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The Denver office of Clarion Co., a $30 million, full-service marketing firm, has always been a politics-free zone. Nonwork conversations revolve around families, romances, and the state of the powder at Aspen. If the office sometimes seems detached from the wider world, no one cares. But that all changes with the arrival of Marcus Lippman. A senior project manager hired away from a rival firm in Chicago, Marcus is both charming and aggressive about meeting his new colleagues. During morning encounters in the mail room or kitchenette, he often alludes to the day's headlines. In particular, Marcus follows the presidential campaign with an avidity his colleagues reserve for the fate of contestants on American Idol. Those informed enough to respond, generally do so. Over time, others join in. Politics soon enters the office bloodstream. Employees sense a new energy, a feeling of engagement that intensifies as the campaign season progresses. Many employees make contacts in the business community as they pursue extracurricular political activities. But there are downsides as well. Out-of-control e-mail debates sap productivity. Feelings get hurt. And general manager Joan Mungo discovers that political views play an important part in determining who rises to power in the company. As tensions mount, Joan wonders: Should she do something to stanch political debate and, if so, what? Commenting on this fictional case study in R0410A and R0410Z are Brian Flynn, the CEO of Schlossberg:Flynn, a business development consulting firm; Frank Furedi, a professor of sociology at the University of Kent in England; Paula Brantner, the program director at Workplace Fairness, a nonprofit organization; and James E. Rogers, the CEO of Cinergy, a diversified energy company.

Why shouldn't engineers study success? Because failures tell you so much more, civil engineering professor Henry Petroski contends.

Too much friendship can make teams insular and ineffective, Joe LaBianca's research shows. Far better for team members to socialize across the company.

They're in your organization--and they're easy to mistake for high potentials. But psychologists Robert Hare and Paul Babiak are readying a test to flush them out.

Should the CEO and chair be one person or two? It doesn't matter, argues corporate governance professor Charles Elson.

Humorist and Clinton speechwriter Mark Katz reveals the awesome power of self-deprecation.

Describes the start-up, growth, organizational design, and operations over the first 10 years of a professional services firm. Focuses on the creative use of organizational purpose and values as an integral part of strategy and alignment of organizational activities.

As Bruce Taub, founder of Fernwood, strolled past some of New York City's finest galleries, he pondered the unique challenges that Fernwood faced. Where others had seen the inefficiency of imperfect markets, Taub saw an opportunity to revolutionize the very nature of how Americans related to the fine art market. As its chairman and founder, Taub had built Fernwood to serve as a vehicle for his vision: to democratize investment in art such that "even my secretary could someday own (shares of art) in her 401(k)." As Taub walked through the doors at Christies, he knew that in the near future, he was going to decide the path that would initially guide Fernwood toward investors. He also knew that at least in the short-term, he needed the support of the art community, and he wondered what else he could or should do to win that support.

In March 1999, Renault, the ninth largest car maker in the world, announced acquisition of a 36.8 percent stake in Nissan Motor for $5.4B. Second, Carlos Ghosn would take charge of the struggling company. The news shocked Japan as well as the global business community. Would a Westerner be able to bring about change in a Japanese company with a deep-rooted tradition of bureaucratic behavior and a consensus-building style? Case A describes the steps that led to the acquisition of Nissan. Case B covers the story of Carlos Ghosn and how he changed the company and brought profitability to Nissan. The case discusses such techniques as the art of listening and understanding in depth, formation of cross-functional teams, and Ghosn's three management principles: transparency, 5% strategy and the rest execution, and communication of company direction and priorities.

In March 1999, Renault, the ninth largest car maker in the world, announced acquisition of a 36.8 percent stake in Nissan Motor for $5.4B. Second, Carlos Ghosn would take charge of the struggling company. The news shocked Japan as well as the global business community. Would a Westerner be able to bring about change in a Japanese company with a deep-rooted tradition of bureaucratic behavior and a consensus-building style? Case A describes the steps that led to the acquisition of Nissan. Case B covers the story of Carlos Ghosn and how he changed the company and brought profitability to Nissan. The case discusses such techniques as the art of listening and understanding in depth, formation of cross-functional teams, and Ghosn's three management principles: transparency, 5% strategy and the rest execution, and communication of company direction and priorities.

Focuses on using compensation as a lever for organizational improvement, highlighting topics such as developing institutional capacity for accountability, effecting organizational change, and working to address systemic misalignment.

Focuses on implementing complex school district reforms and the realities of leading and sustaining large-scale organizational change.

Focuses on continuing efforts to implement school district reforms as well as the challenges of succession and managing organizational change in tough economic times.

Companies routinely squander their most precious resource--the time of their top executives. In the typical company, senior executives meet to discuss strategy for only three hours a month. And that time is poorly spent in diffuse discussions never even meant to result in any decision. The price of misused executive time is high. Delayed strategic decisions lead to overlooked waste and high costs, harmful cost reductions, missed new product and business development opportunities, and poor long-term investments. But a few deceptively simple changes in the way top management teams set agendas and structure team meetings can make an enormous difference in their effectiveness. Efficient companies use seven techniques to make the most of the time their top executives spend together. They keep strategy meetings separate from meetings focused on operations. They explore issues through written communications before they meet, so that meeting time is used solely for reaching decisions. In setting agendas, they rank the importance of each item according to its potential to create value for the company. They seek to get issues not only on, but also off, the agenda quickly, keeping to a clear implementation timetable. They make sure they have considered all viable alternatives before deciding a course of action. They use a common language and methodology for reaching decisions. And they insist that once a decision is made, they stick to it.

We all admire leaders. In trying to understand how leadership works, however, we often lose sight of the fact that followers are a crucial part of the equation. Regrettably, they get short shrift in the management literature, where they are described as merely responding to their leaders' charisma or caring attitudes. What most analyses seem to ignore is that followers have their own motivations and are as powerfully driven to follow as leaders are to lead. In this article, psychoanalyst, anthropologist, and management consultant Michael Maccoby delves into the unconscious recesses of followers' minds. He looks closely at the often irrational tendency to relate to a leader as some important person from the past--a parent, a sibling, a close friend, or even a nanny--what Sigmund Freud calls "transference." A solid understanding of transference can yield great insight into organizational behavior and endow you with the wisdom and compassion to be a tremendous leader. The author explains the most common types of transference--paternal, maternal, and sibling--and shows how they play out in the workplace. He notes that they have evolved as our family structures have changed. Whether followers perceive a leader as an all-knowing father figure, an authoritative yet unconditionally loving mother figure, or a brother or sister who isn't necessarily a model of good behavior, the leader can manage transferential ties by bringing unconscious projections to light. Then debilitating resentment and animosity can give way to mutual understanding and productivity--and a limping organization can start to thrive.

When a person sizes up a complex situation and rapidly comes to a decision that proves to be not just good but brilliant, you think, "That was smart." After you watch him do this a few times, you realize you're in the presence of something special. It's not raw brainpower, though that helps. It's not emotional intelligence either, though that, too, is often involved. It's deep smarts. Deep smarts are not philosophical--they're not wisdom in that sense, but they're as close to wisdom as business gets. You see them in the manager who understands when and how to move into a new international market, the executive who knows just what kind of talk to give when her organization is in crisis, the technician who can track a product failure back to an interaction between independently produced elements. These are people whose knowledge would be hard to purchase on the open market. Their insight is based on know-how more than on know-what; it comprises a system view as well as expertise in individual areas. Because deep smarts are experienced based and often context specific, they can't be produced overnight or readily imported into an organization. It takes years for an individual to develop them. They can be taught, however, with the right techniques. Drawing on their forthcoming book Deep Smarts, Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap say the best way to transfer such expertise to novices--and, on a larger scale, to make individual knowledge institutional--isn't through PowerPoint slides, a Web site of best practices, online training, project reports, or lectures. Rather, the sage needs to teach the neophyte individually how to draw wisdom from experience. Companies have to be willing to dedicate time and effort to such extensive training, but the investment more than pays for itself.

Conventional hierarchical businesses can mimic features of self-organizing entities like Linux to gain a competitive advantage--especially over companies whose customers remain isolated from and ignorant of one another.

The penalties for antitrust offenses are more severe than most executives think. But companies that violate antitrust laws can win amnesty by fessing up before someone blows the whistle on them.

There's a way to build cross-functional innovation teams that can balance your appetite for risk with your hunger for a breakthrough. Do it wrong, and you may find yourself with a highly creative team producing a string of bad ideas.

In the late 1970s, Stanley O'Neal joined Merrill Lynch as an investment banker. Profiles O'Neal's ascent at Merrill to CEO. O'Neal put Merrill through a comprehensive restructuring program, cutting costs and significantly reducing the work force. As CEO, O'Neal faces the challenge of changing the company's signature "Mother Merrill" culture into a performance-driven and meritocratic one, while facing resistance and criticism from inside Merrill and Wall Street. Provides data on Merrill's financial performance and investment banking ratings. Teaching Purpose: To demonstrate leadership at the executive level, highlighting the career development of a person of color. Also, to focus on changing corporate culture and CEO succession.