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Describes the change process Whitbread employed in transforming its organization and culture from a single underperforming business operating in a relatively stable environment to a multibusiness, high-commitment, and high-performance corporation operating in more competitive markets. Describes how CEO David Thomas employed the Strategic Fitness Process (SFP), a strategic leadership process for organizational and cultural change, to create commitment to change within his leadership team and among 100 key executives in all parts of the company. Allowing a senior team to reinvent the corporation, SFP guides the senior team in developing a statement of strategic and organizational direction. SFP then guides the senior team through a systematic diagnosis as well as through change development and execution.

HP had been a highly successful and respected company for decades. It was well known for its company culture and management practices--the HP way--which emphasized both profits and people. Changing markets, strong competitors, and the growth of its computer business, however, battered the company in the mid-1990s. To turn things around, HP hired Carly Fiorina, the first outsider to lead the company. Describes Fiorina's strategy and the impact of decisions she made with respect to the acquisition of Compaq and HR policies on HP's venerable culture and performance.

Too many organizations descend into underperformance because they can't confront the painful gap between their strategy and the reality of their capabilities, their behaviors, and their markets. That's because senior managers don't know how to engage in truthful conversations about the problems that threaten the business--and because lower level managers are afraid to speak up. These factors lie behind many failures to implement strategy. Indeed, the dynamics in almost any organization are such that it's extremely difficult for senior people to hear the unfiltered truth from managers lower down. Beer and Eisenstat's methodology for getting the truth about an organization's problems onto the table in a way that allows senior management to do something useful with it is to assemble a task force of the most effective managers to collect data about strategic and organizational problems. In this way, the senior team sends a clear message that it is serious about uncovering the truth. Task force members present their findings to the senior team in the form of a discussion. This conversation needs to move back and forth between advocacy and inquiry; it has to be about the issues that matter most; it has to be collective and public; it has to allow employees to be honest without risking their jobs; and it has to be structured. This direct feedback from a handful of their best people moves senior teams to make changes they otherwise might not have.

Presents an overview of a method for diagnosing and developing an organization's capability to achieve its goals and implement its strategy, with exercises for application. A rewritten version of an earlier exercise.

Overview of a method for diagnosing and developing an organization's capability to achieve its goals and implement its strategy, with exercises for application. A rewritten version of an earlier exercise.

Introduces Grey Warner, the vice president of Merck's Latin America region, and his efforts to improve the organizational effectiveness of the region and to introduce a more global business culture and values. Discusses Merck's ethics and values, its Latin American organization, the change methodologies used, and the political and economic conditions in the region. The change methodologies included Myers Briggs personality type assessment, 360 degree feedback management evaluations, a new strategic planning process, and especially, organizational fitness profiling to discover and overcome barriers to achieving the strategic vision. Teaching Purpose: Allows students to examine the management of foreign operations--especially the management of change and the cultural implications thereof.

Supplements the (A) case.

Examines Merck's change effort in Brazil from the perspective of the local employees.

Examines Merck's change effort in Mexico from the perspective of the local employees.

On August 1, 1997 the Manila Water Co. took control of the east zone of the newly privatized Manila Metropolitan Water and Sewerage System (MWSS). At the time of privatization, MWSS was an inefficient, ineffective, and corrupt government agency. MWC must develop the employees and the assets acquired from MWSS to build a profitable firm. This case describes the changes made to the organization.

On February 3, 1997, the east zone of the Manila Metropolitan Water and Sewerage System (MWSS) was taken over by the Manila Water Co. (MWC), a newly created joint venture between the Ayala Corp., a large Filipino conglomerate; Bechtel Enterprises, Inc., an American engineering and construction firm; and United Utilities, a British utilities firm. At the time of privatization, MWSS was an inefficient, ineffective, and corrupt government agency. MWC must develop the employees and the assets acquired from MWSS to build a profitable firm. This case describes MWSS, the three partners in MWC,and also introduces Filemon Berba, the new CEO and president of MWC.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Executives are often baffled when they can't implement perfectly sound strategies. The root causes, according to a Harvard Business School professor and a senior organizational fellow at McKinsey & Co., are six deep-seated barriers to strategy implementation and organizational learning. The first barrier is a top-down or laissez-faire senior management style. Without transforming that barrier into a capability, none of the other barriers can be turned into capabilities either. The five others are: unclear strategy and conflicting priorities; an ineffective senior team; poor vertical communication; poor coordination across functions, businesses, or borders; and inadequate down-the-line leadership skills and development. According to the authors, the first three barriers together undermine an organization's quality of direction; a lack of vertical communication interacts with the other barriers to block quality of learning; and the last two barriers cause poor quality of implementation. The authors' own process, Organizational Fitness Profiling, has helped managers overcome the root causes of blocked strategy implementation and has led to individual and organizational learning. Not all organizations are up to the challenge, however.

The Micro-Electronic Products Division of SMA has financial and organizational problems. Conflict and lack of coordination exist between functional groups. Employees do not have a sense of direction and morale is low. The cause of these problems is found in a change in business environment followed by change in organization and management. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

Focuses on the recommendations and implementation strategy suggested by the organizational development group for the division's problems. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

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

Today's fast-paced economy demands that businesses change or die. But few companies manage corporate transformations as well as they would like. The brutal fact is that about 70% of all change initiatives fail. In this article, authors Michael Beer and Nitin Nohria describe two archetypes--or theories--of corporate transformation that may help executives crack the code of change. Theory E is change based on economic value: shareholder value is the only legitimate measure of success, and change often involves heavy use of economic incentives, layoffs, downsizing, and restructuring. Theory O is change based on organizational capability: the goal is to build and strengthen corporate culture. Most companies focus purely on one theory or the other, or haphazardly use a mix of both, the authors say. Combining E and O is directionally correct, they contend, but it requires a careful, conscious integration plan. Beer and Nohria present the examples of two companies, Scott Paper and Champion International, that used a purely E or purely O strategy to create change--and met with limited levels of success. They contrast those corporate transformations with that of UK-based retailer ASDA, which has successfully embraced the paradox between the opposing theories of change and integrated E and O. The lesson from ASDA? To thrive and adapt in the new economy, companies must make sure the E and O theories of business change are in sync at their own organizations.

In the early 1990s, Merck faced a series of challenges because of significant changes in its competitive and regulatory environment (e.g., growth in power of pharmaceutical buyers like managed care organizations led to price pressures and President Clinton's review of the entire U.S. health-care industry). The case describes the company under its previous CEO, and primarily under Ray Gilmartin, the new CEO. Discusses the strategic, organizational, cultural, and management challenges that Merck faced, as well as Gilmartin's change program from 1994 to 1998, which was aimed at helping Merck address these issues.

Supplements the (A) case.

Supplements the (A) case.

In the mid-1980s, Asda was one of the most successful retail companies in the United Kingdom. By 1991, the chain of 200 grocery stores had a lack of direction, a demoralized workforce, declining profits, rising debt, collapsing stock price, and was facing bankruptcy. This case describes the company's downfall and introduces Archie Norman, a young, highly talented chief executive, hired to restore the company.