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Despite all of the time, money, and energy that executives pour into corporate change programs, the stark reality is that few companies ever succeed in genuinely reinventing themselves. That's because the people at those companies rarely master the art of transformational learning--that is, eagerly challenging deeply held assumptions about a company's processes and, in response, altering their thoughts and actions. Instead, most people just end up doing the same old things in superficially tweaked ways. Why is transformational learning so hard to achieve? HBR senior editor Diane Coutu explores this question with psychologist and MIT professor Edgar Schein, a world-renowned expert on organizational development. In sharp contrast to the optimistic rhetoric that permeates the debate on corporate learning and change, Schein is cautious about what companies can and cannot accomplish. Corporate culture can change, he says, but this kind of learning takes time, and it isn't fun. In this article, he describes two basic types of anxiety--learning anxiety and survival anxiety--that drive radical relearning in organizations. Schein's theories spring from his early research on how American prisoners of war in Korea were brainwashed by their captors. Heavy socialization is back in style in U.S. corporations today, Schein says, even if no one is calling it that.

The collective behavior of people in crowds, markets, and organizations has long been a mystery. Why, for instance, do employee bonuses sometimes lead to decreases in productivity? Why do some products generate a tremendous buzz, seemingly out of nowhere, whereas others languish despite multimillion-dollar marketing campaigns? How could a simple clerical error snowball into a catastrophic loss that bankrupts a financial institution? Traditional approaches like spreadsheet and regression analyses have failed to explain such "emergent phenomena," says Eric Bonabeau, because they work from the top down, trying to apply global equations and frameworks to a particular situation. But the behavior of emergent phenomena, contends Bonabeau, is formed from the bottom up--starting with the local interactions of individuals who alter their actions in response to other participants. Together, the myriad interactions result in a group behavior that can easily elude any top-down analysis. But now, thanks to "agent-based modeling," some companies are finding ways to analyze--and even predict--emergent phenomena. This article discusses emergent phenomena in detail and explains why they have become more prevalent in recent years. In addition to providing real-world examples of companies that have improved their business practices through agent-based modeling, Bonabeau also examines the future of this technology and points to several fields that may be revolutionized by its use.

Reviews the many great managerial benefits of having an explicit, communicated, and understood company mission and guidelines.

Supplements the (A) case.

Last fall, the United States was brutally thrust into a new and dangerous world. As the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed and the Pentagon burned, the horrible reality of terrorism seared the American consciousness. It touched more than the victims and their families; everyone who sat transfixed before the horrific images on TV lived through the trauma. In a sense, we were all eyewitnesses, and we must all cope with feelings of anger, stress, and anxiety. That poses a huge immediate challenge for business, because it is largely in the workplace--where we spend so many of our waking hours--that we will confront these emotions. What responsibility does a company bear for the mental well-being of its workforce? If companies help employees deal with depression and anxiety in the wake of terrorist acts, doesn't that put mental health care on the business agenda? To answer these questions, HBR senior editor Diane Coutu talked with Dr. Steven Hyman, the former director of the National Institute for Mental Health. In this interview, he suggests that September 11, 2001, may come to be seen as a tipping point--the moment when managers started to think about dealing with mental health issues on a regular basis.

When it comes time to hire or promote, top executives routinely overvalue certain skills and traits while overlooking others. Intuitively, for example, they might seek out team players, people who shine operationally, dynamic public speakers, or those who are demonstrably hungry for greater responsibility. But some attributes that seem like good indicators of leadership potential are, paradoxically, just the reverse. Team players and those who excel operationally often make better seconds in command. Unfortunately, few organizations have the right procedures in place to produce complete and accurate pictures of their top prospects. Assessments are often based on hearsay, gossip, and casual observation. A new evaluation process will help you avoid that trap. Candidates are assessed by a group of people who have observed their behavior directly over time and in different circumstances.

There's no doubt that companies can benefit from workplace surveys and questionnaires. Good surveys accurately home in on the problems the company wants information about. They are designed so that as many people as possible actually respond. And good survey design ensures that the spectrum of responses is unbiased. In this article, the author, a former research scientist at the University of Michigan and currently the president of a survey design firm, explores some glaring failures of survey design and provides 16 guidelines to improve workplace assessment tools. Applied judiciously, these rules will not only make a tangible difference in the quality and usefulness of the data obtained, but will also produce an increased response rate. The guidelines--and the problems they address--fall into five areas: content, format, language, measurement, and administration. Following the guidelines in this article will help you get unbiased, representative, and useful information from your workplace survey.

As performance demands intensify in fast-moving global markets, more executives are coming to rely on senior teams for strategic and operational assistance. Team building with powerful senior executives presents special challenges, including competition for their boss' position. Examines those challenges and describes in detail two primary responsibilities of managing such teams effectively: managing team boundaries, that is, the political dynamics of the team; and team process-leading the team. Contains a special appendix discussing leading and building global teams. To discuss how to build an effective team culture by harnessing the energies of talented, diverse individuals to create coordinated action.

In 1999, a powerful struggle amidst complex corporate and interpersonal networks led to the failed merger between Banca Commerciale Italiana and Unicredito Italiano--two of Italy's largest banking groups. This case analyzes the actions of Abelli and Saviotti, co-CEOs of Banca Commerciale Italiana at that time, as well as those of central players in Banca d'Italia, Mediobanca, and several prominent national and international banking and industrial groups. The events shed light on the management of multilayered resource dependencies and tactics of political influence as a critical precondition for implementing sound business strategy.

The American Red Cross has a system for structuring, staffing, and leading teams to review its local chapters. Mirroring professional services firms that use teams to serve clients, this system provides detailed guidelines to increase individual team member's efficiency and thoroughness. The protagonist at Red Cross headquarters who designed the system, however, is concerned that the structure she has provided is detracting from the teams' overall creativity and integration. Highlights the trade-offs of providing teams with too little structure (e.g., inefficiency, variable quality of team's work products) vs. too much structure (e.g., team members have little opportunity to utilize their expertise and creativity).

Supplements the (A) case.

With efforts to de-layer organizations and reduce functional boundaries, coordination increasingly occurs through networks of informal relations rather than channels tightly prescribed by formal reporting structures or detailed work processes. However, although organizations are moving to network forms through joint ventures, alliances, and other collaborative relationships, executives generally pay little attention to assessing and supporting informal networks within their own organizations. Social network analysis is a valuable means of facilitating collaboration in strategically important groups such as top leadership networks, strategic business units, new product development teams, communities of practice, joint ventures, and mergers. By making informal networks visible, social network analysis helps managers systematically assess and support strategically important collaboration.

Provides an account of how The Cradle, a nonprofit adoption agency, went from the brink of dissolution to become a thriving organization carrying out its mission. Under the leadership of Julie Tye, the organization and its board underwent an extensive strategic planning process and made significant changes to the organization's strategy, structure, and culture. Describes the condition of The Cradle before Tye's arrival.

Discusses the challenges that internal departments face as organizations grow and expand. The Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois, grew significantly over a short period of time, creating considerable problems in the finance department, as staff and systems failed to keep pace with the evolving demands placed by the museum departments. These problems resulted in outdated policies and procedures, unhappy users, and frustrated employees. The finance department needed big changes but had to make them while maintaining vital functions, improving morale, and instituting new policies and procedures. Discusses several key nonprofit management issues, including change management, the role of leadership in a crisis, the challenge of informal personnel networks and knowledge management, and key financial issues facing nonprofit organizations.

Charles Grace and Jerome Hicks were seated beside each other at a meeting the president of Chase Manhattan Bank Delaware had called. Hicks and Grace were financial associates at Chase Manhattan and members of the Urban Bankers Coalition. As they listened to the president's speech they were staggered to hear him say, "...we need more people to become involved in our community enhancement programs-dedicated employees like Jerome Hicks and Charles Grace who helped Chase Manhattan be named bank of the year for two years straight." His sentence lay like an unexploded bomb between Hicks and Grace. They were aware that all eyes had turned towards them. They had already sensed that some of their colleagues and superiors were uncomfortable with the relationship they had developed with the president. Why did they feel like this would be the last step over the edge???This case opens the door to discuss relationship building and special challenges those in the minority face in building relationships.

The legendary titans of American business could be scheming and ruthless. But a business leader doesn't have to strive for titanhood to benefit from the lessons such giants have to teach. And perhaps by studying them, we can learn to spot titans in the making. Focusing on the experiences of seven great innovators--steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, Kodak's George Eastman, automaker Henry Ford, Intel's Robert Noyce, Revlon's Charles Revson, Wal-Mart's Sam Walton, and IBM's Thomas J. Watson--the author argues that a handful of simple principles were woven into their lives: Have the courage to bet on your vision of market potential. Shape your vision of the market into a mission for the company and consistent messages for customers, employees, and investors. Deliver more than you promise. Be dedicated to your company, even to a fault. And don't look back. The author shows that the titans thought about their companies every waking moment and expected the same of their employees. They were willing to pay whatever price was needed to create something new in the business world. Whether they led through inspiration or intimidation, a clear mission and consistent messages were keys to making their dreams reality. So were a limitless sense of what they had to offer and an unflinching commitment to the fulfillment of their destinies.

Soft management does not mean weak management, says William Peace in this 1991 article. It means candor, openness, and vulnerability, but it also means hard choices and responsible follow-up. It means taking the heat for difficult decisions and giving unhappy subordinates chances to unburden themselves at your expense. In the early 1980s, when William Peace had to lay off 15 people at Westinghouse's threatened Synthetic Fuels Division, he insisted on meeting them in person, explaining the reasons for the layoff and giving them a chance to object, criticize, and vent their anger. In doing so, he also reassured the remaining employees that the division would not be closed immediately. His action so eased the emotional blow for those laid off that when the division got the chance to rehire some of them a few months later, every single one came back, including those who had found other jobs. Peace was emulating the general manager of another struggling Westinghouse division who had delivered a series of informational presentations to a hostile contingent of workers. The upshot of the meetings was greater credibility for the general manager, a big improvement in labor-management relations, and increased productivity and profits.

Leadership is often presented as an abstract undertaking, a matter of vision and values rather than practical details. But in the author's world, the work of leadership is as prosaic as the loose-leaf binder he carried everywhere as he directed the logistics of the 1991 Gulf War. The author was a lieutenant general in the U.S. Army when he wrote this article, originally published in 1992. The roots of his leadership philosophy go back to his native Charleroi, Pennsylvania, where he worked as a newsboy. But his most searing lessons came in places like Vietnam's Mekong Delta. To lead successfully, the author argues, a person must demonstrate expertise and empathy, which can be systematically learned. And true leaders create organizations that support the cultivation of leadership. In other words, anyone who wants to work hard enough can lead. Leaders who send their people out to do battle in the business world have much to learn from Pagonis. Above all, they can learn from the general's ability to see the world from the foot soldier's point of view, even as he surveys the big picture.

Senior managers are used to hearing advice about how they can combat sloppiness and introduce rationality or neatness into their decision making. In this article, first published in 1979, Thomas Peters argues that "sloppiness" is overwhelmingly normal, probably inevitable, and usually sensible. For example, in the course of a typical day, senior executives face endless interruptions and limited options for action. Those in charge may not even hear about choices, or any bad news that might require action, until it's almost too late. Furthermore, any decision that is made will probably require months or years to implement fully. Peters suggests that these "sad facts" of managerial life can be turned into opportunities to communicate values and to persuade. The fragmented nature of the executive's workday can also create a succession of opportunities to tackle bits of the issue stream. The fragmentation is precisely what permits a manager to fine-tune, test, and retest the strategic signals being sent to the company. Peters suggests that the leader's task is not to impose an abstract order on an inherently disorderly process. Instead, the leader must become adept at controlling the process by nudging it in the desired direction.

More and more companies today are facing adaptive challenges: Changes in societies, markets, and technologies around the globe constantly force businesses to clarify their values, develop new strategies, and learn new ways to operate. The most important task for leaders in the face of such challenges is mobilizing people throughout their organizations to do adaptive work. In this HBR article from 1997, the authors suggest that the prevailing notion that leadership consists of having a vision and aligning people with it is bankrupt; this approach ignores the fact that many work situations are adaptive rather than technical. Heifetz and Laurie instead offer six principles for leading adaptive work. The authors say leaders should be able to spot operational and strategic patterns from high within the organization and set or create a context for change rather than get caught up in the field of action. They need to pinpoint just how a company's value systems or methods of collaboration must change as well as to regulate the inevitable distress that adaptive work generates. They also need to maintain disciplined attention among employees as well as give the work back to people, letting employees take the initiative in defining and solving problems. And finally, they need to protect the voices of leadership coming from below. An example of adaptive change at KPMG Netherlands, a professional services firm, illustrates these principles.