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Accompanies The BCPC Internet Strategy Team: An Exercise and provides unique background information on one of the team members.

Accompanies The BCPC Internet Strategy Team: An Exercise and provides unique background information on one of the team members.

Describes a small, luxury retail chain's operational sophistication achieved through the use of technology and high-touch customer service. A family-run business, Mitchells has built its success with a customer service strategy know internally as "hugging." The term is deceptively simple. The firm's true success lies in its blend of a warm other-oriented corporate culture, sophisticated information technology, and an effective family business structure. Although the setting is regional, the approach is clearly applicable to many service organizations. The chain is currently considering further expansion for future generations.

The CEO initiated a cultural change process at Prudential Financial to support a major business reorientation. Prudential, historically a privately held ("mutual") insurance company, went public in 2001. The cultural change was intended to prepare the organization to be a publicly traded financial services firm in which speaking up was encouraged at all levels of the organization.

Describes the organizational transformation occurring at the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC), a public utility. Faced with the possibility of privatization after decades of providing service in the absence of competition or performance pressures, the WSSC leadership orchestrates a reorganization to improve efficiency and effectiveness, while facing massive layoffs. A critical decision the organization faces is whether, and how, to add new entrepreneurial services to increase otherwise flat revenues. Analyses focus on assessment of the change process and approach.

The decision to adopt a new technology in the health care setting is merely the first step in an implementation journey. Whereas some new technologies are readily embraced by those who must use them, most are met with some resistance. In some cases, members of diverse groups--including administrators, clinicians, and technicians--must work together for a new technology to take hold effectively, becoming incorporated into routine practice in an organization. This article reports on a qualitative study of hospitals adopting a new technology for minimally invasive cardiac surgery that uncovered substantial differences in both approach and implementation success. Four case studies are presented to illustrate distinct, tacit frames held by the leaders of each implementation project and how these influenced the team learning process and, in turn, implementation success.

The importance of hospitals learning from their failures hardly needs to be stated. Not only are matters of life and death at stake on a daily basis, but also an increasing number of U.S. hospitals are operating in the red. This article reports on in-depth qualitative field research of nurses' responses to process failures in nine hospitals. It identifies two types of process failures--errors and problems--and discusses the implications of each for process improvement. A dynamic model of the system in which frontline workers operate reveals an illusory equilibrium in which small process failures actually erode organizational effectiveness rather than drive learning and change in hospitals. Three managerial levers for change are identified, suggesting a new strategy for improving hospitals' and other service organizations' ability to learn from failure.

Corporate values can motivate employees, but handled incorrectly they can do just the opposite. A recent study shows how the CEO of a small ad agency promoted strong values, only to see his staff misinterpret them and brand him as a hypocrite. Here's how to avoid a similar catastrophe.

Supplements the (A) case.

Supplements the (A) case.

Supplements the (A) case.

The night before the launch of the Challenger shuttle, officials from Morton Thiokol (Solid Rocket Booster manufacturer) and NASA participated in a teleconference to discuss whether to postpone the shuttle launch due to predicted low temperatures at Kennedy Space Center. This case provides background on the history of NASA's shuttle program, engineering firm Thiokol and Thiokol SRB, and O-ring expert Roger Boisjoly, who was adamant that the shuttle not be launched.

Explores the highly successful PC and low-end server manufacturer's entry into the large-scale server market in the United States. A key difference of this new market is the intense service element required to support the larger hardware. Specifically, the industry standard is to have a technician onsite with a required part within four hours of problem diagnosis. This type of service presents a problem for Dell, as its potential customers are widely dispersed throughout the United States. Should Dell create an in-house field service team to ensure service quality and maintain control of its customer relationships or outsource the field service to a third-party provider? Complicating the issue is the presence of IBM, the biggest player in the large-scale server market.

Intermountain Health Care (IHC), an integrated delivery system based in Utah, has adopted a new strategy for managing health care delivery. The approach focuses management attention not only on the facilities where care takes place but also on physician decision making and the care process itself, with the aim of boosting physician productivity and improving care quality, while saving money. This case explores the challenges facing Brent James, executive director of the Institute for Health Care Delivery Research at IHC, as he implements new structures and systems (including a data warehouse for care outcomes, electronic patient records, computer workstations, clinical data support systems, and protocols for care) designed to support clinical process management across a geographically diverse group of physicians with varying levels of interest and dedication to IHC. Also highlights an innovative strategy for creating and disseminating knowledge at the individual and organizational levels to maintain high standards in care delivery.

Describes the service transformation occurring at the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Plagued by a history of poor service, enormous complexity, and an insular employee base, the 100,000-person organization grapples with a turnaround process that attempts to change virtually every aspect of the organization, including IT systems, This case includes information regarding share services organizational structure, organizational culture, and customer service. This case includes information regarding shared services.

Describes the major phases of an initiative designed to transform the organization and enhance patient safety. Raises interesting questions about how to encourage candid discussion about failures while continuing to hold people accountable for their performance.

Cardiac surgery is one of medicine's modern miracles. In an operating room no larger than many household kitchens, a patient is rendered functionally dead while a surgical team repairs or replaces damaged arteries or valves. Each operation requires incredible teamwork--a single error can have disastrous consequences. In other words, surgical teams are not all that different from the cross-functional teams that have become crucial to business success. The challenge of team management these days is not simply to execute existing processes efficiently. It's to implement new processes as quickly as possible. But adopting new technologies or new business processes is highly disruptive, regardless of the industry. The authors studied how surgical teams at 16 major medical centers implemented a difficult new procedure for performing cardiac surgery. The setting was ideal for rigorously focusing on how teams learn and why some learn faster than others. The authors found that the most successful teams had leaders who actively managed the groups' learning efforts. Teams that most successfully implemented the new technology shared three essential characteristics. They were designed for learning; their leaders framed the challenge so that team members were highly motivated to learn; and an environment of psychological safety fostered communication and innovation. The finding that teams learn more quickly if they are explicitly managed for learning poses a challenge in many areas of business. Team leaders in business tend to be chosen more for their technical expertise than for their management skills. Team leaders need to become adept at creating learning environments, and senior managers need to look beyond technical competence and identify leaders who can motivate and manage teams of disparate specialists.

Examines the implementation of a new patient care delivery model at Massachusetts General Hospital. Uses clinical and financial data to examine different choices for staffing non-physician health care professionals and to understand the challenges of managing change across multiple professions in the hospital environment. Recently promoted to senior vice president of Patient Care Services, Jeanette Ives Erickson must decide whether a model for patient care delivery is the best way to improve care and reduce costs in the midst of extreme budget pressures and a rapidly changing health care environment.

Discusses a young MBA plant manager who is improving the operations of a small General Motors components plant in Fredericksburg, Virginia. At 29 years old, Joe Hinrichs is the youngest plant manager at GM, and in his new assignment, he is faced with the daunting challenge of designing and implementing significant manufacturing procedures that will dramatically improve the plant and remove it from its current unprofitable and inefficient state. Aided by the introduction of new carbon fiber technology that has revolutionized the plant's product (the torque converter clutch, a component of the automatic transmission of a car), Hinrichs hopes to keep the plant open by streamlining operations, reducing inventory, redesigning worker jobs, increasing worker commitment, and other improvements. During this process, he must deal with an unexpected union strike, equipment malfunctions, and other problems that threaten the success of the improvement process. He has, however, found unusual ways to overcome these barriers without eroding worker trust. At the end of the case, Hinrichs faces the serious dilemma of what to do about the broken 1,500-ton press, one of the most important machines in the production process. Three options are outlined, each with technical and managerial tradeoffs.