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The development and utilization of an intentional Field learning strategy developed for the Obama for President campaign in 2012 following an after action Review calling for it after the 2008 elections

Marie Jackson becomes chief executive officer of Renfield Farms during a period of sluggish growth and an organizational crisis. Jackson develops a new vision statement and begins to experience some success but is met with some skepticism from internal employees because the company's structures and systems do not seem to support the new vision. This case focuses on how Jackson engages and leads a senior team in formulating a vision during a period of change.

As of 2014, housing policies in Singapore continue to be a hot issue with the growing affluence of the population and the long-standing policy of ensuring home ownership for all Singaporeans. Despite the establishment of the Council for Estate Agencies (CEA) in 2010, which put in place tighter competition among real estate agents and stricter regulatory rules targeted at cooling the market, ethical concerns surrounding the real estate industry remain. Complaints are mostly made against the agents' unethical behaviour that arise from unsavoury advertising, marketing and sales tactics. This is especially problematic given that real estate agents have an information advantage over buyers and sellers. Without a strong ethical compass, the desire for personal gain and self-interest can often influence agents to act against their clients' best interests. The question remains, will CEA policy action be enough to solve this dilemma?

A review of the process utilized by the Obama administration to create the Health Care.gov exchange and the problems that resulted from the implementation effort. There is a B case that provides the follow on strategy and processes utilized to get the site up and running after the initial failures of implementation.

A review of the process utilized by the Obama administration to create the Health Care.gov exchange and the problems that resulted from the implementation effort. This case provides the follow on strategy and processes utilized to get the site up and running after the initial failures of implementation.

Today's digital innovations are doing for brainpower what the steam engine, and related, technologies did for muscle power during the Industrial Revolution. They're allowing us to rapidly overcome limitations and open up new frontiers, say Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, who have studied the impact of technologies on economies for years. The two MIT professors believe this transformation will create abundance. But they warn that there may be a dark side: Though the pie will get bigger, not everyone will benefit equally. As computers get more powerful, companies have less need for some kinds of workers. That shift is contributing to a phenomenon the two academics call the Great Decoupling: For decades, per capita GDP, productivity, private employment, and median family income rose in almost perfect lockstep. But in the 1980s, growth in income began to sputter and then began to drop. Adjusting for inflation, the median U.S. household today earns less than the median in 1998 did. Job growth has also slowed. Similar trends are emerging in most developed countries. In this interview, Brynjolfsson and McAfee explore the implications: who will win (workers with tech and creative skills), who will lose (the middle class), and how business should respond to the coming tech surge (develop ways to race with machines, not against them).

Dr. Felton Wayne, the chief medical officer for North Carolina operations at Valley Health (VH), had been working incredibly hard for the past nine months trying to motivate and empower his medical staff, who had become disillusioned by VH's management practices. But he had little to show for his efforts. He felt unappreciated and ineffective in his role. After a tense meeting with his director, during which Wayne was called a "cowboy," he wondered whether he should just go back to doing what he was good at-taking care of patients. This A case is accompanied by a B case.

In response to his meeting with his corporate director, Dr. Felton Wayne considered resigning. He had been chief medical officer at a hospital owned by Valley Health (VH) for 12 months, and it had been a tough year. But after he implemented a few important changes, Wayne started to see results. This case is a continuation of the A case.

On June 6, 2014, the deputy general manager of the human resources department of Xiamen Airlines, based in Xiamen, Fujian Province, China, discussed his company's "best practices" at China's first national forum on aviation security. Since 2009, a significant reform in the company's pilot compensation system had aimed to promote a stronger linkage between their pay and performance. Initial outcomes had been positive, with improved productivity and job satisfaction. Yet, there were ongoing challenges in recruiting and retaining pilots due to increasing shortages of qualified personnel in the domestic and global aviation labour market and greater competition from both state-owned and new private airline companies in China. How could Xiamen Airlines become an employer of choice? Was the high compensation sustainable if the industry became less profitable? What else could the company offer to retain talented pilots?

The Friends of Western Buddhist Order, an organization dedicated to spreading the teachings of Buddha in modern context, started a giftware company called Windhorse, with a two-part vision of making work a context for spiritual growth and raising money for charity. After operating for more than 20 years, Windhorse experienced challenges in keeping up with its rapid business growth. To bridge this gap, the company recruited non-Buddhists to the organization; however, many of the Buddhist members felt that the purpose and meaning that had bonded the members to the organization was fading. As a result, an increasing number of Buddhists started leaving the organization, while many new members were unwilling to work for the low remuneration. Was it viable for such a value-based organization to continue to pursue financial prosperity?

In November 2013, the senior manager of Human Resources at Attock Refinery Limited, headquartered in Morgah Rawalpindi, Pakistan, is considering whether to amend the current performance appraisal system to bring it in line with the goal of creating a performance-oriented culture in the company, which refines 70 per cent of the country's crude oil. Significant changes had been made over the last 14 years, but the current performance management system is still not distinguishing between different categories of performers, and employees continue to complain that everyone gets more or less the same ratings and pay increments regardless of the amount or quality of the work they do. Should the weights for objective setting and competencies in the appraisal forms be adjusted? Should competencies be better defined and training sessions held on how to objectively evaluate them? Should there be more direction at all levels in setting specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely objectives? Considering the views of employees and managers in all departments, he must decide what, if any, changes should be made to promote the desired company culture.

When making decisions, we all rely too heavily on intuition and use flawed reasoning. But it's possible to fight these pernicious sources of bias by learning to spot them and using the techniques presented in this article, gleaned from the latest research. They'll open up your thinking about possible outcomes, objectives, and options and lead to better choices. To broaden your perspective on the future, the authors suggest, you can use proven tactics for improving the accuracy of estimates and preparing for contingencies. You'll think more expansively about your objectives if you come up with many possibilities before deciding what's most important, get input from others, and then carefully examine one goal at a time. And you'll generate better options if you identify several and evaluate them side by side. Don't settle for the first one that's acceptable; imagine that you can't pursue it, and you might find an even stronger alternative. Strong emotional attachments or investments make cognitive biases even harder to overcome. When that's the case, use checklists and algorithms to stay focused on the right things, and set "trip wires" to trigger planned responses at key points in the decision-making process.

We interpret the past--what we've experienced and what we've been told--to chart a course for the future. It seems like a reasonable approach, but it could be a mistake. The problem is that we view the past through filters that distort reality. One filter is the business environment, which focuses on outcomes rather than the processes that lead to them and celebrates successes while ignoring failures, thus making it hard for us to learn from mistakes. Another is our circle of advisers, who may censor the information they share with us. A third filter is our own limited reasoning abilities. We tend to focus on evidence that confirms our beliefs and gloss over information that contradicts them, and we read too much into our personal experience, which inevitably involves a small sample of incidents. We can base our decisions on a clearer view of the world if we study failures and near misses--especially the processes behind them; encourage all employees to pursue preventive measures instead of just solving problems; surround ourselves with people who will speak frankly; search for evidence that our hunches are wrong, and encourage employees, data scientists, and consultants to do the same; and broaden our perspective in order to give new meaning to our varied experiences.

When we make decisions, we make mistakes. We all know this from personal experience, of course. But in case we didn't, a stream of experimental evidence in recent years has documented the human penchant for error. This line of research is probably best known for its offshoot, behavioral economics. Its practitioners have played a major role in business, government, and financial markets. But that isn't the only useful way to think about making decisions. The academic arena alone contains two other distinct schools of thought, one of which has a formal name--decision analysis--and the other of which can be characterized as demonstrating that we humans aren't as dumb as we look. Each school of thought brings vital insights to bear. Managers need to understand when to make decisions formally, when to make them by the seat of their pants, and when to blend those approaches. This article briefly tells the story of where the three schools arose and how they have interacted, beginning with the explosion of interest in the field during and after World War II and continuing to the present day, when companies such as Chevron have hundreds of decision analysts on staff. Its aim is to make readers more-informed consumers of decision advice--which in turn should make them better decision makers.

Matt Decker, the former president of Malkinson Printing Company, a family-owned private printing company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, needed to decide whether to return to the company after quitting more than two years earlier. Matt had been one of the three family members in the fourth generation of Malkinson Printing ownership, along with Brad Malkinson and Ron Malkinson. Matt's exit from Malkinson Printing came during a period when the business had begun to struggle for the first time in its history. The company had always been a successful one, growing with each of its previous generations of ownership, but the printing industry had changed dramatically by the beginning of the twenty-first century. The advent of computer graphics and desktop publishing placed companies like Malkinson at a competitive disadvantage and its owners faced the challenge of sustaining its market. The dynamics of the technological changes that were taking place dovetailed with a fracturing of the family dynamics at Malkinson Printing. Whereas their predecessors had generally agreed on company strategy, the three members of the fourth generation of Malkinson ownership did not get along. Matt had walked out when Brad secretly sold his stake in the business, which left Ron with a 75 percent share of the ownership. Matt was working as a salesman for another printing firm in October 2003 when Ron asked if he would come back. Matt had been critical to the success of Malkinson Printing Company, and Ron said he needed him to help save the business. This case is suitable for courses in family business management or for courses in small business management where family business issues are addressed. It can be especially useful as an introductory case or a second case on family business.

On November 15, 1996, Stanford's Board of Trustees and the University of California (UC) Board of Regents voted to merge their two academic medical centers; on November 1, 1997, the merger became official. However, less than two years later, in October 1999, the merger came to an abrupt end. Was the merger an ill-conceived "snakebit venture" or a reasonable response to the environmental and economic pressures of the time that fell apart in its execution? Would the same ills have befallen Stanford and UCSF regardless of the merger?

Dr. Laurie Gianturco ("Dr. G."), Chief of Radiology at Baystate Health and President of the private imaging practice Radiology & Imaging, Inc. ("R&I"), and her partner for this project, Suzanne Hendery, VP of Marketing & Communications at Baystate Health, considered their new assignment. With Baystate leadership's full executive sponsorship and support, but no additional budget, they were tasked with consolidating two competing practices-one operated by R&I, the other by Baystate Medical Center-to form a new breast services center under the Baystate umbrella. The consolidation would simplify redundant Baystate-affiliated breast services offerings, making the system less confusing for patients and providers while giving Baystate the opportunity to offer more patient-centered services as well as reducing its operating costs and boosting revenues. They knew it would be a complicated project, involving two competing physician practice cultures, three clinical specialty orientations, the potential disruption of existing referral networks, and the merger of imaging services for healthy women along with treatment for women with breast cancer. Despite these challenges, they banded together to define a patient-driven culture, create an integrated program, and build a strong brand anchored by the new facility. Their goal was to gain a competitive advantage by developing a relationship-based approach that would exceed customer (patients and referring physicians) expectations for service. "The financial argument was the easy part," Dr. G reflected. "How to actually design a model of care is where we came to an impasse."

After extensive negotiation, Baystate Health (BH) and the private Radiology and Imaging (R&I) hammered out a clear business plan to consolidate their two practices in a new breast center in a new location. Despite a clear business plan, however, tensions among the two staffs remained high. Project leaders Dr. Gianturco and Suzanne Hendery carefully crafted an internal communication and implementation plan, detailed to the hour, and enlisted a consultant to help to unify the "warring factions." The consultant worked with Dr. G and Ms. Hendery to plan and hold a retreat with all of the stakeholders-clinicians, management, and staff-from all locations and from both legacy organizations, with the goals of constructing a new cultural blueprint and designing a new patient experience.