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In 2010, RBC Financial Group (RBC), a banking and insurance company headquartered in Toronto, Canada, had implemented a new loan program. The program targeted clients who were seeking loans for the installation of electricity-generating solar panels on their property under a new government-sponsored green power program, the Micro Feed-In Tariff Program (microFIT). For RBC, the loan program was an excellent fit with the company’s strategy to support environmentally-focused initiatives. However, by October 2010, microFIT was encountering problems. Once the banking business unit at RBC had sold the loans to a client and the client had installed the solar panels, the insurance business unit at RBC was then cancelling the client’s insurance policies due to the increased risk posed by the installations. Customers were confused and upset. How should RBC handle this difficult situation? How could the company prevent similar problems with future program implementations?

Webasto Roof Systems, Americas, the North American subsidiary of Germany-based Webasto Group, limped into 2014 in poor financial and operational shape. The company's early optimism emerging from the financial downturn had proven naive, and now, five years later, the company was consistently losing money, and was battling severe operational challenges affecting quality and threatening customer relationships. Furthermore, senior leadership had completely turned over three times in the five year period. Now, the new--and young--leadership is attempting to navigate that crisis, and repair the organization, with an organization full of skittish and disengaged employees. Philipp Schramm, the new CFO, must figure out how to enact positive change with a team of unenthusiastic employees, and a near-toxic culture.

In 2012, eHealth Centers (eHCs) digitally delivered affordable medical care and diagnostic support for patients in villages and remote areas of India where it was otherwise unavailable. The solution was initially conceived and developed as a mandate from Hewlett Packard India’s corporate social responsibility team under the leadership of the chief technology officer. The eHCs design incorporated a self-contained diagnostic centre in a container, operated by a staff of paramedics. Doctors located in urban health hubs provided consulting care through video conferencing, and patients could experience the feeling of being in a doctor’s office in real-time. These eHCs slowly turned out to be a business opportunity for Hewlett Packard India. By early 2016, there were 55 centres in operation. The challenge before the company was to scale up exponentially.

In early 2015, the newly appointed country head of PharmaCorp’s operating unit in Ukraine faced internal and external challenges in managing the global pharmaceutical company’s operations in the crisis-ridden country. Since November 2013, Ukraine had undergone massive disruptions, including riots in Kiev, the annexation of Crimea by Russia, and a war in its easternmost region. Amid these economic and political turbulences, PharmaCorp Ukraine experienced plummeting sales, increased workload, amplified human resources issues, and decreased market share. Furthermore, the multinational corporation’s internal routines became less effective in the context of the crisis. Although the regional headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, offered guidance and resources, inefficiencies in responding to local issues emerged during the crisis. Should PharmaCorp exit the market? Or should it stay in Ukraine and revise its local marketing strategy by offering more innovative products? Should it implement cost-saving measures? Should the business model be revised to gain more autonomy for its operations? The country head was scheduled to meet with representatives from the regional headquarters and needed to prepare a comprehensive strategy for improving the local situation.

On January 18, 2016, the chief executive officer and chief technology officer of Geosoft Inc. (Geosoft) met in Toronto, Canada, with the company's executive team and regional directors for a critical three-day strategic planning session. Geosoft was a privately held, employee-owned, mid-sized global company that worked to help earth scientists and explorers make discoveries through innovative data solutions and services. The focus of the meeting-a new technology strategy to protect Geosoft from the impact of a global economic downturn affecting its primary markets-was pivotal to Geosoft's current and future growth. This new strategy, known within Geosoft as the digital intimacy strategy, would radically change the way the company communicated with its customers. Geosoft's customers were located in five major geographic regions: Latin America, Africa, Australia (including Asia), Europe, and North America. Rolling out the strategy demanded seamless communication of change to multiple stakeholders in vastly differing cultures across five continents. The new digital intimacy strategy was planned for rollout in September 2016 with implementation in 2017. For the new strategy to work, communication was crucial.

In November 2016, Arun Madhok, CEO of Suntec Singapore (Suntec), a premier convention and exhibition centre in Singapore, was looking at processes in which productivity could be improved. The global MICE industry was becoming increasingly competitive. Suntec's strategy was to capitalise on its good location while providing a premium venue and good service. Singapore's pro-business and safe environment were positive factors for MICE organisers, and Madhok partnered with the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) and other local industry participants to attract them to the island. Suntec had recently undergone a major renovation to integrate new technology into its building design. Madhok made use of the downtime to improve his food quality and presentation by sending his staff for training at top hotels. Operationally, many companies were affected by government regulations that introduced quotas for foreign workers. Madhok began a productivity push to review the company's processes, beginning with dishwashing. A designated dishwashing area would be leased out to a vendor, who could solicit business from F&B outlets throughout the Suntec Mall. It proved to be a success as Suntec's dishwashing costs decreased and new checks were introduced to ensure the cleanliness of the items. Madhok was now keen to seek other process innovations.

This year, chief marketing officers (CMOs) will spend more money on IT than chief information officers (CIOs). This rapid shift in responsibility is creating a growing divide between CIOs and CMOs over firms' IT investment decisions and actions, which is of increasing significance to firm performance. Understanding and managing this CIO-CMO divide is important in light of the magnitude of investment involved-global IT spending is estimated to exceed $4.1 trillion by 2018-and CEOs' belief that technology is a critical success factor for future firm performance. Heretofore, there has been little investigation regarding the unique relationship between the CMO and CIO. The research reported herein addresses this shortcoming by revealing the results of in-depth interviews with CMOs and CIOs across multiple industries. The results identify the nature and sources of conflict between the two roles as well as the management-related mechanisms to overcome them, revealing the need for CEOs to focus on managing four specific sources of CMO-CIO conflict: perspective, goals, accountability, and structural conflict. While the CEO has the power to create the management-related mechanisms that promote greater CMO-CIO alignment, we also detail steps that the functional leaders can take to put the mechanisms in place should the CEO fail to do so.

Organizations are challenged to develop leaders who can think strategically about the business and solve systemic problems. How can mid-level leaders develop this capability? Herein, we describe five strategic shifts in perspective that are essential for mid-level managers in transitioning successfully to strategic leadership positions. All five shifts improve mid-level leaders' ability to look beyond tactics to see wider opportunities and enable strategic impact. The shifts are iterative and build on each other. We offer a new model that guides managers in shaping strategic leaders using these five perspective shifts to impact the organization positively and substantially. Further, we provide specific techniques that mid-level managers can employ to shift their perspectives and build personal strategic capabilities. Finally, we share specific 'Try It' exercises that mid-level managers can engage in to learn about the proffered concepts.

Firms must excel at both exploration and exploitation to ensure long-term survival and prosperity. However, firms often have difficulties in doing so because they have to accommodate the contradictory logics of exploration and exploitation. This article examines the logics of exploration and exploitation, evaluates the difficulties of accommodating both logics, and identifies dynamic ambidexterity as a new way to overcome these difficulties. To achieve dynamic ambidexterity, firms need to support structural ambidexterity at the corporate level, contextual ambidexterity at the business-unit level, and sequential ambidexterity at the project level. I believe that the notion of dynamic ambidexterity and its managerial practices can help firms manage exploration and exploitation and ensure long-term survival and prosperity.

A major factor in the success of an organization is its culture. Organizational culture can significantly influence the performance and effectiveness of a company, the morale and productivity of its employees, and its ability to attract, motivate, and retain talented people. Unfortunately, many leaders are either unaware of the significant impact culture can have, are aware but overwhelmed by the extensive and sometimes conflicting information available on culture, or are not well informed about how to build and sustain cultures effectively. This article integrates the most consistent findings that leaders need to know about culture and what they can do to build strong, successful cultures that bring out the best in people. Developing organizational culture requires far more than talk about culture and emphasis on its importance. In order to achieve the best results, culture development requires leaders who see it as one of their key tasks and who understand the importance of aligning organization strategies and decision making with cultural ideals.

The advantages of speed are often invoked by academics and practitioners as an essential condition during post-acquisition integration, frequently without consideration of the impact earlier decisions have on acquisition speed. In this article, we examine the role speed plays in acquisitions across the acquisition process using research organized around characteristics that display complexity with respect to acquisition speed. We incorporate existing research with a process perspective of acquisitions in order to present trade-offs, and consider the influence of both stakeholders and the pre-deal-completion context on acquisition speed, as well as the organization's capabilities to facilitating that speed. Observed trade-offs suggest both that acquisition speed often requires longer planning time before an acquisition and that associated decisions require managerial judgement. A framework for improving manager decisions during acquisitions is discussed and its implications for managers and research summarized.

Dealmakers tend to neglect uncertainty when making acquisition decisions, rushing into deals that eventually fail to deliver the anticipated synergies. Cause for this uncertainty neglect can be found in behavioral biases that cloud executive decision making. Acquirers should more often use minority stakes as a toehold to test full acquisitions and to guard themselves against the negative effects of uncertainty. An extended valuation toolkit that requires more managerial attention to uncertainty and behavioral pitfalls can help executives to better identify and value the benefits of minority stake strategies as an alternative to controlling acquisitions in uncertain situations.

At the top of the ladder, the stakes are high and the demands intense. Too many CEOs falter in the job; about a quarter of the Fortune 500 chiefs who leave their firms each year are forced out. Clearly, boards do not always get their hires right. In conducting an analysis of in-depth assessments of 17,000 executives, the authors uncovered a large disconnect between what directors think makes for an ideal CEO and what actually leads to high performance. The findings of their 10-year research project challenge many widely held assumptions. Charisma, confidence, and pedigree all have little bearing on CEO success, it turns out. Instead, top performers demonstrate four specific business behaviors: (1) They're decisive, realizing they can't wait for perfect information and that a wrong decision is often better than no decision. (2) They engage for impact, working to understand the priorities of stakeholders and then aligning them around a goal of value creation. (3) They adapt proactively, keeping an eye on the long term and treating mistakes as learning opportunities. (4) They deliver results in a reliable fashion, steadily following through on commitments.

"Onboarding" is an apt term for the way many companies support new leaders' transitions, because not much more is involved than bringing the executive safely on deck. After that, he or she is expected to sort things out with little or no guidance. "Integration" suggests a more aspirational goal--doing what it takes to make the new person a fully functioning member of the team as quickly and smoothly as possible. That's not common practice, unfortunately. The authors' studies show that well-integrated executives can build momentum early on and reduce the average amount of time to full performance by a third, from six months to four. New leaders need the greatest integration support in five major tasks: assuming operational leadership; taking charge of the team; aligning with stakeholders; engaging with the culture; and defining strategic intent.

High potentials being groomed as future leaders would appear to have it made--but their seemingly good fortune can turn out to be a curse. As they strive to conform to company ideals for leadership, they often bury the qualities that made them special. They become reluctant to take risks, lest they prove themselves unworthy. This "talent curse" can hinder personal growth, performance, and engagement--and even push people out the door. If you are on a high-potential track, watch for three signs of trouble: (1) A shift from using your talent to constantly trying to prove it; (2) A preoccupation with your image, which feels increasingly inauthentic; and (3) The feeling that your present work is empty and only future opportunities will be meaningful. Then take these steps to break the talent curse: (1) Own your talent; don't let it own you. Balance others' expectations with your needs and learn to accept help. (2) Bring your whole self to work. Channel the darker sources of your talent. (3) Value the present. View your current work as a worthy destination, not merely a stepping-stone. The talent curse may be painful, but grappling with it is an important part of learning how to lead.

Many people with neurological conditions such as autism spectrum disorder and dyslexia have extraordinary skills, including in pattern recognition, memory, and mathematics. Yet they often struggle to fit the profiles sought by employers. A growing number of companies, including SAP, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Microsoft, have reformed their HR processes in order to access neurodiverse talent--and are seeing productivity gains, quality improvement, boosts in innovative capabilities, and increased employee engagement as a result. The programs vary but have seven major elements in common. Companies should: (1) Team with governments or nonprofits experienced in working with people with disabilities; (2) Use noninterview assessment processes; (3) Train other workers and managers in what to expect; (4) Set up a support system; (5) Tailor methods for managing careers; (6) Scale the program; (7) Mainstream the program. The work for managers will be harder, but the payoff to companies will be considerable: access to more of their employees' talents along with diverse perspectives that will help them compete.

Innovation is often seen as the engine of growth, but there is a dark side: Unmanaged innovation frequently leads to excessive business complexity--in supply chain, sales and marketing, product development, IT, and administrative processes--leading to higher expenses and difficulties for customers and employees. Every time customers are asked to enter the same data twice, have inconsistent experiences when interacting with different parts of the business, or are forced to contact multiple people to get something done, it hurts the company. Every time employees can't access important information or their decisions get derailed by silos, it hurts the company. Excess innovation can even destroy a business. The authors offer three guidelines to address this problem: (1) Focus on product integration rather than proliferation; (2) Make sure that product developers are in close touch with customer-facing employees; and (3) Define your purpose in a way that will guide decision making.