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Why do so many big companies get poor returns on all the money they invest in innovation? A large body of research suggests that it's because their managers tend to think novel ideas are "deviant" and resist them. As a result such ideas get watered down to make them less threatening-or get squashed altogether. The solution, the authors' studies show, is to inspire, support, and protect innovation by tapping into your networks. Three practices are especially useful. First, find and mobilize external innovation catalysts who are adept at synthesizing diverse perspectives and identifying creative solutions. Second, engage with internal sparring partners who can highlight potential objections and help fuse ideas with your company's mission and turn them into compelling business propositions. Third, selectively sequence the introduction of those ideas within your social circles in the company to stress-test and gradually gain buy-in for them. While there's nothing inherently magical about these practices, if you follow them, you'll find that innovating in a large, mature company is not only viable but highly promising.

Companies need to develop strong guiding principles that go beyond generic mission statements and values, the authors argue. Well-articulated principles can provide direction for difficult decisions, especially in times of disruption. They should offer behavioral guardrails and be distinctive to the company, open to debate, transferable across the organization, and integral to its mission. Some strong principles include "Focus on the user and all else will follow" (Google), "Privacy is a fundamental human right" (Apple), and "We won't release a product until we would use it ourselves" (Tableau Software). The authors recommend that leaders begin by identifying what makes the company unique and involving employees at all levels. When communicating decisions, they should reference principles to demonstrate their relevance. Over time, principles can shape company culture and empower employees to make decisions that align with corporate strategy. In this era of complexity and uncertainty, well-defined principles can provide much-needed clarity and direction.

Historically, the efforts of private equity firms to address leadership challenges have been limited primarily to replacing portfolio-company CEOs. Now, in an era of higher interest rates and more competition for limited acquisition targets, these firms are realizing that they need to make more-systematic investments in leadership development. The author offers a variety of prescriptions for PE firms, portfolio companies, and dealmakers, including hiring and empowering "chief human capital officers" to create a firm-level talent strategy, developing a leadership playbook, tasking portfolio companies with creating a leadership agenda, and rigorously assessing organizational effectiveness and talent during due diligence for company acquisitions.

The accelerated pace of technological change and, most recently, the advent of AI are reshaping jobs and organizations in ways that call for constant career reinvention. So we all need to learn how to get better at making the most of the frequent transitions that will constitute a long working life. But no matter how often people change careers, they will probably experience the transition as an emotionally fraught process-one that involves confusion, loss, insecurity, and struggle. Big changes can be exhilarating, but they're also terrifying. For more than two decades, Ibarra, of London Business School, has been studying the process of career reinvention: what prompts people to do it, how they go about it, and how it affects them. In this article, drawing on new research, she explains why such transitions are still so hard for so many people, despite their growing frequency and prevalence. She also offers some ideas for managing them more intentionally and successfully.

In the wake of Covid-19's disruptions, Kshore, a Chinese appliance maker, is thinking of realigning its supply chain. Like many other global manufacturers, it's being pressured by its customers, which include Walmart and other large retailers, to reduce the time, expense, and environmental impact of shipping goods between countries. On a trip to Monterrey, Mexico, Kshore's CEO and COO tour factories that are closer to North American markets-and are impressed by their professionalism. But questions about transportation and staffing give the executives pause. Should Kshore start production in Mexico or consider other countries? Two experts weigh in.

Three new books tackle how to escape the grip of perfectionism: MoneyZen, by Manisha Thakor; The Perfection Trap, by Thomas Curran; and Never Enough, by Jennifer Breheny Wallace.

The Oscar-nominated actress and outspoken human-rights advocate talks about acting as therapy, inspiration from her older sister, and more.

In the wake of Covid-19's disruptions, Kshore, a Chinese appliance maker, is thinking of realigning its supply chain. Like many other global manufacturers, it's being pressured by its customers, which include Walmart and other large retailers, to reduce the time, expense, and environmental impact of shipping goods between countries. On a trip to Monterrey, Mexico, Kshore's CEO and COO tour factories that are closer to North American markets-and are impressed by their professionalism. But questions about transportation and staffing give the executives pause. Should Kshore start production in Mexico or consider other countries? Two experts weigh in.

In the wake of Covid-19's disruptions, Kshore, a Chinese appliance maker, is thinking of realigning its supply chain. Like many other global manufacturers, it's being pressured by its customers, which include Walmart and other large retailers, to reduce the time, expense, and environmental impact of shipping goods between countries. On a trip to Monterrey, Mexico, Kshore's CEO and COO tour factories that are closer to North American markets-and are impressed by their professionalism. But questions about transportation and staffing give the executives pause. Should Kshore start production in Mexico or consider other countries? Two experts weigh in.

Supply chain bottlenecks, labor and transportation costs, tariffs, geopolitical tensions, and industrial policies are driving a resurgence in U.S.-based manufacturing. The authors discuss six key factors that business leaders should consider as they decide whether to reshore their manufacturing operations to the United States.

As 2023 neared its end, Richard Adkerson, CEO and Chairman of Freeport McMoRan, marked two decades of leadership. Dubbed "the elder statesman of the copper industry" by The Economist, Adkerson had witnessed various industry shifts. He anticipated a surge in copper demand, driven by the transition from fossil fuels to renewables. However, meeting this demand posed challenges, as copper mines take nearly a generation to become operational. With demand outstripping supply, the industry might seek copper alternatives. Recognizing these challenges, Adkerson prioritized operational efficiency and yield across Freeport's global copper operations. Embracing the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Freeport invested heavily in technologies like artificial intelligence and data analytics to maximize copper extraction from existing mines. This strategy, initiated in Baghdad, Arizona, expanded across the U.S. under the America Concentrator program, aiming for efficiency in all American copper mines. However, competitors like BHP, Grupo Mexico, Codelco, and Rio Tinto were also adopting similar technologies. The ubiquity of these technologies raised questions about their potential as a sustainable competitive advantage for Freeport. The company faced the challenge of leveraging its human capital to maintain its edge, especially as its stock performance lagged behind rivals like Southern Copper. The future posed questions about Freeport's continued dominance in the copper industry.

Vikrant Kadian founded Cherrygrocer Pvt. Ltd. (Fresherry), an online app and delivery service for fruits and vegetables, in February 2021 in Gurgaon, India, and was joined in the venture by three friends. In January 2023, Kadian was still the majority shareholder. The venture promised its customers better prices, convenience, an alternative to physical inspection of the produce, and traceability. However, the company had no defined target market and insufficient capabilities to straddle two main market segments, and the bootstrapped venture was suffering from wastage and inefficient resource allocations and facing high operational losses. Kadian had to choose from among the options available: Should he target a specific market or continue to straddle two segments and invest in capabilities? If he decided to choose a target market, should he chase the premium or budget segment? Should he continue bootstrapping the firm or bring in an external investor to implement a marketing strategy? Realizing the importance of his entrepreneurial dream and the principle on which he started his venture, Kadian had to decide the way forward without losing time.

In May 2022, Rohan Jain, the second-generation entrepreneur of an Indian family-managed carpet design firm, TexCarp Consulting, had to decide whether to enter a new vertical with one of their biggest clients, American Carpets. The opportunity involved using technology and personnel to carry out virtual reality rendering for American Carpets so that the US-based company could showcase its products to clients in virtual space. Jain tried to convince his father to invest. But the technology involved high costs, and Jains's father was opposed to the idea, since it would involve tying capital to fixed costs. But Jain could also convert the fixed costs into variable costs by either hiring technology or outsourcing the project. Should Jain go ahead with the VR rendering project? And if so, which of the three options should he select: buy, hire, or outsource the required technology and personnel?

Spreadsheet for case W34204.

Susan DeLuca, the chief executive officer of Eurostar Pictures (Eurostar), was under pressure from her board to define a new direct-to-consumer strategy for the company's video properties. Complicating this decision was the uncertain state of the streaming video on demand (SVOD) industry in 2023. DeLuca charged her team to consider two questions: (1) What was the future of the video streaming business, including new services (potentially spearheaded by Eurostar) that might disrupt the industry? and (2) How could Eurostar most strategically leverage its video assets to maximize revenue going forward?

This technical note is designed to be used early in a graduate-level elective course on strategic analysis, though it can be used at multiple levels, including advanced undergraduate and Executive Education. The note assumes some basic knowledge of hypothesis testing or the hypothesis-driven approach as a tool used in strategic analysis, particularly in the context of consulting. Building on this foundation, students will learn more about what makes a good hypothesis, the relationship between hypothesis and theory (the scientific method), and why this has become such a useful problem-solving framework in business settings. Specifically, a significant part of the discussion will center on the more practical or applied art of using hypotheses to reduce complexity and get to the heart of a clients or other stakeholder's needs.

In July 2022, Celsius Network filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. CEO Alex Mashinsky acknowledged that Celsius had grown its assets "faster than the Company was prepared to deploy [them]" and as a result had made "certain poor asset deployment decisions." Two months after filing, Celsius initiated a marketing and sale process to identify potential buyers for its assets. By April 2023, the field was reduced to NovaWulf and Fahrenheit, LLC. Both bidders proposed reorganizing Celsius' business as a going concern and giving its creditors and 1.7 million customers near-total ownership of the reorganized company. However, the ultimate fate of Celsius' many stakeholders remained anything but clear.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 723418.

A case on CRANE, a tool to help investors and green technology companies estimate the future climate impact of new technologies and products, called emissions reduction potential (ERP). The case includes material on CRANE's methodology for estimating future carbon emissions, including the variables and parameters of the tool's model. CRANE was created by Prime Coalition (Prime), which organized hundreds of investors to establish industry standard terminology, methodologies, and best practices for estimating the climate impact of new investments. In 2022, Keri Browder, director of Project Frame, a nonprofit program convened by Prime, was focused on how to improve CRANE's technical capabilities, integrate with other available tools for pre- and post-investment decision-making, and make the effort as useful as possible for Prime and Project Frame's mission to mitigate climate change.

To protect employees of South Asian origin from caste-based discrimination, managers everywhere must understand caste and how it shapes organizations and interactions in the workplace. The caste system, a sociocultural-economic system practiced in South Asian countries and by the sizable South Asian diaspora worldwide, can be a source of implicit and explicit forms of discrimination and exclusion. The authors discuss the caste system’s origins and what business leaders can do to mitigate its harm.