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This research case study illustrates the change process adopted by r. Eugene Fidelis Soh and team from an Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) led the change in hospital management and practices. From the emergence of COVID-19 to the outbreak of the Delta variant, and to the sudden surge of cases in September 2021. TTSH has had to strike a difficult balance between battling against the unyielding and evolving coronavirus (on top of its high - and growing - caseload of patients in a large and ageing district) and preparing TTSH for massive organisational transformation as part of Singapore's National Healthcare Transformation as well as its own Vision for 2040. Anchoring on three key queastions for this transformation were asked: Why did TTSH need to undertake this transformation? What was the purpose, cause or belief underlying this movement? How might the hospital align its existing shared visions to its Vision for 2040? What would TTSH look like in 2040?

From its humble beginnings as a paupers' hospital with a mission to care for the sick and poor, Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) has come a long way to become one of the largest and most important multi-disciplinary teaching hospitals in Singapore. Throughout its storied history spanning almost two centuries, it has stayed steadfast in its mission to serve the community, with a strongly ingrained "kampung" spirit in its staff. The past two years have not been easy for TTSH and the National Centre for Infection Diseases (NCID) which is under its administration. In January 2020, the hospital had been at the vanguard of Singapore's fight against COVID-19. The extra workload, coupled with stress caused by the crisis, meant that ensuring Collective Leadership and the well-being of TTSH's staff to stay the fight was essential. Surviving and thriving in a D-VUCA (Disruptive, Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) world sometimes requires a leap of faith. Would collective leadership suffice to bring TTSH from good to great?

Singapore public agency VITAL offered corporate shared services including human resources (HR), payroll, and finance to agencies across the Singapore Public Service. Due to the nature of their jobs, VITAL officers handled a large volume of mundane administrative work. As automation was being increasingly adopted in the workplace, VITAL Chief Executive Dennis Lui decided that his staff should undergo training in areas such as data analytics, design thinking, and low-code/no-code tools to remain relevant. This would also enable them to move up the value chain and command better salaries. However, as in any change management exercise, VITAL's management faced several challenges as they put in place various new initiatives. Meanwhile, VITAL had also been tasked to be the robotics and automation lead for fellow public agencies in the area of corporate and administrative services, while still having to compete with private sector rivals for business as it did not enjoy a monopoly. As the world struggled to find its bearings amid wave upon wave of new developments in the realm of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Lui wondered how he could lead the agency to reach greater heights.

In August 2023, Raviv Zoller, CEO of ICL Group, discussed his upcoming business trip to St. Louis with Eduard Croitoru, VP of ICL Corporate Initiatives, to commemorate the construction of ICL's new $400 million advanced manufacturing facility. In preparation for the facility's launch, Zoller reflected on the transformation of an employee idea into a new and exciting business line for ICL-lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery manufacturing. When he first became CEO of ICL in 2018, he initiated a cultural transformation and tasked Croitoru, his then-Chief of Staff, with launching a company-wide innovation program, the "Business Innovation for Growth" (BIG) Accelerator. BIG became a crucial part of ICL's internal innovation foundation. Simultaneously, Zoller focused on cultivating external innovation partnerships by building an ICL ecosystem, launching the company's agri-food tech startup hub (ICL Planet Startup Hub), collaborating with Israeli and non-Israeli startups, and exploring possibilities in emerging innovation domains. Zoller hoped that the corporate theme for 2023, "Year of Partnerships," would continue to inspire his colleagues to do the hard work of ecosystem-building for the "art of the possible," in years to come, even in the face of tough economic times.

In the summer of 2023, Eduard ("Eddie") Croitoru, Vice President (VP) of ICL Group ("ICL") Corporate Initiatives, was reflecting on ICL's internal ideation program, the Business Innovation for Growth (BIG) Accelerator. When Raviv Zoller became the CEO of ICL in 2018, he recruited Croitoru, then his Chief of Staff, to help embed a culture of innovation throughout the company. He tasked Croitoru with addressing employee engagement and innovation challenges, which led to the creation of BIG. BIG enhanced ideation of employees (called "BIG Agents"), accelerated execution of ideas, and improved collaboration within the organization. Under Croitoru's leadership, BIG had evolved into a process where ICL employees from around the world contributed ideas, many of which would go on to be realized and funded as projects by senior management. Croitoru spent three years refining the program, expanding its reach from 3,500 to all 12,500 ICL employees in four new languages. To push the program forward, he anticipated two challenges ahead-continuing to scale BIG company-wide while combining technology with the human infrastructure needed to optimize the program's success, and fostering more breakthrough, "extra-corerestrial" (beyond the core business) ideas within BIG.

Winter Storm Elliott was a major storm system that grounded air travel across the United States in the days before and after Christmas of 2022. While other major airlines recovered quickly and got passengers to their destinations, Southwest Airlines Co. struggled to recover, cancelling thousands of flights and stranding millions of people over the holidays. The president and CEO of Southwest, Bob Jordan, had only been in his position for about 10 months, and public pressures and media attention tested his leadership. This case explores Jordan's handling of the crisis and the internal and external responses it provoked. The case can be used for a discussion about the symbolic role of leaders during crises, as well as the impacts of making an authentic apology and working to restore trust.

Winter Storm Elliott was a major storm system that grounded air travel across the United States in the days before and after Christmas of 2022. While other major airlines recovered quickly and got passengers to their destinations, Southwest Airlines Co. struggled to recover, cancelling thousands of flights and stranding millions of people over the holidays. The president and CEO of Southwest, Bob Jordan, had only been in his position for about 10 months, and public pressures and media attention tested his leadership. This case explores Jordan's handling of the crisis and the internal and external responses it provoked. The case can be used for a discussion about the symbolic role of leaders during crises, as well as the impacts of making an authentic apology and working to restore trust.

No one doubts ChatGPT's ability to generate lots of ideas. But are those ideas any good? A recent real-world experiment showed that teams engaged in a creative problem-solving task saw only modest gains from AI assistance for the most part-and some underperformed. Surveys conducted before and after the exercise showed that the teams using AI gained far more confidence in their problem-solving abilities than the others did, but that much of their confidence was misplaced. But don't blame the technology, says Kian Gohar, CEO of the leadership-development firm GeoLab and one of the study's authors. "Brainstorming with generative AI requires rethinking your ideation workflow and learning new skills," Gohar says. This article offers guidance for approaching the exercise as a structured, ongoing conversation, opening up a staggering capacity to develop better and more-creative ideas faster.

Thoughtworks, a global software consulting organization, had received tremendous success and appreciation for its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) culture, policies, and enabling practices. While the progressive DEI policies had increased gender representation, the percentage of women in technology continued to be skewed and not be representative of the larger gender composition in society. To address this gap, Thoughtworks initiated a comprehensive program to help support women returning to work after a career break. Titled "Vapasi", the program was initiated in 2014 and included identifying suitable women and selecting and inducting them for structured technology skills and holistic training. Training over 16 batches across multiple cities, covering 3,500+ registrations, and with less than 4.5% dropout, the program was seen as a progressive and successful step in helping build and sustain women in their careers. The HR and marketing teams of Thoughtworks helped identify potential candidates for the program through multiple sources, before screening and selecting the final cohort. The trainers for the technology skills were mostly volunteer employees from Thoughtworks, while soft skills, mentoring, and psychological support building were offered by external experts. Women who successfully completed the training could apply for appropriate jobs within Thoughtworks or anywhere else in the industry. Thoughtworks had recruited 130 such women from the Vapasi program. The investments in the program did not yield a significantly large number of women joining Thoughtworks. Despite all the support, progressive policies, and best-in-class inclusive environment, there appeared to be multiple barriers hindering women from returning to work. The case presents eclectic perspectives and challenges that learners need to understand as they engage with diversity and inclusion

Today, both organizations and employees are increasingly focused on passion. An analysis of 200 million U.S. job postings found that the use of the word "passion" increased nearly tenfold from 2007 to 2019, while a recent survey of thousands of college-educated workers found that 72% of their listed career goals were related to passion-more than both salary and job security. Similarly, more than 90% of surveyed Columbia Business School MBA students listed "pursuing their passion" as an important goal for their future jobs. The belief that passion is a key attribute for employees to pursue and for organizations to nurture has become deeply enmeshed in contemporary society, with the pursuit of passion increasingly being seen as the morally right thing to do.

This field-based case puts students in the role of Nikki Brown, a Black female police officer at the St. Louis County Police Department (SLCPD). After repeatedly witnessing and experiencing acts of discrimination, favoritism, harassment, and racism within the SLCPD, Brown must decide whether to file a formal complaint or remain silent. Reporting illegal, immoral, or unethical behavior within a long-entrenched US police culture could cost Brown her job. Conversely, opting for silence could mean Brown is implicitly perpetuating unethical practices that often harm other officers and citizens like herself. With the pressure mounting, which should Brown choose her career or her conscience? This case has been taught at the Darden School of Business in the first- and second-year MBA elective Talent Management. It is ideal for graduate and executive MBA courses, especially those centered around organizational behavior; talent management or human resources; and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

RA Group, a technology consulting firm, introduced changes in 2019 that were impacting the organization and its employees. Employees were dealing with the transition to a new office location and resulting changes to the company's transportation services, the less private office configuration, a surge of new employees lacking proper supervision, and increased turnover. Employees encountered numerous organizational problems during the change process and were experiencing frustrations with the transition from the way things had been before the changes, leading to an identity crisis and resistance to the changes.

In April 2018, following an in-store incident in Philadelphia that resulted in the unwarranted arrests of two Black men, Starbucks Corporation (Starbucks) faced a severe public relations crisis. A video of the incident, posted on Twitter, quickly generated widespread attention, online criticism, and in-person protests from people who accused the coffee giant of having exhibited racial bias. Within a few days, Starbucks shared press releases that featured its chief executive officer personally apologizing and taking responsibility for the incident, which had resulted from a single employee's actions. The chief executive officer also announced that US Starbucks stores would close for an afternoon, for racial bias training and education. Although many public relations experts and customers commended Starbucks for its response, others continued to criticize Starbucks, claiming that its response wasn't genuine but merely an attempt to protect reputation and avoid losing business. Further, while the training may have yielded positive education for employees, was it enough to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future? What could Starbucks do to demonstrate its intentions were genuine? How could it correct its mistake, address the root cause to keep customers' trust, and thrive as the world's largest coffee retailer?

In 2022, the SEEMA Center for Training and Protection of Women and Children's Rights, a non-profit organization in Khartoum, Sudan, was focused on eradicating the practice of female genital mutilation. The organization was facing cultural, educational, and political challenges in Sudan, as well as tensions from decades of civil unrest, which created barriers for the founder's fight to eradicate FGM. Her work was also greatly challenged by the deep cultural roots of the practice that existed within the country and in the surrounding regions. Female genital mutilation was a traditional ritual that generated a culture of illegal procedures and groups of extremists. These groups countered the work of the organization and made the founder's job all the more difficult. She had to find effective strategies and partnerships to help her achieve her organization's goal of eradicating female genital mutilation.

In the evolving landscape of human resources and organizational development, the TRAIL Talent Management Model emerges as a comprehensive framework aimed at maximizing employee engagement and retention. TRAIL is an acronym that encapsulates the critical components of talent management within an organization: targets, or company goals; recruitment of people in alignment with those goals; assimilation of new hires into the company; idealizing, creating the best possible working conditions; and leaving, meaning handling employee departures. This technical note introduces each component of the TRAIL model and demonstrates how each builds upon the prior components, creating a holistic approach to developing and maintaining a robust workforce. At the Darden School of Business, this technical note is taught in the first- and second-year "Talent Trailblazers" course; it would also be suitable in a module on leadership in organizations.

Founded in 2020, Adventures worked with celebrities in Brazil to create and launch digitally native brands. The idea was to match the celebrity's skill in creating content and entertaining fans with Adventures' skill in consumer packaged goods marketing and operations. Each brand was structured as its own company, with Adventures as the majority shareholder and the celebrity as the minority shareholder. The founders aimed to launch five successful brands over the next five years, generating $100 million in annual sales. Was Adventures a viable business?

Private equity firm Shore Capital Partners is at an inflection point, after 12 years of phenomenal growth and success. Now, as the partners consider options, should Shore remain micro-cap focused, or move into more mid-cap investments? Should Shore hold investments longer? Or should they remain micro-cap focused and instead expand their verticals and volume of deals? Each option will demand a particular organization. Which one is best?

The case looks at an organisation called CSG Group (CSG), which successfully diversified over the span of several years to become an integrated facilities management and talent services provider. Along their journey of diversification, they acquired a business which had misrepresented its finances - however this was only discovered after the sale had gone through. The financially distressed acquisition threatened the future viability of the company and required a swift turnaround in order for the organisation to remain afloat. Many varying turnaround strategies were implemented, and the division ended up successful. During the turnaround, the protagonist took the opportunity to restructure the divisions and merge multiple businesses inside.

In 2022, Mariam Braimah, a digital designer working at Netflix, is considering the next move in her career. She has spent several years at Netflix, and in her spare time, using her savings, has founded a design-focused fellowship program and a consumer insights company based in Nigeria. Is now the time to leave Netflix and start working full time for her African ventures?

In July 2017, the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations in Tofino, British Columbia, Canada, grappled with mounting conservation costs, inconsistent and unreliable funding, and the erosion of their cultural identity within their Tribal Parks. Some of the community's past knowledge had also been lost due to ongoing colonial impacts, and the sacred protocol for visitors to the land was often disregarded. The community also had to contend with the significant expenses required to sustain the lands, aggravated by inconsistent support from tourism operators and the government. Julian Hocki