Activist shareholders are often seen as villains by managers and boards. Their demands for strategic and organizational shifts-which can feel personal to managers-often challenge the soundness of a company's strategy. However, leaders who treat activist shareholders solely as a risk or an annoyance are making a mistake. Although they may be aiming to protect their companies, they're missing out on an opportunity to tap one of the few free resources companies have to bring about value‑creating strategic change and build stronger business models. To better respond to-and take advantage of-the campaigns of activists, leaders must learn to think the way they do. Most activists tend to follow a predefined process to identify and engage target companies. This article presents the three main components of the activist playbook-linking performance failures to organizational weaknesses, developing a plan of action, and creating a narrative in support of change-and describes how managers can anticipate and respond to activist campaigns.

No challenge derails managers from the goal of sustainability more than trying to understand what it means for an organization to be sustainable. Some people think sustainability is all about environmental issues. Others see it in terms of the bottom line. Still others use the term synonymously with corporate social responsibility and shared value. This article explains why business sustainability is none of these things — rather, it is about time. Sustainability is about balancing resource usage and supplies over time and assuring intergenerational equity. There is no question that many CSR initiatives are effective at balancing competing demands made by shareholders and other stakeholders. To do this, however, many firms borrow resources and capital from the future, which can magnify the imbalance in the distribution of resources between the short and long term. Securing short-term success should never risk long-term survival. As this article states, business sustainability is the ability of firms to respond to their short-term needs without compromising their ability to meet future needs.

The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement (CBFA) had two primary purposes: (1) to protect Canada’s boreal forest from harmful logging practices; and (2) to improve and protect the reputation of Canada’s forest industry and companies. But the CBFA’s ambitious plans overlooked the fundamental challenges associated with the agreement’s implementation. Two years after its signing, the agreement suffers from a severe lack of funding, the withdrawal of one signatory and major hurdles at the regional working group level. The CBFA’s secretariat needs to develop a plan of action to realize the full potential of the agreement but faces numerous issues in terms of implementation: (1) the CBFA’s exclusion of First Nations communities; (2) funding issues; (3) disagreement at the local regional levels and among some signatories; (4) slow pace of implementation and (5) limited concrete signs of success thus far.