When a major change initiative runs aground, leaders often blame their company's culture for pushing it off course. They try to forge ahead by overhauling the culture--a tactic that tends to fizzle, fail, or backfire. Most cultures are too well entrenched to be jettisoned. The secret is to stop fighting your culture--and to work with and within it, until it evolves in the right direction. Today's best-performing companies, such as Southwest Airlines, Apple, and the Four Seasons, understand this, say the authors, three consultants from Booz & Company. These organizations follow five principles for making the most of their cultures: 1) Match strategy to culture. Culture trumps strategy every time, no matter how brilliant the plan, so the two need to be in alignment. 2) Focus on a few critical shifts in behavior. Wholesale change is hard; choose your battles wisely. 3) Honor the strengths of the existing culture. Every culture is the product of good intentions and has strengths; put them to use. 4) Integrate formal and informal interventions. Don't just implement new rules and processes; identify "influencers" who can bring other employees along. 5) Measure and monitor cultural evolution. Otherwise you can't identify backsliding or correct course. When the leaders of Aetna applied these rules while implementing a new strategy in the early 2000s, they reinvigorated the company's ailing culture and restored employee pride. That shift was reflected in the business results, as Aetna went from a $300 million loss to a $1.7 billion gain.

Sustaining innovation, many agree, is crucial for a company's long-term success. But truly innovative people are rare: They have excellent analytic skills, never rest on their laurels, and can identify the solutions likeliest to win over top leadership. They are socially savvy and can bring a diverse group of constituents into alignment. They tend to be both charming and persuasive. The right talent-management procedures can help in spotting potential innovators. Reuters, for example, interviews candidates one-on-one and gives them complex, real-world scenarios in which they must reach and defend decisions, accommodate new information, and convincingly sell their point of view. Starwood and McDonald's require would-be innovators to lead cross-functional teams in developing promising ideas and then present those ideas to senior management. One global industrial products company in the UK insists that they do a stint in the sales department. Developing breakthrough innovators requires mentoring and peer networks. Mentors provide insight into the motivations, goals, mind-set, and budget constraints of managers in a variety of relevant functions. At Allstate, for example, the CEO coaches and supports the mentors themselves, sending a strong signal about the importance of the program. Peer networks provide a sense of solidarity and a uniquely fertile environment in which to exchange ideas, impart information, and instill hope. Companies that excel in developing innovative leaders often remove them from revenue-generating line positions and plant them in the middle of the organization, where they form "innovation hubs," with easy access to influentials, more autonomy, and broader job responsibilities. Practices like these keep companies open to new ideas and prepare them to respond nimbly to innovation from elsewhere in their industries.

Groups don't become teams just because that is what someone calls them. Nor do teamwork values alone ensure team performance. So what is a team? How can managers know when the team option makes sense, and what can they do to ensure team success? In this groundbreaking March 1993 article, authors Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith answer these questions and outline the discipline that defines a real team. The essence of a team is shared commitment. Without it, groups perform as individuals; with it, they become a powerful unit of collective performance. The best teams invest a tremendous amount of time shaping a purpose that they can own. They also translate their purpose into specific performance goals. And members of successful teams pitch in and become accountable with and to their teammates. The fundamental distinction between teams and other forms of working groups turns on performance. A working group relies on the individual contributions of its members for collective performance. But a team strives for something greater than its members could achieve individually: An effective team is always worth more than the sum of its parts. The authors identify three kinds of teams: those that recommend things--task forces or project groups; those that make or do things--manufacturing, operations, or marketing groups; and those that run things--groups that oversee some significant functional activity. For managers, the key is knowing where in the organization these teams should be encouraged. Managers who can foster team development in the right place at the right time prime their organizations for top performance.

As far as anyone could tell, Vigor Skin Care's star was rising, mostly on the strength of Ageless Vigor, its new line of enriched skin cleansers and cosmetics. In fact, this evening, the three employees responsible for developing the product line were slated to receive the parent company's highest award for performance. But CEO Peter Markles knew that despite the accolades, the business unit--and its "fearsome threesome"--had hit a rough patch in recent months. When Peter took the reins four years ago, Vigor Skin Care was the sleeping dog of the health-and-beauty industry; his challenge was to rejuvenate the maturing business. He knew a turnaround would require equal parts discipline, politics, and creativity--so he pulled together a team that could address those needs. Their all-consuming, intensely collaborative efforts resulted in the successful Ageless Vigor line. Then reality set in. The team found the day-to-day operations of manufacturing Ageless Vigor a bit tedious. Peter felt relegated to troubleshooting distribution problems. Another team member was meeting with executives from another division who were actively recruiting the wunderkind. Another member was simply on the verge of burnout. Tonight, at the award ceremony, there would be speeches and applause and toasts. But tomorrow, Peter would have to face the question: Should he try to salvage the Ageless Vigor team? In R0107A and R0107Z, Marshall Goldsmith, Nancy Bologna, Martin Puris, and John R. Katzenbach offer their advice on the problem presented in this fictional case study.

As far as anyone could tell, Vigor Skin Care's star was rising, mostly on the strength of Ageless Vigor, its new line of enriched skin cleansers and cosmetics. In fact, this evening, the three employees responsible for developing the product line were slated to receive the parent company's highest award for performance. But CEO Peter Markles knew that despite the accolades, the business unit--and its "fearsome threesome"--had hit a rough patch in recent months. When Peter took the reins four years ago, Vigor Skin Care was the sleeping dog of the health-and-beauty industry; his challenge was to rejuvenate the maturing business. He knew a turnaround would require equal parts discipline, politics, and creativity--so he pulled together a team that could address those needs. Their all-consuming, intensely collaborative efforts resulted in the successful Ageless Vigor line. Then reality set in. The team found the day-to-day operations of manufacturing Ageless Vigor a bit tedious. Peter felt relegated to troubleshooting distribution problems. Another team member was meeting with executives from another division who were actively recruiting the wunderkind. Another member was simply on the verge of burnout. Tonight, at the award ceremony, there would be speeches and applause and toasts. But tomorrow, Peter would have to face the question: Should he try to salvage the Ageless Vigor team? In R0107A and R0107Z, Marshall Goldsmith, Nancy Bologna, Martin Puris, and Jon R. Katzenbach offer their advice on this fictional case study.

For many organizations, achieving competitive advantage means eliciting superior performance from employees on the front line--the burger flippers, hotel room cleaners, and baggage handlers whose work has an enormous effect on customers. That's no easy task. Frontline workers are paid low wages, have scant hope of advancement, and--not surprisingly--often care little about the company's performance. But then how do some companies succeed in engaging the emotional energy of rank-and-file workers? A team of researchers at McKinsey & Company and the Conference Board recently explored that question and discovered that one highly effective route is demonstrated by the U.S. Marine Corps. The Marines' approach to motivation follows the "mission, values, and pride" path, which researchers say is practical and relevant for the business world. More specifically, the authors say the Marines follow five practices: they overinvest in cultivating core value; prepare every person to lead, including frontline supervisors; learn when to create teams and when to create single-leader work groups; attend to all employees, not just the top half; and encourage self-discipline as a way of building pride. The authors admit there are critical differences between the Marines and most businesses. But using vivid examples from companies such as KFC and Marriott International, the authors illustrate how the Marines' approach can be translated for corporate use. Sometimes, the authors maintain, minor changes in a company's standard operating procedure can have a powerful effect on frontline pride and can result in substantial payoffs in company performance.

Companies all across the economic spectrum are making use of teams, but many senior executives and CEOs have become frustrated in their efforts to create teams at the top. Too often, they see few gains in performance from their efforts to be more teamlike. And they recognize that the rest of the organization knows that the senior group doesn't really work together as a team. Nevertheless, a team effort at the top can be essential to capturing the highest performance results possible--when the conditions are right. Good leadership requires differentiating between team and non-team opportunities, and then acting accordingly. Jon R. Katzenbach, a partner at McKinsey & Co. in New York City and the author of Teams at the Top: Unleashing the Potential of Both Teams and Individual Leaders (Harvard Business School Press, in 1997) explains why teams at the top are often ineffective--and when they can be essential to capturing the highest performance results for their organization.

Eric Holt had one responsibility as FireArt's director of strategy: to put together a team of people from each division and create and implement a comprehensive plan for the company's strategic realignment within six months. It seemed like an exciting, rewarding challenge. Unfortunately, the team got off on the wrong foot from its first meeting. Randy Louderback, FireArt's charismatic and extremely talented director of sales and marketing, seemed intent on sabotaging the group's efforts. Anxiously awaiting the start of the team's fourth meeting, Eric was determined to address Randy's behavior openly in the group. But before he could, Randy provoked a confrontation, and the meeting ended abruptly. What should Eric do now? Is Randy the team's only problem? In 94612 AND 94612Z, Jon R. Katzenbach, J. Richard Hackman, Genevieve Segol, Paul P. Baard, Ed Musselwhite, Kathleen Hurson, and Michael Garber offer advice in this fictional study.

Eric Holt had one responsibility as FireArt's director of strategy: to put together a team of people from each division and create and implement a comprehensive plan for the company's strategic realignment within six months. It seemed like an exciting, rewarding challenge. Unfortunately, the team got off on the wrong foot from its first meeting. Randy Louderback, FireArt's charismatic and extremely talented director of sales and marketing, seemed intent on sabotaging the group's efforts. Anxiously awaiting the start of the team's fourth meeting, Eric was determined to address Randy's behavior openly in the group. But before he could, Randy provoked a confrontation, and the meeting ended abruptly. What should Eric do now? Is Randy the team's only problem? In 94612 and 94612Z, Jon R. Katzenbach, J. Richard Hackman, Genevieve Segol, Paul P. Baard, Ed Musselwhite, Kathleen Hurson, and Michael Garber offer advice on this fictional case study.