個案總覽

Explores the career challenges facing highly successful women who leave the full-time workforce for several years to manage family commitments. Carol Cohen is a 1985 Harvard MBA who has professional line experience in a manufacturing environment, followed by a successful transition into investment banking. Details Cohen's decision to return to a professional career after almost 11 years out of the full-time workforce. Describes her decision-making process, including discussions with her husband about shared parenting responsibilities, and provides details of her professional networking, resume development, and interview preparation. Concludes with a job offer to Cohen from Sankaty Advisors, a Bain Capital Partners company. Discussion centers on the decision to return to work, the strategic plan and specific steps, and concludes with questions about setting expectations--both at home and at work--and negotiating terms.

Describes a major organizational transformation process at John Hancock Financial Services in which CEO Stephen Brown takes a series of measured steps to turn the old-line mutual insurance company into a competitive, performance-oriented financial services firm. At the end of the case, Brown is considering whether to take the company public. Raises question of leadership, alignment, and culture change.

Hope Barrows, a partner at the national accounting firm Fuller Fenton, drove to the office on Sunday and swiped her access card to enter the parking garage. She noticed that another car followed her in--without using an access card. Hope could see that the driver was a man, but she didn't recognize him. Concerned for her safety, she got out and asked to see his ID. Dillon Johnson, an associate at the same firm, was rushing to meet a colleague to review a client's file. He felt he was being unfairly questioned because he was black. Hope was white. Now it's Monday, and managing partner Jack Parsons is being deluged with calls. Some charge that the organization is racist; others are outraged that a woman was made to feel unsafe. One thing is clear: this incident is just the tip of the iceberg. Jack is trying to calm people down, but he doesn't know what his next step should be. In R00502 and R00514, commentators Robin Ely, Vera Myers, John Borgia, and Jeanette Millard offer advice on this fictional case study.

Hope Barrows, a partner at the national accounting firm Fuller Fenton, drove to the office on Sunday and swiped her access card to enter the parking garage. She noticed that another car followed her in--without using an access card. Hope could see that the driver was a man, but she didn't recognize him. Concerned for her safety, she got out and asked to see his ID. Dillon Johnson, an associate at the same firm, was rushing to meet a colleague to review a client's file. He felt he was being unfairly questioned because he was black. Hope was white. Now it's Monday, and managing partner Jack Parsons is being deluged with calls. Some charge that the organization is racist; others are outraged that a woman was made to feel unsafe. One thing is clear: this incident is just the tip of the iceberg. Jack is trying to calm people down, but he doesn't know what his next step should be. In R00502 and R00514, commentators Robin Ely, Verna Myers, John Borgia, and Jeanette Millard offer advice on this fictional case study.

Diversity efforts in the workplace have been undertaken with great goodwill, but, ironically, they often end up fueling tensions. They rarely spur the leaps in organizational effectiveness that are possible. Two paradigms for diversity are responsible, but a new third paradigm is showing it can address the problem. Leaders in third-paradigm companies are proactive about learning from diversity; they encourage people to make explicit use of cultural experience at work; they fight all forms of dominance and subordination, including those generated by one functional group acting superior to another; and they ensure that the inevitable tensions that come from a genuine effort to make way for diversity are acknowledged and resolved with sensitivity.