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General Electric thrived in every decade of the 20th century. Since its founding in 1892, GE has placed a high value on picking and training the best people. Staff members worked with other scientists in the company's research lab to design and manufacture new and better products to satisfy the growing American consumer demand for lighting, appliances, and consumer electronics in the 1910s to 1920s as well as in the 1950s and 1960s. GE's top executives have shown a clear understanding of the leadership and managerial styles that were appropriate for the years in which they worked. In the first decade of the 20th century, Charles Coffin demonstrated that he was an adept negotiator who amassed great wealth for GE in building generators and power equipment for local utilities in which GE also had a financial stake through bond issues. In the final decades of the 20th century, Jack Welch emphasized that GE should support only the most profitable businesses in the company's portfolio, a logic that led Welch and GE to phase out GE's consumer electronics division while bolstering the financial position of GE capital. Profiles all of GE's top executives.

Focuses on the leadership lessons drawn from the events precipitating the Animator's Strike of 1941, depicting the growing pains of a company that was as much formed and changed by American culture as American culture was formed and changed by it. The tale of Walt Disney's roller-coaster journey from small-town paperboy to underage ambulance-driving serviceman to amateur animator and thrice-failed businessman to iconic leader is told against the backdrop of swift and seeping change in the beginning of the 20th century. An ambitious creative genius, he masterfully pursued emerging technological advantage and uniquely grasped and personified American social mores, but was reckless and naive about strategic business issues, especially concerning intellectual property and human resources management. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

Demand for low-cost housing after World War II far exceeded supply. Was this a profitable new market? New York developer William Levitt had to decide. During World War II, Levitt was eager to build basic housing for the working class--otherwise, Levitt & Sons would have been idle due to the federal government ban on all nonessential construction, like the luxury homes that Levitt & Sons typically built on Long Island, New York. Under a contract with the U.S. Navy, Levitt & Sons erected 2,000 homes in a year's time, an effort that gave Levitt & Sons the opportunity to perfect rapid home construction techniques. Levitt had to decide if he would apply those techniques to meet the post-war housing demand. Levitt & Sons had the manufacturing know-how. Would sizable profits follow? Levitt needed to understand the implications of the home improvement loans and mortgages the government guaranteed to returning servicemen as part of their veterans benefits. Levitt had the opportunity to parlay his own World War II experience as a Navy Seabee to market these homes by appealing to the sentiments of veterans like himself who were eager to return home and settle down after the fighting stopped. Levitt's decision would have profound social, economic, and political impact on the lives of returning veterans, their spouses, and their children--the Baby Boomers.

In 1906, C.W. Post had to move his latest breakfast product--corn flakes--from store shelves into cereal bowls nationwide. Post genuinely believed his corn flakes and other breakfast foods would make people well. Through sampling and other innovative sales and marketing techniques, Post convinced consumers and grocers to buy Postum and Grape-Nuts--which generated millions in profits for the Postum Cereal Co. But not Elijah's Manna--the brand name that Post put on his corn flakes boxes when his company introduced the product in 1904. Two years later, it was clearly not selling. To make matters worse, other cereal companies in the burgeoning Battle Creek area where Post's foods were manufactured were cornering the market, in particular, Kelloggs. How was Post going to convince consumers that his corn flakes were better than the rest?

Companies and leaders don't succeed or fail in a vacuum. When it comes to long-term success, the ability to understand and adapt to changing business conditions is at least as important as any particular personality trait or competency. A clear picture of how powerful the Zeitgeist can be emerges from the authors' comprehensive study of the way the business landscape in the United States evolved, decade by decade, throughout the 20th century. Six contextual factors in particular, they found, most affected the prospects for business: the level of government intervention in business, global events, demographics, shifts in social mores, developments in technology, and the strength or weakness of the labor movement. A lack of contextual sensitivity can trip up even the most brilliant executive. No less a luminary than Alfred P. Sloan was relieved of General Motor's day-to-day management in the 1930s because he was unwilling to meet with the new UAW. Conversely, an understanding of the Zeitgeist can play a crucial but unheralded role in business performance. To understand better this connection between business performance and context, the authors studied 1,000 great U.S. business leaders of the 20th century and identified three distinct archetypes: Entrepreneurs, often ahead of their time, overcame dire challenges to build something new. Managers excelled at reading and exploiting the existing Zeitgeist to grow their businesses. Leaders defied context to identify latent potential in businesses others considered mature, stagnant, or in decline. In every decade, all three archetypes were vital. It is the ongoing regeneration of this pattern in the business life cycle that ultimately sustains development and progress.

Supplements the (A) case. A rewritten version of an earlier supplement.

Corey Robinson is promoted to a new position at Sprint during a time of much internal change within the company. Asks readers to consider how he sets the tone to his new management team and how effective he is in building credibility in his new leadership role. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

NerveWire, a management consulting and systems integration provider based in Newton, MA, was closing in on its second anniversary. In the beginning days of NerveWire, the major challenge was recruiting--finding the right people who embodied its values and business mission. Traditional business enterprises were thirsty for a new type of consulting organization, a partner that would help them utilize the Internet not as a marketing tool, but as a tool to re-design their business models, their internal value chains, and their extended industry value chains to drive significant ROI. NerveWire was created for just that purpose. The year 2001 brought some very new and different challenges. In the fall of 2000, the economy in the United States fell off a cliff, and by the beginning of 2001, NerveWire's Fortune 500 clients, by and large, had frozen all spending in major new technology-centric business initiatives. A Day in the Life of Kirk Arnold, Video and A Day in the Life of Malcolm Frank, Video are required with this case.