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There is arguably no more important role for senior leaders than to prepare organizations for risk. Firms face different types of risk, including strategic, operational, market, liquidity, credit, and reputational. This article starts by exploring risk leadership at TD Bank Group and Maple Leaf Foods Inc. In 2002, TD Bank’s leadership lowered its risk tolerance following years of volatile and uneven performance. It avoided excessive risk (including sub-prime lending) and grew from the 55th-largest North American bank in terms of market capitalization to the sixth in 2012. Maple Leaf Foods Inc., a large food-processing company, underwent a crisis in 2008 when its processed meats were implicated in 23 deaths due to Listeriosis. The firm then developed a world-leading food-safety culture, mobilized an increased industry focus on food safety, and recovered financially. <br><br>Five activities that lead to the establishment and maintenance of a strategically driven culture are described. “Think it” stresses the need for a deliberately conceived culture, rather than one that is merely emergent. “Talk it” emphasizes the need for messages and expectations to be articulated forcefully and clearly. “Walk it” suggests that leaders must not deviate from messages about a desired culture, and should offer organizational rewards for culturally congruent behaviours. “Reinforce it” states that leaders should celebrate the success of their organizational culture, while exercising caution. “Check it” suggests that leaders must link their current culture with their desired future culture and prevent the emergence of unplanned, undesired manifestations of culture.

The 21st century has witnessed colossal missteps by corporate leaders, from Enron to Wall Street. While business spent the first half of the 20th century searching for and securing capital, it spent the latter half devoted to the use and flow of those funds. The second half of the 20th century witnessed the space race, the introduction of the computer and Internet, the expansion of food distribution, and the interconnectedness of global finance. What made this rapid development possible might have been the innovative ideas of management. Over successive decades since 1950, universities have educated and informed management students using a range of tools and concepts. While these can be influential and transformative, they can also be misused. Leaders have gradually allowed their authority to become eroded as their attention has shifted from purpose to performance. Management’s ideas and concepts have become a substitute for leadership and this leadership vacuum has had three primary negative effects. 1. Shareholders and stakeholders have lost confidence. 2. Generations X and Y have lost significant respect for business. 3. Boards of directors, who are supposed to provide organizational oversight, are now scrutinized and less autonomous. In the 21st century, leaders must allocate time for serious reflection on strategy, understand the boundaries and limitations of management protocols, appreciate the untapped value of collaboration, and communicate with integrity.

In the traditional business world, strong ties refer to firms or individuals who interact frequently, invest significant time and effort in a relationship, and transfer high-quality information and complex industry knowledge. Weak ties involve looser networks between individuals or firms, infrequent contact, a wide range of additional connections, and access to diverse information and resources. The modern business environment is characterized more by weak ties, due to the Internet and the widespread use of social media (1.5 billion users globally). Firms are organized in radical new ways such as virtual work groups, and transparency is more important than ever, with firms judged mercilessly on their response to customer feedback. <br><br> This article explores six key points in the art of building business relationships through social media: 1. Individual employees are likely to be seen as social media ambassadors, with their online activities reflecting on the company. 2. A firm should create specific social media management roles. 3. Connections should be forged with key influencers or critical enablers. 4. Significant cultural and structural changes may be needed to support relationship-building through social media. 5. Developing a trusted expert or key influencer position in a niche will generate a network of followers. 6. A qualitative and long-term approach is needed to evaluate the benefits of investments in relationship-building through social media.

Many boards and senior managers have embraced talent management in order to create high-performance organizations, yet many approaches are expensive and ineffective. This article presents Talent Management 2 and summarizes the results of a five-year investigation into the merits of different ways of improving corporate performance. It suggests that it is often cheaper to work with existing employees and to put the right support environment in place, rather than recruiting top talent. Evidence from early adopters of “performance support,” a key component of Talent Management 2, suggests that it represents a quick, cost-efficient way of securing large returns on investment and achieving multiple objectives. These adopters are building critical success factors into the processes for key activities and adopting cost-effective ways of helping employees emulate the methods of high performers. Instead of focusing on investing in talented employees who may not be retained long enough to yield returns on the company’s investment, Talent Management 2 focuses on boosting the performance of today’s key workgroups. Providing better support can enable more to be achieved by fewer and less costly staff.

A study of 236 corporate directors by RHR International and Chief Executive magazine found that 95 per cent of respondents acknowledged CEO succession as a critical business continuity issue. Yet more than half rated themselves as ineffective in executing their responsibilities in the CEO succession process. This author, the CEO of the firm of management psychologists and consultants RHR International, has leveraged his research, client insights, and 30+ years of consultant experience to create a list of ten key dimensions of CEO succession. The first steps are 1. establish board ownership, involvement, and oversight; 2. set time frames; and 3. prepare for emergencies. The next dimensions, dealing with the “who, what, and where,” are 4. align strategy and profile; 5. build a talent pipeline; and 6. source external talent and manage search firms. The final dimensions, dealing with people and process, are 7. select the CEO; 8. proactively manage the transition; 9. measure performance and improve progress; and 10. manage the dynamics of CEO succession.

Recent failures such as the subprime mortgage crisis or the BP oil rig disaster are the result of failed corporate cultures, yet “corporate culture” is one of the most misunderstood terms in the business lexicon. After outlining common misconceptions about corporate culture, this article defines it as the collective belief systems that employees in an organization have about their ability to compete in the marketplace ethically, and how they act on those beliefs to bring value-added products and services to the customer in return for financial and business success. Far from being unimportant as it is often treated in the business world, corporate culture has a direct link to a company’s bottom line. Underperforming corporate cultures are categorized in the article as predatory, frozen, chaotic, political, or bureaucratic, while high-performing corporate cultures are categorized as service or new era. <br><br>A blueprint for building a strong corporate culture is proposed, which includes setting goals, prioritizing ethical conduct, creating a change-ready culture, incorporating flexibility, encouraging appropriate risk taking and innovation, identifying alternative critical success factors for managers, retaining innovative people and their ideas, identifying new qualities to be embedded in the culture, creating a democratic environment, and keeping the ultimate focus on the customer. Unfortunately, the change process is often blocked by bankruptcy, the exclusion of people from the change process, incremental responses to change, and poor attitudes. In the age of radical change, firms must develop a systematic change plan, identify change leaders, build a broad consensus for change, eliminate bias from the process, individualize change strategies, and go beyond the fads and “magic bullets.”

The Roaring Dragon Hotel (RDH), a Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE), was under pressure to become a profit generating 5-star hotel due to the continued development of the Chinese market economy. As for many SOEs, the RDH was overstaffed, filled with archaic work practices, internal cliques, unsystematic production systems and a dysfunctional motivation system unrelated to performance. During modernization, a number of human resource management problems became increasingly evident; solving these problems had become a priority. In 2000, the RDH’s provincial government and stakeholders made their first attempt at modernizing the hotel by hiring a globally renowned company to undertake the upgrade. The disastrous outcome caused the provincial government and stakeholders to lose heart, momentum and motivation until six years later. A new joint venture owner and the RDH board recovered enough confidence to attempt modernization for a second time. They contracted Premium Hotel Services (PHS) to undertake the second attempt at improving operations. The PHS found the quality of older employees, increasing turnover of new staff and policies emerging from the continuing evolution of the Chinese economy were now presenting problems never confronted before at the RDH. How could the stakeholders solve these problems and have the RDH emerge as an internationally recognized five star, commercially viable hotel?

This case describes in rich detail the change challenge the director of pharmacy services at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) faces in September 2011. She is responsible for implementing project HUGO, an acronym for Health Care UnderGoing Optimization. HUGO is a computerized system that requires a switch from paper and pencil to fully electronic patient records. This project is the most complex and comprehensive one that London area hospitals have ever undergone: the project includes a total of 11 healthcare organizations in London and surrounding region, with expected project costs in excess of $25 million. Implementing HUGO has the potential to save lives in the hospital, where critical errors are often linked to manual processes that involve multiple steps and people. Despite the strong reasons for implementing this project, the director expects significant resistance from nurses, doctors and staff who are used to their way of operating. It is clear that this change challenge involves not just the adoption of new technology but a significant cultural change.

This six-part video case series features social entrepreneur Craig Kielburger as he faces pivotal moments in his life and the remarkable evolution of his organization. The primary dilemmas are strategic in nature and their solutions rely on leadership and social entrepreneurship. Students assume the role of Craig Kielburger in each case, which begins with a video set-up, followed by a short one- or two-page case and a discussion, and concludes with Craig describing what happened in a video clip. (This no-fee product consists of five of the six cases. Use product #9B12M031 to order the remaining case.)

The director of Lands and Economic Development in the Ministry of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) must make recommendations on how to handle challenges around a large farming company that leases land from First Nations communities in Western Canada. New Horizon Farms (NHF) has already leased over 180,000 acres from First Nations communities and plans to grow to one million acres. An immediate challenge is the leasing process whereby INAC must review and sign leases and receive lease payments, which are later turned over to the First Nations. The process slows the partnering process and the speed of cash flow to First Nations and many First Nations object to government control over their land on principle. However, without INAC involved, the leases are not legally enforceable, an essential factor for NHF and its public parent company. NHF provides leasing revenue but also training, employment, and shares in the company to the First Nations it partners with. On the surface it looks like a good opportunity, but it raises several questions for policy makers. Will NHF’s control of one million acres of First Nations land be seen as a form of economic colonialism? How does this kind of initiative fit with INAC’s and First Nations’ mandates to improve economic and social conditions among First Nations communities? How will the provinces and neighbouring communities perceive and react to the situation?<br><br>New Horizon Farms also needs to consider its long-term strategy. Will the operation meet its target of one million acres? What are the risks for the company? How should it approach the training issue now that funding has finished?

This case looks closely at the management of a branch of the YMCA in Boston during periods of growth and contraction and at the development of Wendy Zinn’s career, all in the context of the YMCA’s organizational culture. The roles of strategy, decision-making, leadership and organizational culture are described as critical both to the organization’s development and to the career development the organization affords. Social capital and networking skills are also critical success factors in the YMCA’s growth.

The owner and general manager of a large retail establishment faced a dilemma about whether his long-time yard manager was still the right person for the job. The business increasingly depended on providing superior customer service in order to compete in the market. Recently, the owner had placed a personal friend in the operation as an assistant to the yard manager. This new addition had shown a real talent for developing employees and driving performance improvements. As a result, customer service feedback had drastically improved. The owner realized that the assistant had become the real leader of the yard. He wondered how to keep the momentum of the changes going while still showing due respect to a loyal employee.

The chief executive officer of Mission Hills, a Chinese golf course operator, is thinking about how to expand his resort operations into Hainan Island, a few hundred kilometres away. He is wondering what his organization needs, from a human resources standpoint, to be able to develop another five-star resort. Mission Hills is a top golf course brand in China employing 7,000 people in its Shenzhen and Dongguan facilities. The expansion to Hainan Island is part of a larger plan to establish Mission Hills resorts around China.

This case concerns the implementation and strategic direction of LGBTA (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and ally) initiatives at TD Bank Financial Group (TD). In order to maintain its position as the “employer of choice” for the LGBTA community, TD must expand the measures it had taken since its Diversity Leadership Council was created in 2006 to promote a comfortable, barrier-free and inclusive work environment for all employees. TD’s corporate diversity group had been providing a growing number of resources, events and LGBTA-related sponsorships for the past six years, resulting in an exponential growth of engagement by LGBTA employees, but lately the bank’s competitors and other large companies were catching up. Moreover, a recent review showed that there was a large variance in the quality of experience between the different subgroups of TD’s LGBTA community. The bank’s senior manager of corporate diversity must report within a week to the Diversity Leadership Council on how to solve these issues.

In 2010, approximately 20,000 barrels of oil being shipped south by Enbridge spilled into Michigan’s Talmadge Creek, contaminating wetlands around Battle Creek and the nearby county seat of Marshall, including a stretch of the Kalamazoo River. The timing of the incident could not have been worse. The pipeline had been carrying controversial tar sands oil at a time when Enbridge and its competitors were seeking to greatly expand their pipeline networks across North America. Moreover, the pipeline failure came on the heels of BP's much larger oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, amid a period of heightened public intolerance toward oil spills. As a result, Enbridge faced massive public relations (PR) and regulatory challenges. Enbridge's reputation was clearly at risk since the company had promoted itself as a true believer in corporate social responsibility, which had raised the stakes when dealing with the industrial accident. The CEO of Enbridge faced an almost impossible challenge. He needed to prove to American citizens — and to industry regulators, market watchers, company shareholders and Enbridge employees — that his company deserved to be judged on its own merits, not as a Canadian version of BP. To meet this challenge, he needed to demonstrate that Enbridge was run by people who not only wanted to make amends but could be trusted to do so.

This is a supplement to Enbridge Michigan Oil Spill: Patrick Daniel's Challenge (A), 9B12C039.

On October 1, 2010, Scotiabank implemented changes to its organizational structure that realigned its business globally and positioned it for further growth. Under the new structure, the bank’s businesses were regrouped into four business lines: Canadian Banking, International Banking, Global Banking and Markets, and Global Wealth Management. The bank had to figure out how to help individuals improve on working together across business lines. The formalization of cross-collaboration was through the newly instituted leadership teams. Team members had a joint accountability to ensure that the bank achieved optimum results in the geographic region in which the leadership team operated. And it was up to the team to consider how it was going to leverage collaboration. These teams were a significant departure from the behaviours and activities expected only a few months ago – people reported up to their own business line and did not worry about what anyone else in the particular geographic market was doing. There had been anecdotal evidence that a number of the leadership teams had success during the first few months. Still the sentiment among the senior leaders of the bank was that the implementation of the leadership teams was associated with several challenges.

The case presents a role play between a buyer and a seller who must negotiate a price for a perishable but rare commodity. The case covers the dilemma faced by buyers and sellers when they are in possession of limited information but must still attempt to negotiate a best-case scenario for themselves. This case involves the seller and is used with The Cinnamon Case: Sales Negotiation (Role Play) - (B) The Buyer.

The case presents a role play between a buyer and a seller who must negotiate a price for a perishable but rare commodity. The case covers the dilemma faced by buyers and sellers when they are in possession of limited information but must still attempt to negotiate a best-case scenario for themselves. This case involves the buyer and is used with The Cinnamon Case: Sales Negotiation (Role Play) - (A) The Seller.

The case is about a non-profit organization located in Manchester, England. As a regional association helping smaller voluntary organizations and groups survive and grow, the organization itself depends on fundraising and donations and runs on project-based funding. The projects normally run for three to five years. Hiring and training new employees every two to three months is common. Due to project timelines, employees leave as soon as they find another job. Many complain about the lack of development opportunities within the organization. The chief executive officer has seven people working for him and needs to make a plan to retain his employees for the whole life of each project. For this purpose, he has decided to devise training and development programs for them. There are different options available for this purpose, each with pros and cons. Considering scarce funding, small project tenure, and his goal to provide fair opportunities for all, he must decide which option best fits his organization’s needs and resources.