[DRAFT 12-11-10]
Syllabus (MGT 5531):
Leadership, Strategy, and Human Resources
Spring 2011
Lee Bolman
The course will explore challenges that senior executives face in charting a course, marshaling
people and resources, and "moving the whole herd roughly west" – typically in an environment of rapid
change, mind-boggling complexity, and pervasive ambiguity. This is hard work, and places formidable
demands on individuals' intellect, skill, stamina and character.
We will explore these issues through a series of case examples drawn from a range of sectors,
companies and industries. We will begin with post-mortems of some famous disasters: the collapse of
Enron and Worldcom, and the tragic loss of the space shuttle Columbia. We hope to learn more about
why things go wrong, how leaders fail, and what we can do about it. After that, we’ll focus primarily on
success stories, trying to learn from leaders who have achieved significant success, even though we will
see many differences among them. Along the way, we will continually ask what we can learn that applies
to us and our organizations.
We hope to build on everything you've learned in the EMBA program about decision-making, leadership,
people and strategy. The themes we will explore include:
1. Sense-making: finding clarity and direction amid ambiguity and complexity
2. Doing the right thing: identifying and honoring your personal values and best instincts,
preferably with help from those around you.
3. Aligning structure, strategy and environment
4. Aligning people, purpose and culture
5. Strategies for change
Text and Readings:
Readings will include cases, articles and reading from three books, including two that you already know:
Bolman and Deal, Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice and Leadership
Collins, J. Beyond Entrepreneurship: Turning Your Business into an Enduring Great Company.
Gallos, J., Business Leadership: A Jossey-Bass Reader. San Francisco: JosseyBass, 2008.
Missed Classes
A substantial part of the learning in this course will come from discussions and activities in class,
and there is never an adequate substitute for being there. If you must miss class, please email me in
advance. You will be responsible for writing a one-page memo responding to the study questions for
each case study discussed in that class.
Grading
1
Grades will be based on class participation, individual case reflection papers, a final paper, and a
team case leadership task. The case reflection papers are listed as deliverables for specific classes. All
of the case papers will be assessed against the rubric labeled “Strategic Leadership Assessment Criteria."
Appropriate use of ideas from readings and the cases will strengthen your paper, but the emphasis is on
clarity, insight and practicality. Each assignment will receive a grade in points. Please submit all papers
via email. If you don’t get an acknowledgment within 48 hours of sending, send again. Maximum points
for each assignment are as follows:
Philips/Matsushita - Columbia Memo
10 points
Cypress/Starbucks Memo
10 points
Levy/Whitman Memo
10 points
Zappos/GE Memo
10 points
Taran Swan Memo
10 points
Team Case Discussion
40 points
Class participation
10 points
Total:
100 points
Class Leadership
Each team will be responsible for leading a class built around one of the cases. The group’s task
is to use the case as a springboard for a learning experience that is as valuable and provocative as you can
make it. This includes developing the right advance assignment, setting the stage for discussion,
developing discussion questions, and designing activities or experiences that support your session. If you
and another team are each doing sessions in the same class, look for connections that are worth exploring.
The group should be prepared to:
1 Lead the class using a series of questions, prompts, experiences and other teaching tools (such
as video and role-plays) to engage the class in analyzing the case and developing solutions.
2 Summarize the major insights and learning points from the discussion, and link them to major
ideas in the day’s readings that help to illuminate or interpret the case.
Teams will have 90 minutes for their class and should monitor time carefully. Each case
discussion will be followed by 15-20 minutes of class feedback. Everyone on a team does not have to
present. Teams should use their resources in the way they believe will maximize the value of the class.
Saturday, January 22, 1 to 5: Strategy, structure, and ethics: Lessons from Enron and Worldcom
Readings:
Bolman and Deal, ch 19 (“Reframing Ethics and Spirit”)
Collins, chapter 1 “Leadership Style”
Delbecq, “Nourishing the Soul of the Leader,” ch. 38 in Gallos
Case A: Accounting Fraud at Worldcom (HBS 9-104-071
Case B: Either:
The Fall of Enron (HBS 9-109-030)
Or
What Happened at Enron? (Thunderbird, available from HBS)
Both cases chronicle the basic story of Enron’s rise and fall, but with different flavors. “The Fall
of Enron” editorializes less, with more focus on substantive issues. “What Happened at Enron”
has a bit more of a soap opera flavor, with more emphasis on the personalities and actions of the
major players.
Study Questions:
1.
What is the relationship between strategy, organizational culture and ethics?
2.
In what ways were Enron and Worldcom similar and different in how they each went
astray?
3.
What ethical lessons did Enron’s culture teach? Worldcom’s? How about the culture in
your organization?
Deliverables:
None
Saturday, February 5, 1 to 5: Strategy and structure in a turbulent world: Columbia & Philips vs.
Matsushita
The cases this week present two variations on a basic question: how do we keep up with a world
that keeps changing on us, particularly if the way we’ve been doing business doesn’t seem to be
working so well. The Columbia case has more drama and is a little easier to get your head
around. The Philips/Matsushita case is more cerebral, but it challenges you to think long-term
and big picture as it chronicles the interplay between strategy and environment for two
competitors over many decades.
Review Bolman and Deal, Chapter 9.
Ashkenas, et al., “The Boundaryless Organization: Rising to the Challenges of Global
Leadership,” (chapter 15 in Gallos)
Collins, chapter 3 “Strategy”
Review Kotter, “Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail” (chapter 29 in Gallos)
Case A: Phillips vs. Matsushita – A New Century, A New Round [9-302-049]
1. How did Philips become the leading consumer electronics company in the post war era?
2. How did Matsushita overtake Philips?
3. How would you assess the changes each company has made to align strategy, structure,
people, and the market?
4. What recommendations would you make to Gerald Kleisterlee? To Kunio Nakamura?
Case B: Columbia's Final Mission [Multimedia Case, 9-305-032]
Study questions:
1. How would you characterize NASA’s culture? What were its strengths and weaknesses?
2. How did the history of the space shuttle program shape people’s behavior during the first eight
days of the mission?
3. How would you describe NASA’s response to the foam strike in comparison to its response to
the Apollo 13 incident? How does it compare to the Challenger accident in 1986?
4. What differences do you see in the behavior of managers vs. engineers?
5. Putting yourself in the shoes of the manager or engineer whom you followed in the multimedia
case, consider the following questions:
What prior assumptions and beliefs shaped how you thought and acted during the
Columbia mission?
What pressures affected your actions? Where did they come from?
How did NASA’s culture influence how you thought and acted?
If you had been in that person’s shoes during the mission, would you have acted
differently? Why, or why not?
Deliverable (individual): 1-2 page memo on the questions:
1. Based on the cases we examine today, what are the most significant impediments to
organizations’ ability to adapt to changing circumstances?
2. As a leader, what are the most important things you can do to ensure that your organization
can recognize and make the changes it needs to?
Saturday, February 19, 1 to 5: Entrepreneurs as Organization Builders
Collins, chapter 2 “Vision”
Goleman, et al., “Primal Leadership: the Hidden Power of Emotional Intelligence,” (chapter 2 in
Gallos)
Case A: Cypress Semiconductor: Vision, values and killer software [Stanford HR-8A, available
from HBS]
Study questions:
1. What are T.J. Rodgers' leadership strengths and weaknesses? Would you want to work for
him? Why or why not?
2. How do leadership, culture, and strategy align (or not) at Cypress Semiconductor?
Case B: Growing Big While Staying Small: Starbucks Harvests International Growth (Kellogg,
available from HBS)
1. What are Howard Schultz’s leadership strengths and weaknesses? Would you want to work
for him? Why or why not?
2. How do leadership, culture, and strategy align (or not) at Starbucks?
3. It’s happened many times. A company founders when its founder leaves the top job -- until
the founder returns. Prominent examples include Steve Jobs at Apple, Phil Knight at Nike, and,
in today’s case, Howard Schultz at Starbucks. Why did this happen at Starbucks? Did Schultz
pull out too soon? Did he fail to do what was needed to ensure a successful transition to new
leadership?
Deliverable (individual): One-page memo on the questions:
What are the most critical success factors for the founders at Cypress and at Starbucks? What can
you learn from them?
Saturday, March 5, 1 to 5: Leader as Change Agent
Review: Chapters 17 & 18, "Leadership," and “Reframing Change” in Bolman and Deal,
Reframing Organizations
Watkins, “The First Ninety Days of Leadership,” (chapter 21 in Gallos)
Heifetz & Linsky, “A Survival Guide for Leaders” (ch. 35 in Gallos)
Case A: Meg Whitman at eBay (A)
[HBS #9-401-024]
Study Questions:
1. What was the situation that Whitman came into at eBay? What challenges did she face? Why
did eBay need her?
2. How did she get started? What were her objectives? What did she accomplish?
3. What was distinctive about Whitman’s approach to the situation at eBay? How did she deal
with resistance?
4. What can we learn (to do or not to do) from Whitman’s thought processes and her approach to
leading change?
Case B: Paul Levy Taking Charge of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (multimedia
case)
Paul Levy: Taking Charge of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (A) (print case)
“Paul Levy” is an unusual, but very interesting case. It’s a story about a new manager as he takes
on a very challenging set of circumstances. It is told primarily through a series of video-taped
interviews with Levy, plus some supporting material, all on an interactive cd-rom.
1. What was the situation Levy inherited at BIDMC? What challenges did he face? Why had
previous turnaround efforts failed?
2. How did Levy get started in his new job? What were his objectives? What did he
accomplish?
–Before he started? On his first day? His first week?
3. What was distinctive about the way Levy went about formulating, announcing, and
implementing the recovery plan? How did he overcome resistance?
4. What can we learn (to do or not to do) from Levy’s thought processes and his approach to
leading change?
Deliverable (individual): Short paper (1-2 pages) on:
Use the experience of both Levy and Whitman to develop your list of the most important rules for
what works, and what doesn’t work, for change agents who come into an organization from the
outside.
Saturday, March 19, 1 to 5: People and Strategy
We examine two companies that both depend on finding and retaining talent to fuel growth, but
are at very different places in the corporate life-cycle. Zappos is a relatively small, young, fastgrowing company that has been very much in the process of developing the disciplines and
infrastructure it needs to keep moving forward. GE is one of the world's largest and most
successful firms, with elaborate and sophisticated people-management and people-development
systems that have evolved over many decades.
Review chapters 6, 7 in Reframing Organizations
Liu et al., “The value of human resource management for organizational performance.” [HBS
BH255-PDF-ENG]
Collins, chapter 5 “Tactical Excellence”
Case A: GE’s Talent Machine: the Making of a CEO [HBS 9-304-049]
1. Most companies have difficulty producing enough strong candidates for senior management,
but GE has been unusually successful. What philosophy, policy and practices have made GE, as
The Economist put it, “easily the world’s best machine for churning out corporate talent?”
2. How generalizable are GE’s HR policies and practices? How transferable across cultures?
Across industries? Across companies? What could your workplace learn from GE?
3. As Jeff Immelt, is it time to tune up, or overhaul GE’s management development practices?
What would you do about proposals to change the vitality curve, MBA and international
recruitment, and the executive bands?
4. What are the factors that make talent management so important to GE’s success? What
lessons do you take from the case and how could you apply them in your workplace or career?
Case B: Zappos.com 2009: Clothing, Customer Service, and Company Culture [HBS 9-610-095]
1. From its start, Zappos has grown very fast. What has enabled them to develop the human
resources they need to keep growing?
2. How are GE and Zappos similar and different in their approach to recruiting, retaining and
developing people? What, if anything, could each learn from the other?
Deliverable (individual): 1-2 page memo on the questions:
1. What could Zappos learn from GE?
2. What could your organization learn from GE and Zappos?
Saturday, April 2, 1 to 5: Intrapreneurship and Dreams – Taran Swan at Nickelodeon Latin
America
We’ve looked a lot at chief executives this term, but most of us are still somewhere in the middle.
In our final class, we’ll explore opportunities for strategic leadership, innovation and effective
people management from the middle. Taran Swan wanted and got the challenging assignment of
taking an established brand – Nickelodeon– to a new market. We’ll study what she did and how
she did it to see what we can learn.
Readings:
Kotter, “What Leaders Really Do” (chapter 1 in Gallos)
George, “Leadership is Authenticity” (chapter 8 in Gallos)
Case: Taran Swan at Nickelodeon Latin America (A)
Study questions:
1. What grade would you give Taran Swan for her leadership of the Nick Latin America
initiative?
2. How would you describe her leadership approach?
3. What does she do best? What, if any, weaknesses do you see?
4. What are the most important challenges she faces at the end of the case? What should she do
about them? Should she appoint someone as interim director?
Deliverable (1-2 page memo):
1. What can you learn from Taran Swan?