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By November 2016, Trian Partners had built up a sizable stake in General Electric Company shares and became the company’s eighth-largest shareholder. General Electric Company’s total shareholder return had outperformed the market by 9 per cent since June 2015, when Trian Partners initially invested in the company. However, it was important to consider whether the factors that had led to this performance could be sustained, and a comparison of General Electric Company’s performance over the last 10 years under the current chief executive officer with that under his predecessor could offer some useful perspective. General Electric Company’s share price had reached its all-time high under Jack Welch, solidifying his reputation as the “Manager of the Century.” However, there were several important questions to consider: What factors contributed to the success of General Electric Company historically? How might those same factors influence the company’s future prospects? And how might an analysis of these factors shape an agenda with the board?

In March 2020, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, the president of French soccer club Paris Saint-Germain ('PSG') sees his team clinch a spot among the last eight clubs to compete in the UEFA Champions League. Established in 1970 and initially a club with only moderate success, PSG's fortunes changed when Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) acquired the club in 2011. QSI overhauled the roster of players-by, among other measures, buying Kylian Mbappé and, in a record €222-million transfer that shook the soccer world, Neymar-and professionalized the club's management, renovated the stadium, developed a new training ground, redefined the PSG brand, and pursued a series of high-profile collaborations. The investment seems to have paid off, on and off the field: since the acquisition, PSG has amassed six French league titles and has risen to fifth place in the ranking of Europe's highest-grossing soccer clubs. But the biggest prize the club's owners are eyeing, the Champions League, has so far eluded PSG. Does the club have the right strategy to break the hegemony of Europe's long-standing soccer powerhouses? And are Al-Khelaifi and his team of executives on the right path toward their goal of establishing PSG as one of the world's top three sports brands?

Steve Kerr, coach of the 3-time NBA champion Golden State Warriors, reflects on his values-driven leadership style in the wake of a challenging season.

This case describes the business career of Calouste Gulbenkian, a skilled intermediary who was able to secure 5 per cent of a vast oil concession covering much of the Middle East that was signed in 1928. Gulbenkian was an ethnic Armenian born in the Ottoman Empire, which was a large multi-ethnic empire covering large swathes of the Middle East and eastern Europe. Gulbenkian's career is set against the steady erosion of the Empire's sovereignty by Western powers, and mounting ethnic tensions. These trends reached their climax in the modernizing Young Turk Revolution of 1908, the Ottoman entry to World War 1 on the side of Germany, the massacres of millions of Armenians and other ethnic groups, and the creation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. Against this background, Gulbenkian distanced himself from the family merchant business, became a financier in London, and formed a close relationship with Henri Deterding, the leader of the power Royal Dutch Shell oil group. After the Young Turk Revolution, he also worked for the new government, forming a company to exploit the oil resources of the Empire with him and Royal Dutch Shell among the shareholders, and securing a vast oil concession. These arrangements were disrupted by the war, the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, and the entry into the region of the United States government and oil companies. However, Gulbenkian survived numerous attempts to dislodge him and his shareholding was confirmed in the Red Line Agreement of 1928. The case provides an opportunity to explore the role of intermediaries in global business and more specifically, to show how the control of Middle Eastern oil ended up for a half a century in the hands of a small number of oligopolistic Western oil companies with no ownership by local stakeholders.

The case opens with Alain Bejjani, CEO of Majid Al Futtaim (MAF) Holding, anticipating on the Group's next phase in the multi-year transformation journey and reflecting on the initiatives he implemented to create the Group's growth-oriented culture. Founded in 1995, MAF Group was a regional conglomerate, operating shopping malls, and retail and leisure establishments across 12 businesses in 15 markets in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The case describes the series of structural changes that Bejjani undertook since he became the CEO in 2015, how he transitioned the Holding company from a passive investor to a strategic architect model, and assumed ownership of the brand, culture, and talent across the entire organization for all its operating companies: MAF Properties, MAF Retail, and MAF Ventures. The case discusses the steps that the Group undertook-creation of the Leadership Institute, a new performance management system, investments in digital technology and analytics capabilities, and the launch of the School of Great Moments to instill a focus on customer experience. By November 2019, Bejjani recognized that the organization had evolved considerably in the past five years. He wondered about the next steps in scaling and ability to execute strategy. How much more could he push the organization to continue to change?

India's Economic Survey 2016-17 proposed a gradual implementation of the concept of universal basic income (UBI) as the fastest way of providing a long-term solution to poverty. Large-scale inequality and poverty, along with huge misallocation and wastages in the existing welfare schemes, made India a perfect ground for experimenting with UBI. Though the rapid expansion of Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile infrastructure was expected to smoothen the execution of UBI in India, there were looming concerns about implementation of the program, fiscal feasibility, and the questionable effectiveness of UBI's impact on poverty alleviation.

In December 2019, a member of a fantasy hockey league had to decide whether to trade away his top talent in exchange for draft picks in the following year's fantasy draft or to continue to compete for a position in the playoffs. If he traded his top players, he would forfeit his chances at competing for a championship; however, this move might put his team in a better position for the following year's fantasy hockey season. He had access to the league's historical data to help determine the likelihood of his team making the playoffs. He wanted to conduct an analysis to make an informed decision grounded by numbers.

Student spreadsheet to case W20558

King's had begun the financial year (April 1, 2017) forecasting a loss of £40 million. By December 2017, losses were projected to be over £90 million. In response to the crisis, in November 2017, the CEO of King's had removed the CFO and COO. Then, on December 10, 2017, the chairman of King's, Lord Kerslake, announced his resignation, signaling that the group would soon be put into administration. Writing in The Guardian, he warned of the deeper structural problems facing the NHS: My two and a half years at King's have been in equal part inspiring and frustrating. There are undoubtedly things that I and the Trust could have done better - there always are - but fundamentally our problems lie in the way the NHS is funded and organized. We desperately need a fundamental rethink. Until then we are simply 'kicking the can down the road.' Shortly after Lord Kerslake's resignation, NHSI announced that they would appoint Ian Smith (HBS MBA, 1987) as the interim chair. The next day, as Smith arrived at King's, there were extensive protests outside the main entrance over government underfunding of the health service in general and the departure of the chairman in particular. Smith entered via a back door to avoid the Union picket line in front. There he met the group's 28 clinical directors. The mood was angry. They briefed him on years of funding cuts in the face of poor operational performance, a highly congested emergency department, and long waiting lists for elective surgeries. Smith faced some immediate challenges. The chief executive was still in place; was he part of the problem or part of the solution? How could Smith engage with the clinicians and managers to launch a rapid turnaround? Would the regulator prove a help or a hindrance in the process? What would a "100 day" plan look like?

The two co-founders of PharmEasy, an online medical store and pharmacy website launched in 2015, faced a new challenge in December 2018. Recent judgments by the Madras and Delhi High Courts had suspended the operations of India’s more than 250 online pharmacies until new industry regulations could be drafted. Only a few months earlier, in August 2018, the Indian government had released proposed draft regulations for the online sale of medicine. However, an organization representing more than 850,000 pharmacists in India had staged a one-day strike to protest the government’s proposal. Should PharmEasy take a cautious approach with its ambitious expansion plans until the government introduces regulations? Or would its competitors seize the opportunity to move forward aggressively to gain market share? The co-founders recognized that the regulatory uncertainty was creating confusion. They needed to decide on their next steps quickly—and communicate their intentions to all stakeholders.

On January 13, 2019, the Gillette Company aired the advertisement "We Believe: The Best Men Can Be." After the airing, both the company and its chief executive officer were subjected to backlash. The advertisement, launched amid the Gillette brand's declining market share, addressed the #MeToo movement, sexism in the boardroom, and bullying, and asked viewers, "Is this the best a man can get?" Although the advertisement was intended to challenge men to end toxic masculinity and abuse, it became both the most liked and the most disliked advertisement in YouTube's history. Six months after the airing, The Procter & Gamble Company, reported a US$8.3 million writedown in its Shave Care business, represented by the Gillette brand, leading some observers to wonder whether the polarizing reactions to the advertisement had led to the writedown. What was The Gillette Company's fiduciary responsibility in the era of the #MeTooMovement? Should its chief executive officer and visionary of the controversial advertisement be fired? Should he be promoted for confronting such a serious societal issue? Or should no change be made in the corporate structure?

Nashwork was founded in July 2013 in Beijing and developed into the largest co-working space company in China by focusing on rapid expansion and internal growth. Nashwork received A-round financing, which was followed by B-round financing one year later, before a series of problems surfaced in the basic operations of the company. By 2017, after three rough years building its customer base and occupancy, the main problem facing Nashwork was its dated and incompatible internal operations system. The company had to resolve issues with the company’s organizational structure, staff, and skill sets to support the company’s strategic transformation.

In May 2017, the recently appointed chief executive officer of Sobeys, the second-largest grocer in Canada, was considering the company’s financial difficulties. He was tasked with saving Sobeys from near insolvency and planning strategically for the company’s core grocery business. Sobeys had posted a loss of CA$2.1 billion for the fiscal year ending May 2016, compared to a profit of $419 million just a year earlier, partially due to a high-profile acquisition that had gone sour. In addition, a ratings agency had downgraded Sobeys’s debt to junk level, citing underperformance and lost market share as the reasons. The new chief executive officer devised an interim three-year growth plan called Project Sunrise, which had two main objectives: quickly relieve Sobeys of its troubled financial situation, and prepare for the long-term industry disruption that was becoming prevalent, both locally and globally.

In August 2018, the founder and chief executive officer of JD.com, one of China’s largest e-commerce sites, was accused of sexual assault and was arrested. He denied wrongdoing and was released less than a day later. One week after his return to China, JD.com’s share value hit a 19-month low. In November 2018, the company announced that its customer base had shrunk for the first time since 2014. The impact from the investigation into the alleged assault was unclear. However, the incident took place against the backdrop of the Me Too movement, a time when both traditional and social media were used to publicly launch accusations of sexual harassment and abuse, often against powerful celebrities. The sexual assault accusation complicated the almost singular level of power the founder had over his organization. According to JD.com’s corporate bylaws, no board meetings could take place without his presence. What options did the company have to regain market confidence? What strategies could JD.com adopt to minimize impact from the incident? With the founder at the centre of an international scandal, who was responsible to oversee crisis management at JD.com?

Slack was launched in 2014, went public in 2019, and is now a global operation with more than 2,000 employees and 100,000-plus customers. But it hasn't lost its start-up mentality. And never did it move with more speed and clarity of focus than in March 2020, when the Covid-19 crisis brought on two challenges: dramatically increasing customer demand and an extremely abrupt transition to working remotely.The company's customer success and experience teams delivered nearly round-the-clock support free, both to existing customers and to newcomers who needed help getting set up with the product. Interviews with job candidates and the employee onboarding process were moved online. Marketing developed a public service ad for television, committing to help any groups that were working on a Covid-19 response. Slack's engineers ensured that its systems were operational 99.9% of the time in a period of soaring demand. Customers with 1,000 or 10,000 Slack users suddenly wanted to expand to 50,000. New customers wanted comprehensive proposals immediately. Organizations of all kinds had to transform the way they worked, all at once. This crisis, Butterfield writes, "has created an opportunity for us and others to become more agile, to take on changes that once seemed daunting, to reimagine organizational culture...and to reposition for future growth."

Leaders often view power as a purely personal quality, derived from their formal roles and titles, accreditations, skills, and experience; from the information they control and the reputation they've built; and from their charisma, resilience, and energy. But as most discover, effectively wielding power is rarely straightforward. Simply exercising control over others--the traditional concept of power--is often not the best strategy; it may not even be an option. Indeed, the most potent uses of power often involve no direct influence tactics at all. The authors have developed an approach to power that goes beyond exerting control and mobilizes others' energy and commitment. It focuses on three core dimensions: Situational power rests on the ability to align objectives, the environment, and bases of power. Relational power is about connections and coalitions: They can be a major source of support, advice, information, and resources--but if neglected or ignored, they can loom as potential points of resistance. Dynamic power involves continually adapting influence strategies to changes in organizational and social systems. The degree to which leaders draw on all three dimensions of power determines how effectively they get things done.

The view of manual employees as mindless machines dates back to the Industrial Revolution, when most workers were poorly educated, and was entrenched by Frederick Taylor, whose bureaucratic model institutionalized a caste system of thinkers and doers that still persists. Which is unfortunate, because that model allows a vast reservoir of human ingenuity to go untapped. As a result, firm performance suffers. But there is a path out of this trap, as the French tire manufacturer Michelin has found. Since 2012, under the banner of "responsabilisation" (French for empowerment), the company has dramatically increased the authority and accountability of workers on the front lines. The firm kick-started this change through a bottom-up process involving targeted experiments in a handful of plants and slowly scaled up successful approaches. The outcome: A workforce that's deeply knowledgeable and relentlessly inventive, and that had delivered half a billion dollars in manufacturing improvements by 2020.

Humor is widely considered essential in personal relationships, but in leaders, it's seen as an ancillary behavior. Though some leaders use humor instinctively, many more could wield it purposefully. Humor helps build interpersonal trust and high-quality work relationships and influences behaviors and attitudes that matter to leadership effectiveness, including employee performance, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and creativity. These benefits don't come without potential costs. The guidelines in this article suggest ways to capture the benefits of humor while avoiding the downside risks.

Although the Covid-19 crisis has halted travel in recent months, geographic mobility has become critical for managers and knowledge workers hoping to advance in today's globalized economy, and that trend is unlikely to reverse. Assignments far from headquarters can pay off financially and can boost your career by improving your problem-solving and leadership skills and building your networks. Yet they also have constraints and costs. Anyone contemplating such a move should think through its full implications first. Research on people in a variety of organizations around the world--from Indian bureaucrats to American consultants--suggests some common principles for getting the most out of relocations: Make moves early in your career, when hurdles are usually lower and you can apply the learning over many more years of work. Step out of your comfort zone to stretch your abilities. Find workarounds for constraints. To minimize the psychological costs, find ways to stay connected to home. Time your trips to HQ strategically, and plan the next step right from the start.