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Ten years ago, two INSEAD professors broke ground by introducing "blue ocean strategy," a new model for discovering uncontested markets that are ripe for growth. In this article, they apply their concepts and tools to what is perhaps the greatest challenge of leadership: closing the gulf between the potential and the realized talent and energy of employees. Research indicates that this gulf is vast: According to Gallup, 70% of workers are disengaged from their jobs. If companies could find a way to convert them into engaged employees, the results could be transformative. The trouble is, managers lack a clear understanding of what changes they could make to bring out the best in everyone. Here, Kim and Mauborgne offer a solution to that problem: a systematic approach to uncovering, at each level of the organization, which leadership acts and activities will inspire employees to give their all, and a process for getting managers throughout the company to start doing them. Blue ocean leadership works because the managers' "customers"--that is, the people managers oversee and report to--are involved in identifying what's effective and what isn't. Moreover, the approach doesn't require leaders to alter who they are, just to undertake a different set of tasks. And that kind of change is much easier to implement and track than changes to values and mind-sets.

Over the past five years, there's been an explosion of interest in purpose-driven leadership. Academics, business experts, and even doctors make the case that purpose is a key to exceptional leadership and the pathway to greater well-being. Despite this growing understanding, however, a big challenge remains. Few leaders have a strong sense of their own individual purpose, the authors' research and experience show, and even fewer can distill their purpose into a concrete statement or have a clear plan for translating purpose into action. As a result, they limit their aspirations and often fail to achieve their most ambitious professional and personal goals. In this article, the authors present a step-by-step framework that leaders can use to identify their purpose and develop an impact plan to achieve concrete results. Effective purpose-to-impact plans use language that is uniquely meaningful to the individual, rather than business jargon. They focus on future, big-picture aspirations and work backward with increasing specificity. And they emphasize the individual's strengths and encourage a holistic view on work and family.

As we increasingly work with colleagues and clients who come from all parts of the world, it is vital to understand how cultural differences affect business. Yet too often we rely on cliches and stereotypes that lead us to false assumptions. To help managers negotiate the complexity of an international work team, INSEAD professor Erin Meyer has developed a tool called the Culture Map, which plots the positions of numerous nationalities along eight behavior scales: Communicating, Evaluating, Persuading, Leading, Deciding, Trusting, Disagreeing, and Scheduling. Meyer suggests that comparing the relative positions of different nationalities along these scales can help us decode how culture influences workplace dynamics. She adds four important rules: (1) Don't underestimate the challenge. Management and work styles stem from lifelong habits that can be hard to change. (2) Apply multiple perspectives. Be aware of your own expectations and behaviors, but also consider how members of other cultures perceive you and fellow teammates. (3) Find the positive in other approaches. The differences that people of varied backgrounds bring to a work group can be great assets. (4) Continually adjust your position. Be prepared to keep adapting your behavior to meld with the styles of your colleagues.

The eminent restaurateur, who has won 19 Michelin stars, talks about how he supervises his chefs and develops his staff.

Becoming a great leader demands tremendous self-awareness. You should learn from 360-degree evaluations and find a mentor to guide you.

Where did the user icons on our phones and computers come from?

The founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Schuhren Consumer Packaging (Schuhren), a manufacturer of plastic food packaging based in Windsor, Ontario, is getting ready to meet a group of buyers from one of the top six fruit packaging firms in the world. An hour before their arrival, the CEO uncovers a whole series of issues concerning quality assurance, waste production and machine operations that could have an impact on the company’s operations, financial position and business development efforts.

In 2012, Sanofi Pasteur was racing to develop a vaccine against dengue, a mosquito-borne disease, and was evaluating this product in a Phase IIb trial conducted with school children in Thailand. But while the candidate vaccine met the high safety expectations and a good balanced immune answer, it had a proof of efficacy of only 30%, far below the 70% mark the company had targeted. Guillaume Leroy, vice president of the Dengue Company at Sanofi Pasteur, reflected on the Phase IIb trial's surprising outcome and the way forward. He had to decide whether to go ahead with the vaccine trials and production, and if so, needed to develop a strategic plan on how to price and deliver the vaccine for a rapid roll-out.

The case study shows the development of Chinese technology company ZPMC, which entered the container crane market in 1992 and, in the space of 15 years, achieved a global market share of over 70 percent. The case gives particular insights into the strategic decisions that led to ZPMC's competitors being pushed aside in a market previously dominated by Western providers. It also clearly illustrates the risks and limitations facing companies that are strongly focused on growth.

INGLOT is among the few Polish companies to have succeeded in 'going global'. It is recognized in the professional cosmetics industry for its pioneering innovation and appreciated by customers for its wide range of reasonably priced high-quality products. As INGLOT plans to aggressively expand, the executive team faces several key challenges.

Spreadsheet supplement for case INS523.

SodaStream International Limited is an Israel-based company that pioneered the home carbonation market. It sells soda makers that enable the consumer to prepare at home sparkling water or a variety of flavoured carbonated beverages. After its initial public offering in 2010, its chief executive officer sought to aggressively grow the company and set a $1 billion revenue target (from 2012 revenues of $436.32 million) by principally focusing on the U.S. market, the largest in the world for non-carbonated beverages. In addition to going up against global beverage behemoths, Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo — whose advertising budgets alone are five to eight times SodaStream’s revenues — SodaStream faces new competitors in Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and Primo Water Corporation, who pose a direct challenge to its ambitious goal.

SodaStream International Limited is an Israel-based company that pioneered the home carbonation market. It sells soda makers that enable the consumer to prepare at home sparkling water or a variety of flavoured carbonated beverages. After its initial public offering in 2010, its chief executive officer sought to aggressively grow the company and set a $1 billion revenue target (from 2012 revenues of $436.32 million) by principally focusing on the U.S. market, the largest in the world for non-carbonated beverages. In addition to going up against global beverage behemoths, Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo - whose advertising budgets alone are five to eight times SodaStream's revenues - SodaStream faces new competitors in Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and Primo Water Corporation, who pose a direct challenge to its ambitious goal.

Canadian Pacific (CP), a North American railway company, had recently come under attack from an activist shareholder, Pershing Square Capital Management (Pershing). Pershing had accumulated a 14 per cent shareholding in CP and had recently announced its intention to replace the CP board of directors and its chief executive officer. The case reviews the history of CP, its recent performance relative to Canadian National, and the basis for Pershing's allegations that CP had lagged its competitor in terms of performance and that this was attributable to poor governance and management. The board of CP must decide whether to make concessions to Pershing or risk an all-out proxy battle which it may well lose.

This case follows CEO Andy Dunn as he struggles to build a technical team that will enable Bonobos, an ecommerce and menswear company, to scale. The case also outlines the path that leads Dunn to the CEO post. Three vignettes compose the main body of the case. The first vignette deals with Dunn's struggles in getting Bonobos' engineering team to put forth greater effort. With the company falling behind its technical milestones, Dunn finds that he and vice president of technology Greene disagree on how to proceed. The second vignette presents a difficult situation where Dunn has decided to shut down Bonobos' Silicon Valley technology office in order to focus on its New York-based core menswear business. However, board members urge Dunn to give the Silicon Valley office a longer runway and they also warn that closing the West Coast office could result in a breakdown on the online platform. The third vignette begins as Dunn has extended an offer to Anil Kapur to join Bonobos as vice president of technology. Dunn learns that lead architect Jonathan Long, who initially disagreed with Dunn on Kapur's qualifications, has declared to the company's other engineers that he does not support the hiring of Kapur.

This case examines the relationship between the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and its member institutions, with a primary focus on how power evolves and is administered at an organizational level. Through a close look at the history of the NCAA, the case highlights the unique tale of the organization’s rise to power and its ability to regulate all collegiate athletics within the United States. In light of the increasing commercialization of collegiate athletics, the perceived cartel-like nature of the NCAA has brought into question the mission and core values of the non-profit organization and whether the NCAA truly has the best interests of its member institutions in mind. Facing antitrust lawsuits, scandals, the looming threat of the formation of super-conferences and a myriad of other issues, the NCAA must choose its path forward very carefully.

VisionSpring follows social entrepreneur Jordan Kassalow from his early career in public health through the founding of VisionSpring, an organization that sells eyeglasses to the rural poor in developing countries. The case describes how Kassalow becomes inspired and motivated by some of his early experiences as an optometry student and in public health. As Kassalow builds VisionSpring, the immense scaling challenges of distributing to "bottom of the pyramid" (BoP) customers are revealed. Initially, VisionSpring has dual goals of selling glasses and employing local workers. After testing for several years in India and El Salvador, VisionSpring makes a decision in 2008 to focus only on selling glasses and makes substantial changes in its business model and organization. The company also decides to conduct a quasi-experimental study to measure its impact on customers. Over the next several years, VisionSpring tests several different distribution models, and finds two that are promising. The case ends with the executive team pondering how best to scale these models to reach the 700 million BoP customers that could benefit from glasses in the world.

The three owners of Comic Sans (CS), a specialty retail store located in the downtown core of a large Canadian city, had recently begun to implement plans for expansion. The business catered to the geek culture, offering science fiction merchandise, comic books, computer games and accessories. All plans to expand must suddenly be revisited because two of the three partners have decided to end their romantic and business relationship. If the remaining two partners want to continue the business and retain full control, they will have to purchase the third partner's 20-per-cent ownership stake. Alternatively, if the business’s future with only two partners looks unfavourable, then perhaps they should sell the business and move on.

In July 2013, the chairman of Montreal Maine & Atlantic Railway is facing a public outcry as well as possible bankruptcy and the revocation of his operating licence. When one of the company’s trains derailed in the town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, several of its cars carrying crude oil exploded. The explosions and subsequent fires destroyed the downtown core and killed several dozen people. The oil spill also contaminated the local lake and river, leading to an environmental disaster for the community. The company was slow in issuing a press release, which pointed the finger of blame on the train’s engineer and the fire department that had responded to an earlier engine fire on the train. Someone had powered down the train and that had released the brakes. Since the train was parked on an incline, without brakes it had rolled into town, gathering speed until it hit a crossroads and derailed. Five days after the derailment, the chairman finally visited the town where he spoke off the cuff and without French translation, further angering the grieving citizens. Now he faces the kind of public and professional censure that might end his career.