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At some point, many managers yearn to confront assumptions, practices, or values in their organizations that they feel are counterproductive or even downright wrong. Yet, they can face an uncomfortable dilemma: If they speak out too loudly, resentment may build toward them; if they remain silent, resentment will build inside them. Is there any way, then, to rock the boat without falling out of it? In 15 years of research, professor Debra Meyerson has observed hundreds of professionals who have dealt with this problem by working behind the scenes, engaging in a subtle form of grassroots leadership. She calls them "tempered radicals" because they effect significant changes in moderate ways. Meyerson has identified four incremental approaches that managers can quietly use to create lasting cultural change. Most subtle is "disruptive self-expression" in dress, office decor, or behavior, which can slowly change an unproductive atmosphere as people increasingly notice and emulate it. By using "verbal jujitsu," an individual can redirect the force of an insensitive statement or action to improve the situation. "Variable-term opportunists" spot, create, and capitalize on short- and long-term chances for change. And through "strategic alliance building," an individual can join with others to promote change with more force. By adjusting these approaches to time and circumstance, tempered radicals work subtly but effectively to alter the status quo. In so doing, they exercise a form of leadership that is more modest and less visible than traditional forms--yet no less significant. Top managers who want to create cultural or organizational change--perhaps they're moving tradition-bound businesses down new roads--should seek out these tempered radicals, for they are masters at transforming organizations from the grass roots.

Cardiac surgery is one of medicine's modern miracles. In an operating room no larger than many household kitchens, a patient is rendered functionally dead while a surgical team repairs or replaces damaged arteries or valves. Each operation requires incredible teamwork--a single error can have disastrous consequences. In other words, surgical teams are not all that different from the cross-functional teams that have become crucial to business success. The challenge of team management these days is not simply to execute existing processes efficiently. It's to implement new processes as quickly as possible. But adopting new technologies or new business processes is highly disruptive, regardless of the industry. The authors studied how surgical teams at 16 major medical centers implemented a difficult new procedure for performing cardiac surgery. The setting was ideal for rigorously focusing on how teams learn and why some learn faster than others. The authors found that the most successful teams had leaders who actively managed the groups' learning efforts. Teams that most successfully implemented the new technology shared three essential characteristics. They were designed for learning; their leaders framed the challenge so that team members were highly motivated to learn; and an environment of psychological safety fostered communication and innovation. The finding that teams learn more quickly if they are explicitly managed for learning poses a challenge in many areas of business. Team leaders in business tend to be chosen more for their technical expertise than for their management skills. Team leaders need to become adept at creating learning environments, and senior managers need to look beyond technical competence and identify leaders who can motivate and manage teams of disparate specialists.

This note can be used in conjunction with any class session where the learning objective is understanding how to manage conflict within organizations. It focuses on interpersonal-conflict styles and offers prescriptions for what styles are appropriate for various conflict situations.

"Garbage in, garbage out" may be true for computers, but a co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto explains why it's exactly the wrong way to think about executive decision making.

Supplements NerveWire, Inc.

Supplements NerveWire, Inc.

NerveWire, a management consulting and systems integration provider based in Newton, MA, was closing in on its second anniversary. In the beginning days of NerveWire, the major challenge was recruiting--finding the right people who embodied its values and business mission. Traditional business enterprises were thirsty for a new type of consulting organization, a partner that would help them utilize the Internet not as a marketing tool, but as a tool to re-design their business models, their internal value chains, and their extended industry value chains to drive significant ROI. NerveWire was created for just that purpose. The year 2001 brought some very new and different challenges. In the fall of 2000, the economy in the United States fell off a cliff, and by the beginning of 2001, NerveWire's Fortune 500 clients, by and large, had frozen all spending in major new technology-centric business initiatives. A Day in the Life of Kirk Arnold, Video and A Day in the Life of Malcolm Frank, Video are required with this case.

Logitech International was a leading maker of mice and other devices for controlling computers, including PC cameras. In 1998, the new CEO learned that the Quickcam business unit of Connectix was for sale, an offer the founders had rejected because the technology was not as good as Logitech's internally developed Web camera, and purchasing an inferior product was not seen as an advantage. The CEO thought that reassessing this acquisition was a good way to examine Logitech's business and organizational model, and the strategic opportunities facing the company. Logitech was an OEM-focused and engineering-dominated company, with power centered in the business units, which developed the technology and developed the retail strategy for the products, and it faced serious competition in the branded retail market. The new CEO wondered whether the brand recognition associated with the QuickCam could be used to Logitech's advantage. The case details for discussion the strategic significance that the rights to an established brand would have on the market position and organizational structure of Logitech.

Paula Evans is in her second year as principal of the only high school in Cambridge, MA. Her mandate when she arrived was to redesign the high school so that long-standing inequities in academic achievement rates across race and socioeconomic class were removed. In her first year, she succeeded in obtaining approval for her proposed redesign and completing the physical and administrative restructuring of the high school. Now in her second year, the reforms in how teachers teach and how the school operates are fully under way. From early indications, she and her hand-picked leadership team are moving the school in the desired direction. But the school committee has just made a policy decision that Evans and her team believe will undo all of the redesign efforts that have been made thus far. Evans has threatened to resign and now ponders what she will tell her leadership team and the faculty the next day.

Supplements the (A) case.

Describes the evolution of USA TODAY Online, the electronic version of the newspaper, within the organizational structure of the newspaper. Describes the tensions and issues that develop and the pressure from the Online division to be spun off. At the same time, CEO Tom Curley sees a greater strategic need for integration. Poses the question of what degree or type of strategic integration is required, what degree of organizational integration this implies, and how it can be achieved.

Supplements the (A) case.

Explores how service organizations respond to changes in work pressure, why they respond the way they do, and what managers can do about it. The system dynamics method captures the organizational and behavioral components of the social systems that produce and consume services, as well as the physical characteristics of the service delivery system. This method also supports the assessment of long-term consequences of complex interactions among responses to work pressure. The major recurring problems observed in the service industry--erosion of service quality, high turnover, and low profitability--can be explained by the organization's response to changes in work pressure. Also suggests ways to identify the structural characteristics that determine the preferred response to work pressure. By providing a specific link between characteristics of service settings and dysfunctional outcomes, the model assists managers in the design of high-leverage policies to eliminate undesired behaviors.

This traditional Midwestern company, a manufacturer of industrial signs and other identification products, didn't even allow employees to have coffee at their desks until 1989. But when Katherine Hudson became CEO of Brady Corp. in 1994, she and her executive team determined that injecting some fun into the company's serious culture could create positive effects within the organization and contribute to increased performance and sales. In this article, Hudson distills her approach to overhauling Brady's culture into six principles of serious fun: More people than you might think are comfortable having fun at work; used with an awareness of cultural sensitivities, fun and laughter really are well-understood international languages; humor can help companies get through tough times; fun can be embodied in formal programs; spontaneous efforts at humor can also be effective; and encouraging fun should begin at the top. She richly illustrates each principle with examples. At Brady, getting people to loosen up and enjoy themselves fosters a company esprit de corps and greater team camaraderie. It started conversations that have sparked innovation, helped to memorably convey corporate messages to employees, and increased productivity by reducing stress, among other benefits. Also, the company has doubled its sales and almost tripled its net income and market capitalization over the past seven years.

According to David Baldwin, a former Major League pitcher, blame can be a powerful and constructive force. It can be an effective teaching tool that helps people avoid repeating their mistakes. When used judiciously--and sparingly--blame can also prod people to put forth their best efforts, while maintaining both their confidence and their focus on goals. The way that blame is managed can influence how people make decisions and perform their jobs and ultimately affect the culture and character of an organization. In the course of his research on how Major League Baseball managers make decisions, Baldwin looked at what functions blame serves and how it's best managed. His observations led him to identify five rules of blame, which, he says, apply to any organization, whether it's the LA Dodgers, General Motors, or a small start-up. First, know when to blame--and when not to. Second, blame in private and praise in public. Third, realize that the absence of blame can be far worse than its presence. Fourth, manage misguided blame. And fifth, be aware that confidence is the first casualty of blame. Managers who follow these rules will use blame in the most positive and effective way.

In theory, value-based management programs sound seductively simple. Just adopt an economic profit metric, tie compensation to agreed-upon improvement targets in that metric, and voila--managers and employees will start making all kinds of value-creating decisions. If only it were that easy. The reality is, almost half of the companies that have adopted a VBM metric have met with mediocre success. That's because, the authors contend, the successful VBM program is really about introducing fundamental changes to a big company's culture. Putting VBM into practice requires a great deal of patience, effort, and money. According to the authors' study, companies that successfully use VBM programs share five main characteristics. First, nearly all made explicit and public their commitment to shareholder value. Second, through training, they created an environment receptive to the changes the program would engender. Third, they reinforced that training with broad-based incentive systems closely tied to the VBM performance measures, which gave employees a sense of ownership in both the company and the program. Fourth, they were willing to craft major organizational changes to allow all of their workers to make those value-creating decisions. Finally, the changes they introduced to the company's systems and processes were broad and inclusive rather than focused narrowly on financial reports and compensation. The authors argue that properly applied, a VBM program will put your company's profitability firmly on track.

The greater the loyalty a company engenders among its customers, employees, suppliers, and shareholders, the greater the profits it reaps. Frederick Reichheld, a director emeritus of Bain & Co., offers advice on improving loyalty that is based on more than a decade of research. Primarily, he says, outstanding loyalty is the direct result of the decisions and practices of committed top executives with personal integrity. The "loyalty leader" companies--those with the most impressive loyalty credentials--are a diverse group, ranging from Vanguard and Northwestern Mutual to Chick-fil-A, Harley-Davidson, Intuit, and Enterprise Rent-A-Car. But beneath their surface variations lie six strikingly similar relationship strategies: 1. Preach what you practice. Executives must preach the importance of loyalty in clear, precise, powerful terms. 2. Play to win-win. It's not enough that your competitors lose; your partners must win. There's a clear connection, for instance, between a company's treatment of its employees and its attitude toward customers. 3. Be picky. A truly humble company knows it can satisfy only certain customers, and it goes all out to keep them happy. Careful selection of employees also plays an important role. 4. Keep it simple. Great leaders understand that they must simplify rules for decision making. 5. Reward the right results. Many companies reward employees who grab short-term profits and shortchange those who build long-term value and customer loyalty. 6. Listen hard, talk straight. Long-term relationships require honest, two-way communication and learning. Exemplary leaders believe that an organization thrives when its partners and customers do.

Stressful conversations are unavoidable in life. In business, they can run the gamut from firing a subordinate to, curiously enough, receiving praise. But whatever the context, stressful conversations carry a heavy emotional load. Indeed, stressful conversations cause such anxiety that most people simply avoid them. Yet it can be extremely costly to dodge issues, appease difficult people, and smooth over antagonisms; avoidance usually only worsens a problem or a relationship. Using vivid examples of the three basic stressful conversations that people bump up against most often in the workplace, the author explains how managers can improve those interactions unilaterally. To begin with, they should approach the situations with greater self-awareness. Awareness building is not about endless self-analysis; much of it simply involves making tacit knowledge about oneself more explicit. Knowing how you react in a stressful situation will teach you a lot about your trouble areas and can help you master stressful situations. The author also recommends rehearsing difficult conversations in advance to fine-tune your phrasing and tone. We all know from past experience what kinds of conversations and people we handle badly. The trick is to have prepared conversational tactics to address those situations.

Nearly one in ten professionals now works part-time. But all too often, part-time work creates as many problems as it solves. At best, many part-timers work more hours than they intended. At worst, they see their importance to their organizations dwindle. Two generations have wrestled with such arrangements, and today some part-time professionals have found ways to overcome the challenges, with shining results. Drawing on two years of research investigating part-time engineers, financial analysts, IT specialists, and consultants, the authors present five strategies that successful part-timers use to make their unique position work for themselves and their companies. To begin with, successful part-time professionals take pains to make their work-life priorities, their schedules, and their plans for the future transparent to the organization. Second, they broadcast the business case for their arrangement, being careful to demonstrate that the arrangement has not disrupted the business and may even have a positive impact. Third, they establish routines to protect their time at work and rituals to protect their time at home. Fourth, they cultivate champions in senior management who protect them from skeptics and advocate for their arrangements up and down the ranks. And last, they remind their colleagues that, despite their part-time status, they're still major players in the organization who cannot be ignored.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Mastering the management of a global business team calls for confronting several unique challenges that tend to exacerbate the more common problems facing all teams, point out authors Vijay Govindarajan, director of the Center for Global Leadership at Dartmouth College's Tuck School, and Anil Gupta, a professor of strategy and global e-business at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business. Of the 70 global business teams studied by the authors, about one-third rated their performances as largely unsuccessful. How can companies reverse the generally weak performance of faltering global teams? The authors' survey of 58 senior executives from five U.S. and four European multinational organizations reveals some hard-earned insights that may benefit your cross-border endeavors. When global business teams fail, it is often due to a lack of trust among team members. As a result, executives guiding global teams must institute processes that emphasize the cultivation of trust. Also high on the list of culpable factors are the hindrances to communication that geographical, cultural, and language differences cause. Even in the case of teams whose members speak the same language, differences in semantics, accents, tone, pitch, and dialects can be impediments. To mitigate the corrosive effects of these cross-cultural impediments, executives are advised to craft a cross-border team's charter, composition, and process carefully--with each aspect equally emphasized. The authors elaborate on how these work holistically to increase the odds that your global business teams will become high-performing sources of invaluable multinational experience leading to competitive advantage.