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João M. P. De Mello and his team at the Central Bank of Brazil are preparing a move that would seek to tilt the scales in favor of financial inclusion for the entire country. The innovation at hand is the unprecedented nation-wide instant payment scheme: Pix. The fruit of years of planning and patience in the face of a banking industry refusing to change, De Mello seeks to kick start a wave of pro-consumer FinTech advancements for a sector whose growth has been relatively halted. While the success of similar wide-spread payment structures using mobile technology have drawn a clear roadmap in other countries, no other central bank has ever dared to undertake the task itself, preferring instead to let the private sector push ahead and regulate later. Pix would be the first instance of a government taking such massive upskilling into its own hands. At the same time, the risks De Mello and his team face will be entirely new as well. Will Pix be the highway to modernity so many imagine? Or will its challenges prove insurmountable, tarnishing growth and turning the country away from trusting the BCB at such a scale ever again?

In July 2020, Eastman Kodak Company (Kodak) received a US$765 million loan from the US federal government for drug component manufacturing. Kodak's chief executive officer (CEO) was confident about the company's ability to excel in the pharmaceutical industry. However, critics cited several concerns, such as workforce availability and Kodak's lack of experience in the pharma business. The CEO believed that Kodak’s expertise in advanced chemicals and manufacturing could drive the firm’s success in the pharma business. Would Kodak be able to establish its mark in the US pharma industry? What challenges was Kodak likely to face?

Birla Cellulose, a part of India’s large conglomerate Aditya Birla Group, manufactured viscose fibre, which came from wood and was naturally sustainable. In 2017, the Changing Markets Foundation (CMF) brought out a report titled Dirty Fashion, which described the environmental damage caused by manufacturing practices used in viscose fibre production. The report detailed impacts on the environment, bodies of water, and communities around viscose manufacturing plants. Birla Cellulose responded to the report by collaborating with CMF and making significant changes to its manufacturing processes to comply with the highest standards around the globe. It ensured that its raw materials were responsibly sourced and that its products were responsibly manufactured and then properly handled at the end of their lives. The company was proud of its achievements. At the same time, it recognized that it needed to do more. In late 2019, the company’s business director wondered how to make the company even more sustainable. What level of investment would be required? How could it adapt to changing consumer preferences and still retain the benefits it had recently gained?

In June 2021, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Peruvian-based Austral Group S.A.A. (Austral), one of the six largest producers and traders in marine-based foods and ingredients in the Republic of Peru, was concerned about two major ongoing challenges: gender equality and cross-generation employees. In May 2006, Austral merged with and became a subsidiary of Austevoll Seafood ASA (Austevoll), the world-leading Norwegian conglomerate in the fishery and seafood industry. After the merger, Austral improved its foundations of human resources (HR). The newly merged entity built a common organizational culture and created a bond to engage workers in its new culture. In 2007, the company introduced a 10-year plan to drive structural changes in human resource management (HRM). The CEO’s current issue is how to overcome the two outstanding challenges to move the company forward and make it sustainable for the future.

In June 2021, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Peruvian-based Austral Group S.A.A. (Austral), one of the six largest producers and traders in marine-based foods and ingredients in the Republic of Peru, was concerned about two major ongoing challenges: gender equality and cross-generation employees. In May 2006, Austral merged with and became a subsidiary of Austevoll Seafood ASA (Austevoll), the world-leading Norwegian conglomerate in the fishery and seafood industry. After the merger, Austral improved its foundations of human resources (HR). The newly merged entity built a common organizational culture and created a bond to engage workers in its new culture. In 2007, the company introduced a 10-year plan to drive structural changes in human resource management (HRM). The CEO's current issue is how to overcome the two outstanding challenges to move the company forward and make it sustainable for the future.

In January 2011, China-based Joyson Automotive Group (Joyson) acquired Preh GmbH (Preh), a German manufacturer of high-end automotive components. While Joyson had lower capabilities in areas such as management and engineering, it was able to ensure a successful acquisition of the more competent firm Preh after years of careful planning and relationship building. Joyson had grown over 14 years to become a US$10 billion manufacturing company by continuously acquiring more capable firms. The acquisition of Preh would make the two companies powerful players in the global automotive parts supply market and promised to provide Preh with financial resources and access to the lucrative Chinese automotive market, but only if the Chinese and German companies could be integrated successfully. How could Joyson’s management team ensure a successful integration of a firm with superior management, soft skills, and technical capabilities?

In January 2011, China-based Joyson Automotive Group (Joyson) acquired Preh GmbH (Preh), a German manufacturer of high-end automotive components. While Joyson had lower capabilities in areas such as management and engineering, it was able to ensure a successful acquisition of the more competent firm Preh after years of careful planning and relationship building. Joyson had grown over 14 years to become a US$10 billion manufacturing company by continuously acquiring more capable firms. The acquisition of Preh would make the two companies powerful players in the global automotive parts supply market and promised to provide Preh with financial resources and access to the lucrative Chinese automotive market, but only if the Chinese and German companies could be integrated successfully. How could Joyson's management team ensure a successful integration of a firm with superior management, soft skills, and technical capabilities?

HSBC Commercial Banking was a key business for HSBC Holdings plc, contributing one-third of the bank's profit in 2019. In 2016, the regional head of Commercial Banking, Asia Pacific, began initiating a series of open innovation programs in Hong Kong. The programs aimed to embrace collaboration in the innovation and technology ecosystem to co-create value for Commercial Banking's small and medium-sized customers.<br><br>Now, in 2020, the regional head of Commercial Banking and his innovation team leader were discussing their innovation initiatives. They reviewed what they had achieved in the last four years. What value had they created for not just the small- and medium-sized customers but also the ecosystem stakeholders? What challenges had they met, and how well had they resolved these? Had the proper culture and talents been in place to meet these challenges? Had they measured the performance of the team properly to keep their colleagues motivated about sustainable innovation? They also explored a few critical areas for future growth. The regional head of Commercial Banking wondered what more they could do in Hong Kong, and how they could replicate the success they had achieved in Hong Kong in other emerging markets in Asia.

Masai Ujiri, the President and General Manager of the Toronto Raptors (Raptors), had an illustrious career on and off the basketball court; he had not shied away from making bold, even controversial, decisions; and he had led his franchise, the Raptors, to the National Basketball Association (NBA) Championship. Following the Raptors’ clinching the NBA Championship in 2019, Ujiri faced an altercation with an Officer in Oakland, California. At the height of his success, Ujiri explicitly called out his mistreatment because of his being a Black man, highlighting the racism prevalent against Blacks and minorities. Contemplating his future as an executive, Ujiri would need to decide whether to continue, and if so, how to marry the worlds of sport and activism, charting his own path for social change.

When Peter Moyo was appointed as chief executive officer (CEO) of Old Mutual Emerging Markets (Old Mutual), one of South Africa's largest and oldest financial institutions, in 2017, the chair of Old Mutual, Trevor Manuel, and the Old Mutual board were optimistic, as Moyo seemed like the ideal candidate. However, less than two years into his tenure, Moyo's employment was terminated owing to a conflict of interest and a breakdown of trust between Moyo and the chair and board. From the moment he was suspended, Moyo made the dispute very public, and appeared to be orchestrating a media campaign against Old Mutual and the directors, especially Manuel. A protracted and bruising legal battle ensued, and many corporate governance lessons were learned. It was now incumbent on the board to identify and appoint a new CEO of Old Mutual. Given the local and international environment, and in view of internal and external challenges, they needed to consider what kind of CEO would be appropriate for Old Mutual; what criteria they should set for this crucial position; and what the right timing and communication process would be around the new CEO's appointment.

Shrujan, a 50-year-old social enterprise, was started to provide work for villagers following a severe drought in the Kutch region of India. The organization focused on using the villagers’ appreciable skills in embroidery to create and market high-end handicrafts. The products both generated a source of added income for their households and helped to preserve the traditional crafts of the artisans. Shrujan had grown over the years, increasing sales and thus increasing the number of artisans supported by the project. However, in January 2020, a young fashion designer—the niece of the trustee manager and an employee at Shrujan—had ideas for growing and expanding the organization even further. The trustee manager needed to evaluate her niece’s proposal and decide whether or not it was possible to scale Shrujan and grow the business without compromising its social commitment.

In 2020, the corporate purchasing and sustainability manager at the Plastilene Group (a plastics producer based in Colombia) needed to address a sustainability challenge. In response to media and legislative attacks and consumer behaviour changes regarding the use of plastic products globally, the corporate purchasing and sustainability manager, supported by the company’s chief executive officer, was tasked with leading a strategic renewal in the 62-year-old business group known for its integration of various lines of innovation both inside and outside its organization. The organization’s process of strategic renewal had arisen from the theories of sustainability and the circular economy. How could the company management enhance not only the sustainable innovation strategy within the organization’s structure, but also its spirit of corporate entrepreneurship and innovation?

In October 2015, the co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Tender Greens faced his most difficult decision yet: should the company continue to pay a premium price for sustainably sourced beef, or should it switch to conventionally raised beef to boost profit margins and improve the company’s prospects for national growth? Tender Greens, a thriving fast-casual restaurant chain in California, was ready to expand its operation to the East Coast with backing by equity investors. As the expansion plans grew closer, the CEO began to address the foreseeable supply chain issues that his company would face with the next level of expansion. The company had faced sustainably raised beef supply shortages before, but this time the CEO had more stakeholders to satisfy. He faced a dilemma, one that required him to weigh competing stakeholder interests, the company’s stated values, and significant financial implications to arrive at the best long-term outcome for the company. What would be the best way for the company to achieve scale while maintaining a commitment to food that was local, sustainable, and affordable?

Set in 2019, this case describes the challenges faced in the adoption of DfMA (Design for manufacturing and assembly) concept by Singapore's construction industry. Use of DfMA increased productivity manifold, requiring less time for completion and less manpower, in addition to providing a safer and healthier work environment. The transition entailed a significant shift in the way different stakeholders such as developers, consultants, architects, contractors, vendors and the government operated in the domain, as the design and construction processes using DfMA were more akin to factory production and manufacturing industry than to the prevalent construction industry. Consequently, the existing ecosystem in the industry was not suited to the new technology and lacked supportive services and economies of scale. In addition, Singapore's easy access to low-cost migrant labour from regional countries had made the labour-intensive methods far more lucrative for the developers and contractors. In particular, the case presents the journey of two avant-garde companies - Teambuild, and LHL in their quest to adopt Prefabricated Prefinished Volumetric Construction (PPVC) and Mass Engineered Timber (MET), two lead DfMA technologies in their projects, supported by Building and Construction Authority (BCA) of Singapore. BCA, as the key enabler for proliferation of DfMA technology, provided support to organisations keen to adopt it by subsidising training programs and co-funding technology adoption. However, despite a few landmark successes, the majority of the industry was risk averse and preferred to continue with the cheaper and conventional construction method that they were well-versed in. Going forward, it was important to create additional value and better interfaces for the stakeholders in order to bring down their associated tangible and intangible transaction costs.

Niccol was the CEO of Taco Bell before he became the chief executive of Chipotle, in 2018. He had watched Chipotle's launch and rise with fascination and had enjoyed its burritos and bowls. But now he saw that it needed to get its business back on track fast. Customer lines were moving slowly. Some workers didn't seem properly trained. The marketing was unmemorable. Niccol and his team focused on strengthening the company's culinary culture and harnessing the power of digital to enhance its fledgling mobile app. They reconfigured the restaurants to allow for skip-the-line pickup of online orders and created a second "kitchen" to prepare those orders, freeing the regular staff to attend to in-person customers. And they shifted marketing spend from a defensive, expensive, promotion-focused approach to social media and television, where the message has become much more resonant. Chipotle's to-go and delivery operations have been a vital source of revenue during the pandemic, with digital sales representing 46.2% of all sales in 2020.

A role transition, whether it's a promotion, a move to a new organization, or a fresh challenge in an existing job, can be a huge boost to one's career. But in today's hyper-collaborative and dynamic workplaces, successful moves aren't as easy as they once were, even for the most qualified, hardworking people. After analyzing employee relationships and communication patterns across more than 100 diverse companies, and interviewing 160 executives in 20 of them, the authors discovered an overlooked prerequisite for transition success: the effective use of internal networks. That involves five practices: surging rapidly into a broad network by asking a lot of questions and discovering boundary-spanning, innovative people across the organization; generating pull by understanding, energizing, and adjusting to new connections; identifying how to add value, where one falls short, and which people in the broad network can help fill any gaps; creating scale by using the network to engage other key opinion leaders, expand the scope and impact of one's projects, and more efficiently deliver outsize results; and shaping the network for maximum thriving by making connections that enhance one's workplace experience.

Despite their embrace of agile methods, many firms striving to innovate are struggling to produce breakthrough ideas. A key culprit, according to the authors, is an outdated, inefficient approach to decision-making. Today's discovery-driven innovation processes involve an unprecedented number of choices, from which ideas to pursue to countless decisions about how to conduct experiments, what data to collect, and so on. But these choices are often made too slowly and informed by obsolete information and narrow perspectives. To align their decision-making processes with agile approaches, businesses need to include diverse (customer, local, data-informed, and outside) points of view; clarify decision rights; match the cadence of decisions to the pace of learning; and encourage candid conflict in service of a better experience for the end customer. Only then will all that rapid experimentation pay off. The article suggests best practices for these interventions, drawing on the story of the transformation at Pfizer's Global Clinical Supply, which would go on to play a critical role supporting the rapid development of the pharma giant's Covid vaccine.

The prolific and best-selling novelist on creative inspiration, recovering from tragedy, and pulling countless all-nighters in pursuit of great stories.