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Asking people to rate themselves has obvious disadvantages: They could fake their way to a higher score, or they might lack self-awareness. But self-report surveys make data collection efficient and offers access to respondents' thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Another benefit many people don't consider: The act of answering the questions can promote greater self-awareness, opening the door to self-development.

In the messy real world of ambiguous evidence and contentious objectives, organizational decisions - especially those about the people you're hiring, developing, managing, and trying to retain - usually hinge on relationships and trust. So, if you work in people analytics, you must learn to traffic in that currency to make an impact. It's not enough to be right. You also have to sell your model or idea. These tactics can help.

In March 2015 London-based management consultancy Clarasys found itself in crisis. Established in 2011, the company had experienced consistent growth since foundation and had expanded staffing levels to service new business accordingly. But it was still in start-up phase and a perfect storm of events had suddenly hit the firm: two potential growth projects were unexpectedly shelved, meaning almost 50% of consultants were no longer on billable client projects, and the company accountants admitted to having made a serious mistake in VAT payments, which meant Clarasys had to make a double payment, for two years' VAT returns, at the same time.

In 2018, Tesla Inc. was one of the highest-valued automobile companies in the United States-despite never reporting profits. Although Elon Musk, the founder and chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., was appreciated for his vision, learning capabilities, active presence on social media, and dedication, he was also criticized for his leadership style and controversial tweets regarding the privatization of the company. Analysts and short sellers believed Musk's narrative ability had caused Tesla Inc. to become overvalued and suspected that the company was actually on the verge of bankruptcy. Did Musk's leadership do more harm than good? Would he be able to save Tesla Inc.?

Supplement to case W19142

In late September 2014, students in the Arnold School of Business (Arnold) full-time MBA program wrote an open-book managerial accounting exam. Immediately after the exam, one of the students, who was also vice-president academic of the Graduate Business Students Association (GBSA), was informed by a classmate that some students accessed the Internet for solutions during the exam. The GBSA representative knew she had to do something but was unsure how to proceed. In part A of the case, the student representative consulted with her colleague, the GBSA president. The two considered four potential courses of action: (1) do nothing; (2) bring the issue to the entire GBSA council; (3) inform the course instructor; or (4) speak directly to the academic chair of the MBA program. In part B of the case, the two student representatives speak with the academic chair, who explained that without any hard evidence of academic dishonesty, little could be done. The academic chair and GBSA representatives must decide how to resolve the issue when any solution is likely to disappoint some students and cause division, and possibly enmity, among classmates who are just one month into their MBA.

In 2014, an entrepreneur in Cape Town, South Africa, started SweepSouth with her husband. Their mission was to enable dignified home cleaning work for the most vulnerable blue-collar workers, and they offered several services to empower them. When the company struggled to meet the demand for domestic services over the December holiday period, the founders realized the extent of the market's need to connect domestic workers with potential clients. Given the entrepreneur's business acumen and her husband's skills and experience in software development, they created a digital platform that was often labelled the "Uber" of domestic services. SweepSouth employed 40 staff members and had 8,000 contractors (referred to as "SweepStars") on the company's platform. In 2018, the two founders wanted to scale up the business for greater social impact and had to choose among expanding the business to other African countries, expanding the service offering to office spaces, or remaining focused on serving the home and adding new services such as gardening and plumbing.

In 2014, as the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) has just brought former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on as chairman of the board, Jean Rogers, founder and CEO, struggles with how best to ensure the nonprofit's financial sustainability while pushing for broad acceptance of its nonfinancial accounting metrics.

Kellie Leitch, a long-time member of Canada's Conservative Party but a relative newcomer as an elected politician, ran in the party's 2017 election for a new party leader. Her platform addressed several issues, but the media focused on two: a commitment to institute screening of newcomers to the country for their adherence to Canadian values and a platform of anti-elite initiatives. By the time the election for leader was held in May 2017, Leitch had been singled out, criticized, and lambasted for a platform that was seen by many as running against not only accepted Canadian values but also her own experience and values. How had her reputation shifted from well-regarded physician and community leader to criticized political candidate? What strengths and experience would she need to rebuild her position?

In July 2018, several employees of Yonghui Superstores stood outside the company's headquarters in Chongqing, China to protest a pay cut that had been imposed on them. In 2012, the national supermarket chain had rolled out a performance monitoring system that periodically identified employees with inferior results. A broad-range profit-sharing plan was linked to the new performance system and calculated results based on team performance. Yonghui Superstores also applied organizational reforms to support the new system. All measures were intended to stimulate overall performance and increase labour efficiency. After the implementation of these measures, Yonghui Superstores saw favourable financial results and improved performance. Its new policies also helped increase personal income for many of its employees. However, the system also sparked anger among some workers who failed to meet predetermined performance expectations. Incidents such as employee protests had to be avoided because they could tarnish the company's brand image. From an organizational perspective, the company also had to balance the interests of the various business divisions, which faced completely different competitive environments. Yonghui Superstores needed a systematic solution for its performance initiative.

Motivation is one of the most studied facets of the management of employees and team members. Countless scholarly papers, articles in magazines, and best-selling books have been written on the subject. The role of coaches in motivating successful sports teams is also a much-loved topic of popular conversation and receives considerable attention in broadcast media and the press. However, almost all of the advice on motivation is prescriptive rather than proscriptive. As far as sport is concerned, the games that get most of the attention in North America are baseball, basketball, football, and hockey, and the rest of the world seems to be soccer mad. Many nations are oblivious to the world's second-most popular sport: cricket. We take an opposing perspective on motivation in this article: rather than instructing how to motivate employees and team members, we suggest four ways to demotivate them. Based on a series of in-depth interviews with some of the world's best professional cricketers, we identify coaching behavior that frustrates and angers them. We use the insights gained to suggest ways in which coaches of all kinds can demotivate. Hopefully, by understanding these behaviors, coaches and managers can strive to avoid them.

Jeanette Williams, the administrative assistant of the IT department of a large firm, had suggested creating a departmental gift fund to which employees would each contribute a set amount each year and that could be used to purchase gifts to mark significant events in the lives of department employees. Though she had managed the fund since its inception, Dave Babcock, the interim manager, had decided to take over its management. Over the course of several months, a number of events occurred requiring the use of the gift fund. In most cases, those events were of the type for which the fund had been created - births, deaths, promotions, and departures. However, Dave had also used the fund to pay for a social event, generating mixed reactions from employees. The fund had been depleted, and Dave had solicited volunteer contributions from employees when more events occurred calling for gifts. Department staff had begun to ask questions about Dave's management of the gift fund. Faced with another event and a depleted fund, Dave had to decide what to do next.

Cristo Rey St. Martin College Preparatory (CRSM), a school with a unique educational model, has built a culture of accountability and student achievement. Founded in 2004 with a mission of serving "young people of limited economic means," the school had a rocky start. It was plagued with student failure, high teacher turnover, and a total lack of accountability on the part of both students and teachers. In 2008, a new principal, Michael Odiotti, was hired to turn around the school. During his early years as principal, Mr. Odiotti faced many challenges, including poor academic results, lack of discipline, the threat of bankruptcy, and insufficient employers to support the school's work-study program. By 2018, the school had overcome some of these obstacles, and its metrics were exemplary. The question CRSM currently faces is how it can bolster a new culture of continuous improvement to avoid complacency while continuing to push accountability to achieve even greater results. This case (though it may stand on its own) is a continuation of the events described in "Creating a Culture of Empowerment and Accountability at St. Martin de Porres High," Cases #5-410-755(A) and (B) (KEL514 and KEL515) (Kellogg School of Management, 2010).

Cristo Rey St. Martin College Preparatory (CRSM), a school with a unique educational model, has built a culture of accountability and student achievement. Founded in 2004 with a mission of serving "young people of limited economic means," the school had a rocky start. It was plagued with student failure, high teacher turnover, and a total lack of accountability on the part of both students and teachers. In 2008, a new principal, Michael Odiotti, was hired to turn around the school. During his early years as principal, Mr. Odiotti faced many challenges, including poor academic results, lack of discipline, the threat of bankruptcy, and insufficient employers to support the school's work-study program. By 2018, the school had overcome some of these obstacles, and its metrics were exemplary. The question CRSM currently faces is how it can bolster a new culture of continuous improvement to avoid complacency while continuing to push accountability to achieve even greater results. This case (though it may stand on its own) is a continuation of the events described in "Creating a Culture of Empowerment and Accountability at St. Martin de Porres High," Cases #5-410-755(A) and (B) (KEL514 and KEL515) (Kellogg School of Management, 2010).

On May 27, 2018, Maryanne Trollope, the Learning and Development (L&D) manager for Anglo American South Africa, was considering her dilemma of handing over her brainchild to her successor. The Building Leaders and Shaping Talent (BLAST) program was a flagship talent management program for young graduates in South Africa, and she wanted to ensure a smooth transition for her successor and to ensure that the BLASTers (BLAST recruits) developed relationships with her replacement. Trollope was meeting with one BLASTer, who had been on an international BLAST placement in London, England. She had to decide when to introduce this recruit to the individual taking over the program and what information and insight she should recommend the recruit share with her colleague. What were the critical success factors of the talent management program, and how could Trollope ensure sustained success and a smooth handover process?

A doctor in the Department of Pediatrics at Riverdale Hospital, an Australian hospital affiliated with the faculty of medicine at a leading nearby university, reported directly to the chair of the department. The doctor received funding for his research in the amount of $380,000 per year, but because he was not a tenured faculty member, he was not able to directly control the contributions. Instead, the fund was administered by the department chair, under the doctor's supervision. While checking the accounting of the fund in December 2010, the doctor discovered an irregularity that made him doubt the chair's administration of the donations. As more clues and irregularities emerged, the doctor became convinced that the fund was being mismanaged and that this mismanagement was being covered up. When he eventually confronted the chair, he found himself in a stressful and difficult situation, with little support. In 2018, the dean of medicine circulated an external audit that claimed there had been no wrongdoing, and the doctor found himself facing a much larger, stronger opponent. Should he take action, pursuing civil or criminal charges? Should he leave the institution and take the donations with him? Should he stay where he was and deal with the consequences?

Scanteak Corporation was a furniture retailer founded in Singapore in the 1970s. By 2010, it had established more than 100 stores around the world. It had also become the first furniture company to be listed on the Taiwan OTC (Over-the-Counter) Exchange. The two founders had invested a great deal in developing the business and preparing their children to become their successors. In 2003, the two founders' daughter joined the company to help grow the family business, achieving great success in brand promotion and market expansion. In 2010, the two founders' son was asked to help with the business in Singapore or Taiwan but rejected their offer, stating that he would only agree if he could independently run the Japan division of the business, which was in deficit. The two founders questioned whether their recently graduated son could handle the business in Japan, and wondered how to respond to his bold request.

Supplement to case W19053 This part (B) of the case follows Scanteak: The Making of Successors in a Family Firm (A) to disclose how the founders of Scanteak Corporation responded to the proposal put forward from their second child, as described in part A of the case. While part A focuses on the issue of succession at the company, part B follows the business developments and discusses the transfer of management rights and family wealth to the next generation.

After finishing a PhD in immunology and working for a few years for a large pharmaceutical company, Eric Lafferty entered an executive MBA program intending to reorient his career toward more meaningful work. Thus he leapt at the chance to work in a significant leadership position at a government agency where he would be in charge of a group that vetted academic proposals to work toward experimental vaccines and drugs. However, he begins to reconsider it all after a series of bad experiences with a direct report whom he cannot fire. The case is designed to surface and explore students' instinctive decision-making and action tendencies around a complicated problem. 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.