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After a salesman jokingly asks a female colleague if her appearance is the reason for her inclusion in a leadership program, his friend, the only other person present, reports the incident to HR. Then the female colleague must decide, in view of her company's zero-tolerance policy, whether or not to pursue a complaint. This fictional case study by J. Neil Bearden features expert commentary by Maria Galindo and Sarah Beaulieu.

When Jean-Philippe Courtois took control of Microsoft's global sales, marketing and operations in 2016, reporting directly to CEO Satya Nadella, he realised that he needed to lead the organisation away from an "inspection culture" towards a culture of learning and coaching. After a first phase of transformation focused on giving Microsoft's sales teams the right skills to accompany customers as they moved to the cloud, a second phase aimed to fundamentally transform their behaviours and mindsets. The case study describes how Courtois and his leadership team envisioned and executed a culture change effort consisting of harnessing technology to generate insights into employee and partner work patterns and enabling coaching conversations that would help staff more effectively leverage their time to serve customers and attain key results.

India's most recognized celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor has been an integral part of the country's food industry since 1993. As a celebrity chef, Kapoor enjoyed a 17-year run of his hit TV cooking show "Khana Khazana", published more than 100 cookbook titles in multiple languages and endorsed a variety of brands. Kapoor later turned entrepreneur when he established a restaurant company that has partnered with more than 60 restaurant franchisees worldwide and launched his own TV channel-FoodFood. Although Kapoor has multiple businesses, he continues to find more exciting growth opportunities coming his way.

Case A describes a leadership crisis affecting the managing director of the German construction company SÄBU Holzbau GmbH. In 2013, severe organizational problems, such as deficiencies in internal communication, indecisiveness, and a lack of clarity in the distribution of tasks and responsibilities, led to frustrations for both customers and employees. The crisis culminated with three key employees leaving the company because they were no longer willing to cope with what they described as "chaos."

Supplement to case W19170 Case B describes how management at SÄBU Holzbau GmbH was able to overcome the crisis with the help of a team of consultants who supported the company through a change process that significantly altered the its culture.

At the end of 2017, the human resources director at Yuanbo Education Group, a fast-growing educational service enterprise located in Shanghai, China, was struggling to calm down the managers, who were complaining about their salaries. Managers of the established business units were paid a relatively lower base salary but often with a sizable bonus tied to a revenue target. In contrast, the new hires for the recently established business units were paid a much higher base pay but with little or no bonus available. Both veteran and new managers were dissatisfied with their pay structure. The human resources director knew that he needed to take action soon. But what should he do and where should he start?

In June 2018, Ow Fook Chuen, the Accountant-General of the Accountant-General's Department (AGD), was in charge of the Accountant-General's Department (AGD) as it sought to improve through innovation and the use of technology. Being the steward of public sector finance transformation, AGD partnered public sector agencies to uplift the role of finance from being the custodian of public finance, to a strategic partner who empowers decision-making. In its role, AGD had to handle various financial transactions related to the government and its vendors, and process the payroll of all government officers. Staff from AGD were seconded to work closely with other public sector finance professionals in the finance and internal audit departments of various public sector agencies in order to implement key initiatives. To improve the accuracy and efficiency of its processes, AGD had reviewed new technologies and spoke to private sector companies on their experiences. It linked many individual systems used by various ministries across the Whole-of-Government (WOG) into a central data analytics platform to enable public sector agencies to perform their jobs more effectively and efficiently. Despite facing a few challenges, Ow knew that the data analytics journey would help AGD strengthen finance functions across WOG.

The senior vice-president for sustainable investing at the U.S.-based Pax World Funds, a leader in socially responsible investing, needed to identify and invest in companies for the company's Pax Ellevate Global Women's Leadership Fund, an investment fund that promoted labour rights through gender equality. The fund had more than US$200 million in assets under management, a 25 per cent one-year rate of return, and a three-year annual rate of return of 10 per cent. In June 2018, a newly hired analyst was asked to evaluate a company to determine its suitability as a potential gender-lens investment target for the fund, using specific socially responsible investing criteria. She wondered how she should evaluate the company. What characteristics would make it suitable as an investment target for the fund?

Emsad, a company in the oil and gas industry, needs to improve its safety record. The company has safety systems and safety professionals but has not established safety as a core value. Safety is based on compliance and enforcement and production is often seen as more important than safety. The company is seeking a major new client and undergoes a safety audit as part of the client's qualification process. The audit reveals various issues and now Emsad must decide what needs to change to improve safety performance.

Supplement to case TB0551 The 2014 Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) audit by Smith Overland provided an impetus for change. At the time, Emsad's various clients would often try to get Emsadto adopt new safety programs for their specific contracts. Abdulatif Al Numairy, Emsad's CEO, explained the thinking at that time: We decided that we would not do something just for one client. I do not agree if the enhancement or the program is only for the client because we will never get the maximum return. If every client wants it done their way, we will not be successful. We decided that we should try to bring the whole company and even the whole industry to a higher level of performance. Success willbreed success.... Smith Overland agreed and supported a company-wide program. They encouraged us to get other clients on board.

This case examines the leadership challenges associated with maintaining a culture of innovation in established organizations. It asks students to step into the shoes of a leader faced with making several tough decisions about when to invest (or to stop investing) in radical innovation projects. Corning CEO Wendell Weeks, who nearly bankrupted the company in the early 2000s when he overinvested in fiber optics, must initially decide if the company should enter a then-risky deal with Steve Jobs to produce the glass covers for the first generation iPhones. The case then asks students to analyze the Corning's 157-year innovation agenda that started with the development of a bulb-shaped glass encasement for Thomas Edison's new incandescent lamp. In the years that followed, Corning made investments that led to products such as PYREX cookware, fiber-optic broadband cable, LCD television screens, Gorilla Glass, and a recent bet on pharmaceuticals. At the end of the case, Weeks must decide if Corning should continue to invest in a new pharmaceutical packaging product that held enormous promise, but had already cost the company $200 million in R&D and might divert resources and attention from other key business lines.

Thierry Breton, chairman and CEO of IT company Atos, faced a pivotal juncture. After spending eight intense years scaling the company globally to over 100,000 employees in 70 countries, he was ready to take the next crucial step. Breton was convinced that rapid digital shockwaves would cause transformative disruption and become key to competitiveness for companies, including his own. To take the digital leap, Breton needed Atos to undergo dual digital transformation - defined as redesigning the underlying processes and competencies of an organization to become more adaptive using digital technology, from artificial intelligence and machine learning to the Internet of Things, while simultaneously guiding customers through the same changes. Breton had also struck a high-profile partnership with Google to deliver cloud design and artificial intelligence to customers. But now that the deal had been announced, Atos had to deliver. The firm's top leadership was split on how to equip Atos' large workforce for its digital transformation. In one view, Atos needed to motivate the majority of its employees to voluntarily complete digital certification programs. In another view, on-the-job learning was the best way to train both technical and non-technical employees in the digital skills relevant to their respective roles. Breton had to determine which approach would be the fastest and most effective way of upskilling his workforce to meet the demands of dual digital transformation.

Barber Cardiosystems, based in Melbourne, Australia, designs and manufactures therapeutic devices used for treatment of coronary conditions. Over four decades, it has grown to be among the top 200 medical device companies in the world. It competes against much larger companies through a continuous effort to control costs and increase productivity. It does so by aligning operational and human resource practices, particularly employee incentives, with its strategy. Concerns arise in the face of increased competition about whether the company can continue to reduce costs and maintain its margins while keeping both its generous bonus scheme and commitment to guaranteed employment. The company's executive team must decide how to respond. This case is suitable for use in undergraduate, MBA, and executive courses in organizational behavior, leadership, and strategic management. It is especially useful in a module on strategic alignment or organizational design.

A young, female investment banker has just been unexpectedly promoted to managing director of her group-but she'll be taking her mentor's job while he is pushed out over a 10-month stint as a "senior adviser" in their group. This case offers students two decision points and opportunities to practice difficult conversations: first, what should she do, and how, when she first learns of her promotion? Second, what should she do, and how, six months later when her mentor is sabotaging her leadership? The case is designed to surface students' instinctive decision-making and communication tendencies. Thus it is short enough to be read and responded to in class. Students are assigned readings and assignments related to the case after class discussion in which they are encouraged to reflect on their initial responses. The case is quite flexible and would work in any course that deals with leadership, difficult conversations, decision-making, organizational behavior, human resources, and related topics. It is appropriate for a range of levels and audiences, including undergraduate, MBA, and executive education. It can be particularly useful for students early enough in their careers to appreciate that this is a situation that they, in one way or another, may face as they ascend the hierarchy and thus become the formal leader of people who were previously their peer, mentor, or even boss.

Digital collaboration platforms can leverage team diversity and expertise, but business must focus on how distributed teams orchestrate their collaboration and how leaders facilitate innovation. The specific collaboration platform you choose is less important.

The strongest companies today have cultures of continuous education - they are investing in helping employees develop the skills they need to succeed in a changing world.

Common goals and an alignment on strategies enhance collaboration. These articles highlight some best practices, both within an organization and among collaborating companies.

How can we best connect with others, both individually and organizationally? Learn what works (and what doesn't) when directing partnerships.

Findings don't have to be earth-shattering to be useful. In fact, obvious insights can help you overcome three barriers to change in your organization: resistance to new data ("But that's not what my experience has shown"), resistance to change itself ("But that's the way we've always done it"), and organizational uniqueness bias ("That will never work here"). You can also gain trust by confirming what people already believe.