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Annette Innella is just coming into the lunchroom at Concord Machines when Bob Dunn starts screaming at her. After throwing his lunch tray against the wall, he stomps out, leaving Annette stunned. Naturally, Annette, the new senior VP for knowledge management, is beside herself. She knows her proposal to establish a cross-functional knowledge management committee is progressive thinking for this old-line manufacturer, but Bob's reaction is totally over the line. If Bob stays, she goes--that's all there is to it. Bob is contrite, but he's under a lot of pressure. The general manager of the Services Group, he's just returned from a two-week trip around the globe to gear up his troops to beat revenue targets again, despite shrinking budgets and hiring freezes. Now an e-mail from Annette requests that two of his best people devote half their time to what he calls her "idiotic" Knowledge Protocols Group. CEO Jay Nguyen is in a bind. Bob is his top manager--he brings in all the money. And even though future revenues are going to have to come from somewhere else, Jay is not totally behind Annette's initiative in the current business climate. He can't afford to lose Bob. But if he reins in Annette, it will look like he's condoning Bob's outburst. What should he do? In R0201A and R0201Z, four commentators offer advice in this fictional case study.

It's a big driver of business success, but one that executives are loath to talk about: upgrading the management talent pool by weeding out "C" players--those who deliver results that are acceptable but who fail to innovate or inspire the people they lead. In this article, the authors of The War for Talent explore the hidden costs of tolerating underperformance and acknowledge the reasons why executives may shy away from dealing decisively with C players. They recommend that organizations establish rigorous, disciplined processes for assessing and dealing with low-performing managers but still treat them with respect. The authors outline three ironhanded step for executives to take. First, identify C players by evaluating their talents and distributing employee performances along an assessment curve. Second, agree on explicit action plans that articulate the improvements or changes that C performers must achieve within 6 to 12 months. And third, hold managers accountable for carrying out the action plans. The authors also emphasize the need for executives to ensure that low performers are treated with dignity--offer candid feedback, instructive coaching, and generous severance packages and outplacement support. The authors' approach isn't about being tough on people; it's about being relentlessly focused on performance.

Annette Innella is just coming into the lunchroom at Concord Machines when Bob Dunn starts screaming at her. After throwing his lunch tray against the wall, he stomps out, leaving Annette stunned. Naturally, Annette, the new senior VP for knowledge management, is beside herself. She knows her proposal to establish a cross-functional knowledge management committee is progressive thinking for this old-line manufacturer, but Bob's reaction is totally over the line. If Bob stays, she goes--that's all there is to it. Bob is contrite, but he's under a lot of pressure. The general manager of the Services Group, he's just returned from a two-week trip around the globe to gear up his troops to beat revenue targets again, despite shrinking budgets and hiring freezes. Now an e-mail from Annette requests that two of his best people devote half their time to what he calls her "idiotic" Knowledge Protocols Group. CEO Jay Nguyen is in a bind. Bob is his top manager--he brings in all the money. And even though future revenues are going to have to come from somewhere else, Jay is not totally behind Annette's initiative in the current business climate. He can't afford to lose Bob. But if he reins in Annette, it will look like he's condoning Bob's outburst. What should he do? In R0201A and R0201Z, four commentators offer advice on this fictional case study.

Annette Innella is just coming into the lunchroom at Concord Machines when Bob Dunn starts screaming at her. After throwing his lunch tray against the wall, he stomps out, leaving Annette stunned. Naturally, Annette, the new senior VP for knowledge management, is beside herself. She knows her proposal to establish a cross-functional knowledge management committee is progressive thinking for this old-line manufacturer, but Bob's reaction is totally over the line. If Bob stays, she goes--that's all there is to it. Bob is contrite, but he's under a lot of pressure. The general manager of the Services Group, he's just returned from a two-week trip around the globe to gear up his troops to beat revenue targets again, despite shrinking budgets and hiring freezes. Now an e-mail from Annette requests that two of his best people devote half their time to what he calls her "idiotic" Knowledge Protocols Group. CEO Jay Nguyen is in a bind. Bob is his top manager--he brings in all the money. And even though future revenues are going to have to come from somewhere else, Jay is not totally behind Annette's initiative in the current business climate. He can't afford to lose Bob. But if he reins in Annette, it will look like he's condoning Bob's outburst. What should he do? In R0201A and R0201Z, four commentators offer advice on this fictional case study.

Describes an ill-fated effort to institute a total quality program. Using the vantage point of one of the managers selected to be a quality instructor, the case traces the rise and fall of the quality effort during its very brief existence over the course of six months. Allows students to identify many things that can undermine implementation of change: lack of corporate commitment, overly formalized programs, inflated expectations, lack of initial successes, etc. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

This case describes the compensation system for portfolio managers at Harvard's portfolio management company, including its formulaic and bonus bank features. Harvard Management Co. President Jack Meyer explains the philosophy behind the incentive pay at his company.

"If you try to use money to motivate behavior, you are in a powerful and dangerous place, especially with engineers and scientists," remarked Tom Furman, CEO of Camp Dresser & McKee, Inc. (CDM), a consulting environmental engineering firm. Historically, CDM had followed an "egalitarian" management bonus program based on qualitative measures. As industry growth decelerated and competition intensified since 1991, management changed the incentive plan to tie it closer to the achievement of business objectives. This case describes the bonus and incentive compensation system and the evaluation process. It ends with Furman reflecting on how to interpret the CDM system to reward four CDM executives suitably.

Corporate health costs are again shooting up at double-digit rates. Employers need to take responsibility for that cost increase and redesign the structure of their health benefits.

Armed with their important-sounding titles, all the "chiefs" in a company naturally want to report directly to the CEO. But that's not always feasible--or wise. A chart illustrates a more reasonable reporting structure.

Corporate budgeting is a joke, and everyone knows it. It consumes a huge amount of executives' time, forcing them into endless rounds of dull meetings and tense negotiations. It encourages line managers to lie and cheat, lowballing targets and inflating results. And it turns business decisions into elaborate exercises in gaming. The sad thing is, budget shenanigans have become so embedded in corporate life that they're accepted as business as usual--no matter how destructive they are. The source of the problem is using budget targets to drive managers' compensation. In a traditional pay-for-performance compensation program, a manager earns a hurdle bonus when performance reaches a certain level. The bonus increases with performance until it hits a maximum cap. These "kinks" in the pay-for-performance line create incentives to game the system. When performance approaches the hurdle target, a manager will try to accelerate the realization of revenue and profit. When performance hits the cap, the manager has a strong incentive to push revenue and profit into the next year. To eliminate inducements to game the system, companies should adopt a purely linear pay-for-performance scheme that rewards actual performance, independent of budget targets. A manager receives the same bonus for a given level of performance whether the budget goal happens to be set beneath that level or above it. Severing the link between budgets and bonuses eliminates managers' motivation to lowball targets, and it takes away incentives to move revenues and expenses around when the end of a budget period approaches. Not only does this remove the costs of gaming, it also frees managers from all the time they traditionally had to devote to it.

Blinds To Go is a manufacturer and retailer of customized window coverings. The company has been steadily expanding the number of stores across North America. The vice-chairman is concerned with the lack of staff in some of these newly expanded stores. With plans of an initial public offering within the next two years, senior management must determine what changes need to be made to the recruitment strategy and how to develop staff that will help them achieve the company's growth objectives.

According to new research, the way deadlines are set has a profound effect on the degree to which workers procrastinate and even on the quality of their work.

What's the best way to pay individuals so they'll work well as a team? New research based on battlefield computer simulations points to the advantages of combining two fundamentally different approaches: equality and equity.

In 1999, Hewlett-Packard (HP) split into two companies. The issue facing human resources (HR) had to do with creating loyalty and enthusiasm for a new company (Agilent) whose roots lay in an established institution with an extremely loyal workforce who identified with the HP brand. How could they create a new culture of more focus and accountability with the same people? Developing an organizational culture that supported business performance and accountability was the foremost HR task. This case provides detailed background on the company's key initiatives and projects to transform HR organization and culture in the new company. The HR transformation marked a change from an egalitarian, safe culture to a performance culture characterized by a strong meritocracy and a results-based rewards program. In 2001, the company faced increasing financial challenges that would test the newly developing culture. How could top management continue building the Agilent culture--especially in the face of layoffs and restructuring?

After a long stint in consulting, Jane Epstein has just become a manager at TechniCo. She's trying to get a fix on the various personalities and roles of her new coworkers, and by and large, she seems to have inherited a pretty good team. One's got a lot of social capital built up; another seems to be a natural salesperson. Something about Andy Zimmerman, though, has her worried. At first she can't put her finger on it--maybe he's a bit too aggressive? But as time passes, she watches Andy's mean streak show itself again and again: He belittles administrative assistants for minor mistakes, ruthlessly cuts down colleagues when they present ideas that aren't fully developed, and makes everyone in the group feel small and stupid. But Andy has another side: He's usually right, and he's very, very good at his job. In fact, in terms of pure performance, he's the best Jane's got. She'd be crazy not to want him in her group. And yet, she can't deny that Andy's behavior is undermining morale and hurting the team's financial performance. Now Jane's feeling frustrated. When she left her consulting job for this position, she expected to focus on numbers, products, customers--on building something. Instead, she finds that people issues are taking up most of her time. This fictional case study explores the dynamics that occur when a star performer has a highly abrasive personality. In R0108A and R0108Z, Mary Rowe, Chuck McKenzie, Kathy Jordan, and James Waldroop advise Jane on how she can curb Andy's bad behavior without hurting the team's bottom line.

After a long stint in consulting, Jane Epstein has just become a manager at TechniCo. She's trying to get a fix on the various personalities and roles of her new coworkers, and by and large, she seems to have inherited a pretty good team. One's got a lot of social capital built up; another seems to be a natural salesperson. Something about Andy Zimmerman, though, has her worried. At first she can't put her finger on it--maybe he's a bit too aggressive? But as time passes, she watches Andy's mean streak show itself again and again: He belittles administrative assistants for minor mistakes, ruthlessly cuts down colleagues when they present ideas that aren't fully developed, and makes everyone in the group feel small and stupid. But Andy has another side: He's usually right, and he's very, very good at his job. In fact, in terms of pure performance, he's the best Jane's got. She'd be crazy not to want him in her group. And yet, she can't deny that Andy's behavior is undermining morale and hurting the team's financial performance. Now Jane's feeling frustrated. When she left her consulting job for this position, she expected to focus on numbers, products, customers--on building something. Instead, she finds that people issues are taking up most of her time. This fictional case study explores the dynamics that occur when a star performer has a highly abrasive personality. In R0108A and R0108Z, Mary Rowe, Chuck McKenzie, Kathy Jordan, and James Waldroop advise Jane on how she can curb Andy's bad behavior without hurting the team's bottom line.

After a long stint in consulting, Jane Epstein has just become a manager at TechniCo. She's trying to get a fix on the various personalities and roles of her new coworkers, and by and large, she seems to have inherited a pretty good team. One's got a lot of social capital built up; another seems to be a natural salesperson. Something about Andy Zimmerman, though, has her worried. At first she can't put her finger on it--maybe he's a bit too aggressive? But as time passes, she watches Andy's mean streak show itself again and again: He belittles administrative assistants for minor mistakes, ruthlessly cuts down colleagues when they present ideas that aren't fully developed, and makes everyone in the group feel small and stupid. But Andy has another side: He's usually right, and he's very, very good at his job. In fact, in terms of pure performance, he's the best Jane's got. She'd be crazy not to want him in her group. And yet, she can't deny that Andy's behavior is undermining morale and hurting the team's financial performance. Now Jane's feeling frustrated. When she left her consulting job for this position, she expected to focus on numbers, products, customers--on building something. Instead, she finds that people issues are taking up most of her time. This fictional case study explores the dynamics that occur when a star performer has a highly abrasive personality. In R0108A and R0108Z, Mary Rowe, Chuck McKenzie, Kathy Jordan, and James Waldroop advise Jane on how she can curb Andy's bad behavior without hurting the team's bottom line.

This note outlines a simple but powerful model, in managerial language, for understanding why people behave the way they do. The model builds a set of relationships among perceptions, beliefs, conclusions, defense mechanisms, and behavior. The note provides a framework that has been useful in a variety of settings for practicing managers.

Nearly all of us will lose our jobs sometime, but is there a right way to be terminated? What differentiates fired employees who make the best of their situations from those who do not? One answer is mind-set. Many workers unconsciously hold a "tenure mind-set," believing in the promise of employment security. By contrast, other workers hold an "assignment mentality," seeing each job as one in a series of impermanent, career-building stepping-stones. Most corporate board members and CEOs have this latter mind-set and consider their executives to be filling terminal assignments. People who possess this mentality usually rebound swiftly when fired. But when employees who hold a tenure mind-set are suddenly fired or laid off, the authors say, they can fall into three common traps: the "lost identity" trap, the "lost family" trap, and the "lost ego" trap. To prepare for the eventuality of termination, the authors suggest that executives adopt the assignment mind-set at all times. They should keep their social networks alive, include a termination clause in employment contracts, and consider hiring an agent. If warning signs warrant, they might even volunteer to be terminated. By assuming control over the way they are fired, people can gain control over their careers.

A leading authority on the graying of America's workforce explains why older workers must be retrained and retained.