During his nearly 14 years at the helm of networking giant Cisco Systems, Chambers has developed an uncanny ability to sense market trends long before others do. He predicted, for instance, that voice transmission would become free long before computer networks could even carry it. And Cisco was one of the first to shift from call centers to web-based customer service. Seeing the future is essential for a company that must start developing a product some six years before it goes to market. How does Chambers do it? He looks for what he calls "market transitions" - subtle social, economic, or technological signs of an impending disruptive shift - which, he says, start turning up five to seven years before the market actually grasps their significance. The move to open-source software development was one that Chambers saw and Microsoft did not. Early on, Chambers learned to sense market transitions by listening closely to customers, connecting individual dots of behavior into patterns that indicated future trends. Later, he realized he needed to turn Cisco's management processes upside down to benefit from that foresight. In this interview, Chambers describes how he was able to surrender his role as a command-and-control CEO and institute a collaborative decision-making model that allows the company to respond speedily to emerging transitions. Managers throughout Cisco now form cross-functional teams, working together to identify and exploit new opportunities quickly. The model allows Cisco to simultaneously implement 22 major sales initiatives as effectively as most companies do one or two.

The Mahindra & Mahindra Group, one of India's best-known business houses, is trying to become bigger, more global, and more innovative-all at the same time. In India's post-economic-reforms gold rush, the group, whose 2007 sales were $6.6 billion, has invested in a slew of unrelated businesses, from aircraft manufacture to film production. The flagship tractor and SUV businesses are readying to make big bets in, respectively, the Chinese and U.S. markets. Anand G. Mahindra, the group's chief executive, warns that M&M will survive only by creating a culture of innovation. "Indian companies have almost caught up with the productivity frontier," he says. "What's going to distinguish us in the future is our ability to make products and services that capture the customer's imagination." He says that in emerging markets, businesses structured as groups of companies have an edge over rivals. "I believe that business families should behave like aggressive private equity companies. They must allocate capital, demand performance, create synergies, sustain value systems, and implement good governance practices, but they should let professional managers run the companies." That's why he won't mandate change, globalization, or innovation; he believes in giving the CEOs of the group's divisions tremendous autonomy. In this interview, conducted by two HBR editors, Harvard Business School graduate Mahindra discusses the advantages of creating a federation of companies rather than a conglomerate; the real role of the corporate center in today's world; and his personal formula for organizational transformation.

Few deal makers have been at it as long, and at such a high level, as Bruce Wasserstein, the chairman and CEO of the financial advisory and asset-management firm Lazard. In this edited interview, two HBR editors explore how he creates value as a manager, as a deal maker, and as a counselor to CEOs. Wasserstein, who has been a major figure in mergers and acquisitions for more than 30 years, talks about attracting and managing talent, building and sustaining a knowledge business, sizing up industries and companies, and crafting advice to help CEOs unlock value. At the heart of his approach is a singular ability to dissect a strategy's underlying premises in order to figure out whether a plan or deal "makes sense." Part of that determination involves understanding the broader context: Where is the industry going? What external factors will affect it? Such sensemaking informs every move Wasserstein makes, and it has paid off handsomely. In his career, he has helped broker more than a thousand deals, worth hundreds of billions of dollars. His intellect, creativity, and doggedness are what allow him to pick apart the most complex problems and devise novel solutions. In an age of specialization, he recognizes the importance of connecting the dots; he draws on the knowledge and skills of creative generalists as well as industry and regional specialists when setting up and executing deals. Wasserstein studied at Harvard University's business and law schools and at Cambridge University, helped lead First Boston's M&A practice, cofounded the investment-banking firm Wasserstein Perella Group, and then joined Lazard, which he famously took public in 2005 after disassembling a century and a half of family ownership. He is the 2007 recipient of Harvard Law School's Great Negotiator Award.

Ed Zore is the CEO of Northwestern Mutual, a highly admired 150-year-old insurer. Relevance, not innovation, matters most to customers, he says, and should matter most to companies as well.

Since its founding, in 1995, Amazon.com's bold moves have often left observers scratching their heads, if not predicting the company's demise. Why open up an effective proprietary retail platform to competition from third-party sellers? Why make tools that Amazon developed for its own use available to other website developers? (Why, for that matter, post negative reviews of your products?) Two HBR editors interviewed Bezos, the founder and CEO, to learn what's different about strategy formulation at Amazon. They came away with the sense that the company's strategy and culture are rooted in a sturdy entrepreneurial optimism and rest on the single question of what's better for the customer. Bezos describes himself as "congenitally customer focused." He knows that the buyers in Amazon's consumer-facing business want selection, low prices, and fast delivery--and he's confident that won't change. "I can't imagine," he says, "that 10 years from now [our customers] are going to say, 'I love Amazon, but if only they could deliver my products a little more slowly.'" Competitor-focused companies risk complacency when they become industry leaders, he maintains, but customer-focused companies must always keep improving. "Years from now," Bezos says, "when people look back at Amazon, I want them to say that we uplifted customer-centricity across the entire business world." If Amazon has made strategic mistakes, he says, they have been errors of omission. So when something seems like an opportunity, Bezos asks the question, "Why not?" which leads to maximizing the number of experiments companywide: "People say, 'We're going to do this. We're going to figure out a way.'" That's the institutional yes.

Last December the Toyota Motor Corporation officially forecast that it would sell 9.34 million cars in 2007--which could make it the world's largest automaker. However, rapid growth and globalization have created many pressures for the company, and the strain of success is already beginning to show. Two HBR editors interviewed Toyota's president, Katsuaki Watanabe, and several top executives to learn about the strategies they're developing to cope in the future. For well over a decade, J.D. Power and other research firms have consistently rated Toyotas among the top automobiles for quality, reliability, and durability. But in 2006 a series of problems with its cars threatened to sully the company's reputation. What's more, speedy expansion to meet demand and the struggle to keep pace with technological change have combined to challenge Toyota's grand ambitions and its famed "Toyota Way." For Watanabe, being number one means "being the best in the world in terms of quality." If Toyota's quality continues to improve, he says, volume and revenues will follow. If problems arise from overstretching, he wants them made visible, because then his people will "rack their brains" to solve them--and if that means postponing growth, so be it. Toyota's long-term strategy involves developing both global and regional car models in order to compete worldwide with a full line of products. Watanabe aims to achieve his goals through a combination of kaizen ("continuous improvement") and kakushin ("radical innovation"). One of his visions for the future is a "dream car": a vehicle that cleans the air, prevents accidents, promotes health, evokes excitement, and can drive around the world on a single tank of gas.

Most CEOs who specialize in turning around struggling companies focus on costs. But for Fred Hassan, chairman and CEO of Schering-Plough, the primary focus in a turnaround is the top line. Since 2003, when Hassan took the helm at the global pharmaceutical company, he has overseen a remarkable recovery in performance. And consistent with his philosophy, the turnaround started with sales. Considering sales reps as less than crucial to strategy, Hassan cautions, is a big mistake. At Schering-Plough, he has concentrated on motivating and organizing salespeople to create trusting relationships with doctors. "You have to differentiate the salesperson in the customer's mind--just like you differentiate brands," he explains. A doctor may see 60 pharmaceutical reps on a regular basis but actually trust far fewer. To earn a spot in this inner circle, Schering-Plough reps try to turn each customer encounter into an occasion to help doctors provide better care for their patients. Schering-Plough also restructured its sales forces so that reps carry not just one kind of product, as they do in most pharmaceutical companies, but several. Covering a broad range of treatments gives reps more ways to build value-adding relationships with doctors. In this interview, Hassan discusses his success at Schering-Plough and his experiences at other pharmaceutical companies. During his career, he has built a reputation for being in tune with the front lines, as well as for reaching out to the managers who supervise salespeople. He has found that this level of personal attention not only makes reps feel respected, but also gives him valuable strategic insights.

Under Jack Welch's leadership, General Electric's managers applied their imaginations relentlessly to the task of making work more efficient. Jeffrey Immelt succeeded Welch as CEO on September 7, 2001, just in time to see the world change. Corporate scandals and terrorist attacks shook the global economy. In this fundamentally altered context, Immelt knew that GE could not simply cling to its status quo. Harvard Business Review offers the first deep look under the hood of Immelt's GE. In a conversation with editor Tom Stewart, Immelt was quick to point out that he is not leading a revolution; productivity is still important. But the new focus is on achieving organic revenue growth--and plenty of it. Immelt has set the audacious goal of increasing annual revenues from GE's existing businesses at two to three times the rate of global GDP growth. Hitting that target will depend on deep cultural change and, in Immelt's words, "making it personal" for every one of his managers. He's not afraid to pull the necessary levers. He has overseen changes to the company's famed talent management process (now, the highest potential executives are the ones who exhibit "growth leadership traits"); established new performance metrics; invested in new marketing capabilities and R&D resources; and created new mechanisms to flag promising ideas. Immelt expects positive results from each of these moves, but the real payoff comes from combining them in a process design he calls "Execute for Growth." It's vital, he believes, to cast growth as a process because that allows him to tap into a traditional strength of the organization--its process orientation--and put it in the service of the new goal. Meanwhile, investors are reassured to the extent that GE's recent stellar organic growth seems like the reliable and repeatable output of a well-designed process.

We highlight 20 ideas just bubbling up to the surface in 2006. Howard Gardner contends that the ability to synthesize information will be the most valued trait for leaders. Dan Williams explores how body area networks can lower health care costs and improve safety. William McDonough describes China as a seedbed for environmental innovation. Nitin Nohria and Thomas A. Stewart say the next frontier for business will be managing incalculable uncertainty. Jeff Cares outlines the challenge confronting business as networks face off against networks. Claire Craig reports how scientists are going beyond the lab and using the world outside as their petri dish. Ted Halstead recommends that every newborn in America receive $6,000 as a down payment on a productive life. Georg von Krogh warns that customer-collaborators are starting to demand a stake in IP. Ged Davis envisions an OPEC-like organization to benefit consumers instead of producers. Nancy M. Dixon describes a model for peer-to-peer leadership development. Harris Allen and Sean Sullivan contend that investment in employees' health can pay for itself. David Weinberger says that stores should imitate Web design. Gerd Gigerenzer shows how a leader's personal rules of thumb influence employees. Zachary Karabell discusses the growing gap between nations' and companies' economic performance. Paul Hemp tells why avatars make good customers. Philip Parker explains why creating private labels for your retail customers is smart strategy. Judith Samuelson and Claire Preisser describe how companies are combating short-term thinking. George Stalk Jr. explains why many firms aren't benefiting from China sourcing. Michael S. Gazzaniga punctures inflated expectations about what neuroscience can do for business. E.L. Kersten says employees shouldn't expect their jobs to provide meaning. HBR also offers a list of important business books due out in 2006.

The success of Dell--it provides extraordinary rewards to shareholders, it can turn on a dime, and it has demonstrated impeccable timing in entering new markets--is based on more than its famous business model. High expectations and disciplined, consistent execution are embedded in the company's DNA. "We don't tolerate businesses that don't make money," founder Michael Dell tells HBR. "We used to hear all sorts of excuses for why a business didn't make money, but to us they all sounded like 'The dog ate my homework.' We just don't accept that." To double its revenues in a five-year period, the company had to adapt its execution-obsessed culture to new demands. In fact, Michael Dell and CEO Kevin Rollins realized they had a crisis on their hands. "We had a very visible group of employees who'd gotten rich from stock options," Rollins says. "You can't build a great company on employees who say, 'If you pay me enough, I'll stay.'" Dell and Rollins knew they had to reignite the spirit of the company. They implemented an employee survey, whose results led to the creation of the Winning Culture initiative, now a top operating priority at Dell. They also defined the Soul of Dell: Focus on the customer, be open and direct in communications, be a good global citizen, have fun in winning. It turned out to be a huge motivator. And they increased the focus on developing people within the company. "We've changed as individuals and as an organization," Rollins says. "We want the world to see not just a great financial record and operational performance but a great company. We want to have leaders that other companies covet. We want a culture that makes people stick around for reasons other than money."

The List is HBR's annual attempt to capture ideas in the state of becoming--when they're teetering between what one person suspects and what everyone accepts. Roderick M. Kramer says it isn't bad when leaders flip-flop. Julia Kirby describes new efforts to redefine the problem of organizational performance. Joseph L. Bower praises the "Velcro organization," where managerial responsibilities can be rearranged. Jeffrey F. Rayport argues that companies must refocus innovation on the "demand side." Eric Bonabeau describes a future in which computer-generated sound can be used to transmit vast amounts of data. Roger L. Martin says highly reliable corporate systems such as CRM tend to have little validity. Kirthi Kalyanam and Monte Zweben report that marketers are learning to contact customers at just the right moment. Robert C. Merton explains how equity swaps could help developing countries avoid some of the risk of boom and bust. Thomas A. Stewart says companies need champions of the status quo. Mohanbir Sawhney suggests marketing strategies for the blogosphere. Denise Caruso shows how to deal with risks that lack owners. Thomas H. Davenport says personal information management--how well we use our PDAs and PCs--is the next productivity frontier. Leigh Buchanan explores workplace taboos. Henry W. Chesbrough argues that the time is ripe for services science to become an academic field. Kenneth Lieberthal says China may change everyone's approach to intellectual property. Jochen Wirtz and Loizos Heracleous describe customer service apps for biometrics. Mary Catherine Bateson envisions a midlife sabbatical for workers. Jeffrey Rosen explains why one privacy policy won't fit everyone. Tihamer von Ghyczy and Janis Antonovics say firms should embrace parasites. And Jeffrey Pfeffer warns business-book buyers to beware. Additionally, HBR offers a list of intriguing business titles due out in 2005.

In his 12 years at the helm of Siemens, CEO Heinrich von Pierer designed and directed a major transformation. Taking this German icon from a technically superb but slow-moving industrial giant to a disciplined yet nimble multinational has posed enormous challenges. Since 1992, Siemens has revamped its portfolio of businesses, expanded its reach into 192 countries, and created a more local-market-driven culture, gaining recognition as one of the best-managed and most competitive companies in the world. In this edited interview with HBR editor Thomas A. Stewart and consulting editor Louise O'Brien, von Pierer describes the requirements for transformation and culture change and how he broke down historical barriers at Siemens. He shares his insights about portfolio restructuring, his lessons from competing with GE, and the pros and cons of being based in Europe vs. America. He reflects on the true start of globalization after the fall of the Berlin wall and on how dramatically the company needed to change to counter the resulting pricing pressures across all of its businesses. He talks, too, about the biggest challenge on his successor's desk--"the particular challenge of China," he says. Amid all these topics, von Pierer reiterates the importance of people: "We all talk about people as our most important resource, but as a matter of fact, who's really taking care of people?...We need [their] backing. We can't afford to run into a situation where people no longer accept what we do."

Lou Gerstner's was a hard act to follow. As CEO in what were arguably IBM's darkest hours, Gerstner brought the company back from the brink. After nearly 10 wrenching years, in which the big-machine manufacturer remade itself into a comprehensive software, hardware, and services provider, business was looking good. So the challenge for Sam Palmisano, when he took over as CEO in 2002, was to come up with a mandate for a second act in the company's transformation. His primary aim was to get different parts of the company working together so IBM could offer customers "integrated solutions"--hardware, software, services, and financing--at a single price. As part of this effort, he asked all of IBM's 320,000 employees, in 170 countries, to weigh in on a new set of shared corporate values. Over a 72-hour period, thousands of IBMers throughout the world gave Palmisano and his executive team an earful in an intranet discussion dubbed "ValuesJam," an often-heated debate about the company's heart and soul. Twenty-four hours into the exercise, at least one senior exec wanted to pull the plug. The jam had clearly struck a chord with employees, but it was a dissonant one, full of rancor and discontent. Palmisano let the discussion continue, and the next day, the mood began to shift. The criticism became more constructive. Out of the million words generated by the jam grew a set of values that, as Palmisano explains in this interview, are meant to guide the operational decisions made by IBM's employees--and, more important, to serve as Palmisano's mandate to continue the reinvention of the company.

HBR's editors searched for the best new ideas related to the practice of management and came up with a collection that is as diverse as it is provocative. The 2004 HBR List includes emergent concepts from biology, network science, management theory, and more. A few highlights: Richard Florida wonders why U.S. society doesn't seem to be thinking about the flow of people as the key to America's advantage in the "creative age." Diane L. Coutu describes how the revolution in neurosciences will have a major impact on business. Clayton M. Christensen explains the law of conservation of attractive profits: When attractive profits disappear at one stage in the value chain because a product becomes commoditized, the opportunity to earn attractive profits with proprietary products usually emerges at an adjacent stage. Daniel H. Pink explains why the master of fine arts is the new MBA. Herminia Ibarra describes how companies can get the most out of managers returning from leadership-development programs. Iqbal Quadir suggests a radical fix for the third world's trade problems: Get the World Bank to lend to rich countries so that there are resources for retraining workers in dying industries.

Businesspeople tend to be extroverts, taking a lively interest in others and preferring action to introspection. But to be fully effective as leaders, they must learn to navigate the twists and turns of their emotions and those of the people around them.