Is it a sign or just a coincidence that several talented employees have recently left Sambian Partners? The architecture and engineering firm's latest defector refuses to tell the head of human resources, Mary Donillo, why he was unhappy. And the self-administered employee surveys don't reveal much. When CEO Helen Gasbarian gets word of the next possible flight risk, she promotes the employee on the spot. How can Sambian stop the talent drain? Four experts comment on this fictional case study in R0806A and R0806Z. Anna Pringle, the head of international people and organization capability for Microsoft, thinks that Helen should take a hard look at Mary, who is not safeguarding the firm's talent. Helen must also become an attentive listener. F. Leigh Branham, the CEO of human resources consultancy Keeping the People, thinks that Sambian's employees need a forum in which they can speak openly about their discontent. The candid discussions can expose the "triggering events" that impel people to leave, such as a disconnect between the firm's long-standing focus on innovative design and a more recent concern with profitability. Jim Cornelius, the chairman and CEO of Bristol-Myers Squibb, once faced a potential employee exodus as interim CEO of the pharmaceutical company. He advises Helen to meet face-to-face with her most talented employees and assure them that she understands their concerns and desires. Jean Martin, the executive director of the Corporate Executive Board's leadership council, urges Helen to support a mission and culture to which employees will feel connected. She explains that although people join companies for rational motives, they stay for emotional ones. By the time unhappy workers tell their managers what's going on, it's often too late.

Is it a sign or just a coincidence that several talented employees have recently left Sambian Partners? The architecture and engineering firm's latest defector refuses to tell the head of human resources, Mary Donillo, why he was unhappy. And the self-administered employee surveys don't reveal much. When CEO Helen Gasbarian gets word of the next possible flight risk, she promotes the employee on the spot. How can Sambian stop the talent drain? Four experts comment on this fictional case study in R0806A and R0806Z. Anna Pringle, the head of international people and organization capability for Microsoft, thinks that Helen should take a hard look at Mary, who is not safeguarding the firm's talent. Helen must also become an attentive listener. F. Leigh Branham, the CEO of human resources consultancy Keeping the People, thinks that Sambian's employees need a forum in which they can speak openly about their discontent. The candid discussions can expose the "triggering events" that impel people to leave, such as a disconnect between the firm's long-standing focus on innovative design and a more recent concern with profitability. Jim Cornelius, the chairman and CEO of Bristol-Myers Squibb, once faced a potential employee exodus as interim CEO of the pharmaceutical company. He advises Helen to meet face-to-face with her most talented employees and assure them that she understands their concerns and desires. Jean Martin, the executive director of the Corporate Executive Board's leadership council, urges Helen to support a mission and culture to which employees will feel connected. She explains that although people join companies for rational motives, they stay for emotional ones. By the time unhappy workers tell their managers what's going on, it's often too late.

Is it a sign or just a coincidence that several talented employees have recently left Sambian Partners? The architecture and engineering firm's latest defector refuses to tell the head of human resources, Mary Donillo, why he was unhappy. And the self-administered employee surveys don't reveal much. When CEO Helen Gasbarian gets word of the next possible flight risk, she promotes the employee on the spot. How can Sambian stop the talent drain? Four experts comment on this fictional case study in R0806A and R0806Z. Anna Pringle, the head of international people and organization capability for Microsoft, thinks that Helen should take a hard look at Mary, who is not safeguarding the firm's talent. Helen must also become an attentive listener. F. Leigh Branham, the CEO of human resources consultancy Keeping the People, thinks that Sambian's employees need a forum in which they can speak openly about their discontent. The candid discussions can expose the "triggering events" that impel people to leave, such as a disconnect between the firm's long-standing focus on innovative design and a more recent concern with profitability. Jim Cornelius, the chairman and CEO of Bristol-Myers Squibb, once faced a potential employee exodus as interim CEO of the pharmaceutical company. He advises Helen to meet face-to-face with her most talented employees and assure them that she understands their concerns and desires. Jean Martin, the executive director of the Corporate Executive Board's leadership council, urges Helen to support a mission and culture to which employees will feel connected. She explains that although people join companies for rational motives, they stay for emotional ones. By the time unhappy workers tell their managers what's going on, it's often too late.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Most large-scale change efforts fail to meet their expectations. A major problem is that even the most advanced change models will stumble when they face organizational designs and management practices that are inherently anti-change. The truth is that the effectiveness of change efforts is largely determined by organizational design, or how a company's structure, processes, reward systems, and other features are orchestrated over time to support one another as well as the company's strategic intent, identity, and capabilities. In a world that is perpetually changing, an organization's design must support the idea that the implementation and reimplementation of a strategy is a continuous process. However, a number of traditional organizational design features tend to discourage change. Thus, to transform themselves into organizations that are "built to change," companies need to rethink a number of these basic design assumptions with respect to managing talent (forget about job descriptions and redefine the relationship between company and worker), reward systems (implement a "person-based" pay system), structure (redesign the organization to maximize its "surface area"), information and decision processes (scrap the annual-budget process and move decision making closer to the front lines), and leaders (replace hierarchical command-and-control with shared leadership).

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Corporate boards in the United States have recently been on the hot seat. Stimulated by high-profile scandals, investor dissatisfaction with board performance and questions about the level of executive compensation, regulators have introduced significant reforms in the rules that govern boards. But will such reforms actually contribute to the effectiveness of boards? A real danger exists that the mandated changes not only will fail to enhance how companies are governed but also could possibly lead to a number of negative unintended consequences. To investigate such issues, the authors conducted a study that compared the board practices and effectiveness of Fortune 1000 companies in 1998 vs. 2003. They looked specifically at three areas: board leadership, the conditions governing board membership, and the performance evaluations of boards, individual board members, and CEOs. The results have helped to determine which practices in those three areas are actually related to overall board performance.

In both the business press and academic journals, corporate leadership typically is portrayed as a solo activity, the responsibility of one person at the top of an organizational hierarchy. However, evidence shows that shared leadership is not only common in the corporate world, it is often more effective than the storied "one-man shows." Ongoing research at the University of Southern California's Center for Effective Organizations pinpoints several factors needed to make joint leadership a success. Where two--or more--individuals share leadership, it turns out that making the arrangement work is more complicated than simply "divvying up the tasks." For example, sharing the limelight seems harder than sharing responsibility.

Rare is the company that does not periodically review the performance of its staff, business units, and suppliers. But rare, as well, is the company that does such a review of one of its most important contributors--its board of directors. Done properly, appraisals can help boards become more effective by clarifying individual and collective responsibilities. They can help improve the working relationship between a company's board and its senior management. They can help ensure a healthy balance of power between the board and the CEO. And, once in place, an appraisal process is difficult to dismantle, making it harder for a new CEO to dominate a board or avoid being held accountable for poor performance. The authors, Jay Conger, David Finegold, and Edward E. Lawler, III, all of the Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California's School of Business Administration in Los Angeles, have drawn on the strengths of several different approaches to synthesize a best-practice process that is both rigorous and comprehensive.

Prompted by the success of Japanese products in the United States, American companies are seeking to upgrade quality and productivity by adopting quality circles--programs that allow employees to meet in groups to solve common work problems and to make suggestions to management. Although managers expect quality circles to create a more participative workplace, the groups must first progress through a series of growth stages, each containing key activities as well as threats to the programs' existence. Study of quality circles in different organizations indicates that resistance by middle management and staff, budget cuts, and participants' disillusionment usually precipitate their decline.