Change management

When companies cause emotional pain through nasty bosses, layoffs, and change, a certain breed of “healing” manager steps in to keep the gears moving. They are toxic handlers—unsung corporate heroes who save the day, but often pay a high price.

And making reorgs more effective.

Most people use only a few of these tactics. The most persuasive use them all.

Breakthrough innovations--not just steady improvements--in operations can destroy competitors and shake up entire industries. Just look at Dell, Toyota,...

Consumers are hanging up on BlackBerry in droves as they are lured to sexier and sleeker smartphones and tablets. The depth of the challenges facing BlackBerry’s maker, Research in Motion (RIM), are illustrated by its stock price free-fall of more than 80% during the past two years and lower-than-expected BlackBerry sales. BlackBerry’s rise and fall […]

Imagine yourself solving an arithmetic problem with the top managers of a leading Japanese automobile company. As a group, Japanese producers already export 2.3 million passenger vehicles a year to the United States. They are also building capacity for an additional 2.5 million vehicles in North America. You remind your friends across the table that […]

How Michelin gives its frontline teams the power to make a difference

Effective corporate renewal starts at the bottom, through informal efforts to solve business problems.

When a crisis forces outside directors to navigate major changes, investors and directors must adopt new roles. The case of Royal Dutch/Shell provides...

Research on the Great Recession found that aggressive companies outperformed those that hunkered down.

Are your employees engaged in moving your company forward? Here’s how to release their untapped talent and energy.

One can fuel the other.

Based on a database of over 2,500 companies.

“You can’t be serious!” Mike Trail, the president and fourth-generation owner of Trail Manufacturing, stared at five older men standing uncomfortably in his small office. “I’m afraid we are, Mike.” Sandy Mulder, the most senior of the five, was polite but firm. “We won’t switch over to the new equipment. We want to continue to […]

Leaders are well aware of the central role that cross-group collaboration plays in business today. So in planning for collaborative initiatives, they...

It's possible, but the challenges facing the new CEO are systemic.

Shakeouts are a fact of life in almost every industry--witness the shrinking number of players in areas as diverse as banking, software, and hospital...

Lessons on navigating turning points from surveys of 846 senior leaders and 840 employees involved in transformation programs.

Most organizations fail. The vast majority of new restaurants don’t survive two years. Over 90% of the car companies that existed in the early 1900s were gone by the 1940s. At least a few of today’s most successful enterprises appear to be going down the same path. Examples abound of how success creates size, market […]

Andrew Jordan sat at his desk, absentmindedly watching a barge chug slowly upstream on the Thames. The dinner meeting he had scheduled with a select group of senior managers at Universal Products Company, Ltd. would begin in an hour. For three years, it had seemed enough to focus on the business problems of UPC’s Connectors […]