the most difficult moments in the process. Indeed, the leap from professional to partner is difficult--even trying at times. But for those willing and daring enough to take the leap--and for those who've already made it--understanding the associated psychological and emotional obstacles is critical to success.

Like every other ambitious, Ivy League-educated baby boomer, Randy Komisar wanted to climb the corporate ladder--any corporate ladder. But he just couldn't bring himself to play the traditional career game. Instead, Komisar made up his own rules, taking a series of jobs that sparked his passions and made him happy--and successful. Today, the charismatic 45-year-old is a "virtual CEO"--an off-site but supercharged consultant to flesh-and-blood CEOs at a number of start-up companies in Silicon Valley and beyond. But that was only after he'd worked his way through 11 companies in 25 years--a crazy quilt of jobs as a music promoter, corporate lawyer, CFO at a software start-up, and chief executive at a video game company, just to name a few. Komisar's success came by not having a career--at least, not in the traditional old-economy sense of the word. He realized there were alternatives to marching your way straight up the corporate ladder and that success in the new economy can involve a series of twists and turns. In this first-person account, Komisar describes why a nontraditional career path such as the one he unintentionally took may appeal to more businesspeople than might suspect it themselves. He tracks his professional journey along a sometimes tense, often enlightening, and ultimately prosperous course. He shares lessons learned along the way. Komisar also makes a strong business case for pursuing the passion-driven career; such a career, he says, makes supreme sense in the new economy because it's flexible and challenging--both for an individual and for the companies he chooses to work for.

Price wars are a fact of life, whether we're talking about the fast-paced world of knowledge products, the marketing of Internet appliances, or the staid, traditional sales of aluminum castings. If you're a manager and you're not in battle currently, you probably will be soon, so it's never too early to prepare. The authors describe the causes and characteristics of price wars and explain how companies can fight them, flee them--or even start them. The authors say the best defense in a pricing battle isn't to simply match price cut for price cut; they emphasize other options for protecting market share. For instance, companies can compete on quality instead of price; they can alert customers to the risks and negative consequences of choosing a low-priced option. Companies can reveal their strategic intentions and capabilities; just the threat of a major price action might hold rivals' pricing moves in check. And, finally, companies can seek support from interested third parties--governments, customers, and vendors, for instance--to help avert a price war. If a company chooses to compete on price, the authors suggest using complex pricing actions, cutting prices in certain channels, or introducing new products or flanking brands--each of which lets companies selectively target only those segments of the market that are under competitive threat. A simple tit-for-tat price move should be the last resort--and managers should act swiftly and decisively so competitors will know that any revenue gains will be short-lived.

Most of the advice on organizational learning, change, and employee commitment does not work and, worse, often leads to counterproductive results. That's the argument of Chris Argyris's Flawed Advice and the Management Trap, and Eileen Shapiro finds it convincing. A consultant to venture capitalists, Shapiro lauds Argyris's dissection of some leading popular works on leadership. Examples from their own books suggest that Stephen Covey, Jon Katzenbach, and John Kotter may preach the virtues of openness and respect, but in practice they aren't averse to using deception and unilateral control. Similarly, Argyris shows the dishonesty behind most empowerment programs. Too many companies, he finds, ask workers to act like owners without truly giving them the authority or the incentives to do so. The underlying trouble is a deep-seated mind-set of winning at all costs that keeps managers from fully engaging with their subordinates. While agreeing with Argyris's diagnosis, Shapiro is skeptical of his remedy, a program of coaching aimed at getting executives to see the contradictions between their intentions and their behavior. Some companies do fully empower their people, she finds, but only because they compete in high-growth industries where employees need to make quick decisions to capture big opportunities. Like the milk in a cup of cappuccino, she says, these enterprises are swirling around in the economy, far above the slow-moving traditional companies that Argyris has studied. Managers and employees in these fast-moving companies share power not because they were trained to do so, but because that's the only way they can reap the great rewards they seek.

There is much euphoria about the possibilities offered by e-commerce. Consumers envision lower prices and easy shopping; investors imagine cashing in on Internet IPOs; and start-ups want their business model to be the one that transforms an industry. But beneath all the excitement lies a sobering reality: the Internet represents the biggest threat thus far to a company's ability to brand its products, extract price premiums from buyers, and generate high profit margins. Indrajit Sinha explains that this threat comes from what economists call cost transparency, a situation made possible by the abundance of free, easily obtained information on the Internet. Pricing information is the most prevalent, but consumers can also find a wealth of material about product quality, supplier reliability, service offerings, and much more. All that information makes sellers' costs more transparent to buyers. It lets them see through manufacturing costs and determine whether those costs are in line with the prices being charged. That will make it much harder for companies, whether they are on-line or not, to impose large price premiums. What can companies do to fight back? Sinha suggests several options. One is to implement creative pricing strategies that go beyond traditional price cutting. Another is bundling--packaging a product with other goods and services in order to obscure the product's costs. But the best way of countering cost transparency is through innovation, Sinha says. Consumers will always reward makers of new and distinctive products that improve their lives.

Norman Spencer, who grew up poor, worked for two decades to make his investment firm successful and his family wealthy. The company he founded, Arrowhead, is now known on Wall Street as a top-notch boutique firm with $25 billion in assets under management. His family has a mansion in San Francisco and a "cottage" in Nantucket. His 17-year-old daughter drives a BMW, his 13-year-old son takes flying lessons in his own plane, and his wife has a personal feng shui adviser. But at the pinnacle of his career, Norman feels as though he's drowning. Norman's success only makes him feel numb, and his home life is a disaster; his wife is so resentful of his lack of family involvement that she no longer speaks to him. His daughter refused to wish him happy Father's Day. "You're not a father," she said. Alternately harsh and remote at work, this fictional entrepreneur has been asked by one senior executive at Arrowhead to stay away from the analysts. So he spends a lot of time surfing the Internet, looking at real estate in far-flung places, and haunting web sites about missing persons, wondering what became of his younger sister, who ran away from home at age 14. What is wrong with Norman, and how can he fix it? In R00211 and R00213, commentators Edward M. Hallowell, Scott Neely, Jean Hollands and F.R. Manfred Kets de Vries offer advice on this fictional case study.

Back in the prehistoric days of information technology--say, about 15 years ago--many companies opted to deal with the frighteningly complicated matter of "machines and men" by creating a new position: chief information officer. This newfangled executive, companies hoped, would protect and prepare them for the coming technology revolution. But now that the revolution is upon us, and as more and more companies integrate e-commerce into their corporate strategies, the role of the chief information officer is undergoing intense scrutiny. Should the CIO participate fully in strategy formulation? Is the position evolving from a technical manager to a general manager? If, in fact, the CIO role is becoming largely strategic, how much will the job overlap with that of the CEO? And what of the operational responsibilities that traditionally go along with the CIO title? Commenting on these issues are: Dawn Lepore, CIO and vice chairman at Charles Schwab; Jack Rockart, director of the Center for Information Systems Research at MIT; Michael J. Earl, professor of information management at London Business School; Tom Thomas, chairman and CEO at Vantive Corporation; and Peter McAteer and Jeffrey Elton, consultants at Giga Information Group and Integral, respectively.

Norman Spencer, who grew up poor, worked for two decades to make his investment firm successful and his family wealthy. The company he founded, Arrowhead, is now known on Wall Street as a top-notch boutique firm with $25 billion in assets under management. His family has a mansion in San Francisco and a "cottage" in Nantucket. His 17-year-old daughter drives a BMW, his 13-year-old son takes flying lessons in his own plane, and his wife has a personal feng shui adviser. But at the pinnacle of his career, Norman feels as though he's drowning. Norman's success only makes him feel numb, and his home life is a disaster; his wife is so resentful of his lack of family involvement that she no longer speaks to him. His daughter refused to wish him happy Father's Day. "You're not a father," she said. Alternately harsh and remote at work, this fictional entrepreneur has been asked by one senior executive at Arrowhead to stay away from the analysts. So he spends a lot of time surfing the Internet, looking at real estate in far-flung places, and haunting web sites about missing persons, wondering what became of his younger sister, who ran away from home at age 14. What is wrong with Norman, and how can he fix it? In R00211 and R00214, commentators Edward M. Hallowell, Scott Neely, Jean Hollands, and Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries offer advice on this fictional case study.

Norman Spencer, who grew up poor, worked for two decades to make his investment firm successful and his family wealthy. The company he founded, Arrowhead, is now known on Wall Street as a top-notch boutique firm with $25 billion in assets under management. His family has a mansion in San Francisco and a "cottage" in Nantucket. His 17-year-old daughter drives a BMW, his 13-year-old son takes flying lessons in his own plane, and his wife has a personal feng shui adviser. But at the pinnacle of his career, Norman feels as though he's drowning. Norman's success only makes him feel numb, and his home life is a disaster; his wife is so resentful of his lack of family involvement that she no longer speaks to him. His daughter refused to wish him happy Father's Day. "You're not a father," she said. Alternately harsh and remote at work, this fictional entrepreneur has been asked by one senior executive at Arrowhead to stay away from the analysts. So he spends a lot of time surfing the Internet, looking at real estate in far-flung places, and haunting web sites about missing persons, wondering what became of his younger sister, who ran away from home at age 14. What is wrong with Norman, and how can he fix it? In R00211 and R00213, commentators Edward M. Hallowell, Scott Neely, Jean Hollands and Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries offer advice on this fictional case study.

Direct foreign investment in Russia was only 1% of GDP in 1999, and Russian industry was only half as productive in that year as in 1992. Not surprisingly, the prevailing opinion is that privatization has only aggravated Russia's economic problems, and that foreign firms should avoid investing in Russia for the time being. This case study argues that, on the contrary, Russian companies can be successfully integrated within a multinational organization. It shows that an Anglo-Saxon-style revolutionary change process is not always the best way to proceed in Eastern European organizations; that the commonly accepted goals of rapid change, employee empowerment and a flatter hierarchy are not necessarily appropriate in these organizations in the short-term, moreover that even the definitions of trust, strategy and leadership can differ according to cultural context. The challenge lies in understanding the complexities the lingering influence of the Soviet planned central economy - as well as the Russian culture and management systems.

Supplement to case IN1056. Direct foreign investment in Russia was only 1% of GDP in 1999, and Russian industry was only half as productive in that year as in 1992. Not surprisingly, the prevailing opinion is that privatization has only aggravated Russia's economic problems, and that foreign firms should avoid investing in Russia for the time being. This case study argues that, on the contrary, Russian companies can be successfully integrated within a multinational organization. It shows that an Anglo-Saxon-style revolutionary change process is not always the best way to proceed in Eastern European organizations; that the commonly accepted goals of rapid change, employee empowerment and a flatter hierarchy are not necessarily appropriate in these organizations in the short-term, moreover that even the definitions of trust, strategy and leadership can differ according to cultural context. The challenge lies in understanding the complexities the lingering influence of the Soviet planned central economy - as well as the Russian culture and management systems.

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is the agency charged with investigation of non-criminal complaints of civil rights-related violations in the U.S. workplace, including racial and gender discrimination. This case describes the agency's efforts to reform its internal procedures do as to deal with a staggering backlog of complaints--nearly 100,000--and up to 19-month waits for resolution. It focuses on key strategic decisions which must set the stage for greater efficiency--particularly the issue of whether every complaint must be processed in the same manner, of whether the agency should find ways to concentrate its effort on complaints judged somehow to be more significant. HKS Case Number 1562.0

When Paulo Renato de Souza accepts an appointment to become Brazil's minister of education, he faces extreme challenges. Public education in Latin America's most populous nation is widely viewed as a failure. Brazil's vast population of poor children often attends schools that are both physically inadequate and have inadequate textbooks. His own department has seen a parade of ineffective leaders and has only indirect authority of state governments responsible for primary education. HKS Case Number 1571.0

This sequel accompanies the case Tackling Poor Performance (1571.0). When Paulo Renato de Souza accepts an appointment to become Brazil's minister of education, he faces extreme challenges. Public education in Latin America's most populous nation is widely viewed as a failure. Brazil's vast population of poor children often attends schools that are both physically inadequate and have inadequate textbooks. His own department has seen a parade of ineffective leaders and has only indirect authority of state governments responsible for primary education. HKS Case Number 1571.1

After his first year at MIT's Sloan School, Jonathan Seelig left to cofound Akamai Technologies. He reflects on his transition from the university to the Internet economy.

When Starbucks made coffee hip, its success set off a chain reaction of innovation that boosted the whole category's profits. New research shows the same phenomenon at work in other markets, but the effect can work in reverse as well.

The state of the art in auctions is not on the Web--it's in the venerable flower auction halls of Holland, where over 30 million flowers change hands in 60,000 transactions every day.

Data show that the top-selling drugs today are not the products of breakthrough science. That's why drug companies need to learn the lessons of marketing that consumer-goods manufacturers know so well.

A new statistical technique, called Bayesian shrinkage, can help manufacturers better analyze retail sales data and target marketing programs.

Supplements the (A) case.