Publications

June 2008
Case

Rackspace Hosting in Late 2000

By: James L. Heskett and W. Earl Sasser

The leadership team of Rackspace, faced with accommodation of its service offering and dwindling financial reserves, decides to make customer focus the rallying cry of its new strategy. This short case was designed as the discussion igniter for a series of short video... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Finance; Management Teams; Service Operations; Customer Ownership; Strategy

Teaching

Overview

By: Brian L. Trelstad

My teaching focuses on innovation and effectiveness in the social sector. My principal course is on Social Entrepreneurship & Systems Change, and it tries to understand how small teams launch new initiatives to solve big, global, systemic problems. I also teach... View Details

Awards

So! What Award

By: Amy C. Edmondson

Winner of the 2017 So!WHAT Award for the most outstanding article from five years earlier for “CEO Relational Leadership and Strategic Decision Quality in Top Management Teams: The Role of Team Trust and Learning from Failure” (Strategic Organization,... View Details

September 2006 (Revised March 2012)
Case

Fritidsresor Under Pressure (A): The First 10 Hours

By: Joshua D. Margolis, Vincent Marie Dessain and Anders Sjoman

When a tsunami hit Southeast Asia on December 26, 2004, the leadership team at a Swedish tour company must manage a devastating crisis affecting thousands of its customers and employees in Thailand. Documents the challenges the company faced in the first ten hours of... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Leadership; Crisis Management; Natural Disasters; Tourism Industry; Thailand; Sweden

Career Coach

Ellen Harris

Ellen (HGSE ’86) is the Director of Outward Bound Professional/Facilitator at Thompson Island Outward Bound Professional where she is responsible for business development and corporate team and leadership... View Details

Keywords: Consulting; Consumer Products; Education; Hospitality; Manufacturing; Retail; Social Enterprise

August 2020 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Skillz: Esports and Skill-Based Mobile Gaming

By: Andy Wu, David B. Yoffie and George Gonzalez

Founded in 2012, Skillz offered a platform for mobile app developers to monetize skill-based games via prized tournaments. Skillz had over 20,000 registered developers that had created thousands of Skillz-powered games played by over 30 million registered users... View Details

Keywords: Video Games; Mobile; Esports; Applications and Software; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Growth and Development Strategy; Information Technology; Digital Platforms; United States

4 PM – 5 PM EST, 10 Mar 2021
Virtual Programming

Meet the i-labs Unicorns: Celebrating Venture Success Stories

How did two Harvard Innovation Lab alumni teams achieve valuations of more than $1 billion. In a discussion moderated by i-lab executive director Matt Segneri (AB 2004, MBA 2010), Will Ahmed (AB 2012), founder and CEO of WHOOP, and Lissy Hu (MD/MBA 2014), founder and... View Details

11 Feb 2021
Blog Post

2+2 Where Are They Now Spotlight: Ali Evans (MBA 2019)

student business manager within HSA, I gained valuable business and leadership experience managing teams of up to 25 employees and helped launch a startup that was venture funded and is still growing today.... View Details

03 Oct 2023
What Do You Think?

Do Leaders Learn More From Success or Failure?

counterintuitive—that the best performing teams report the most errors. It led her to conclude that teams in which members know they will not be penalized for errors report more errors, learn more, and are... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

June 2014
Supplement

Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (B)

By: Amy C. Edmondson, Bethany Gerstein and Melissa Valentine

In 2006, the leadership team at Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, Inc. had to decide whether to keep its R&D organization in functional departments or restructure it into interdisciplinary teams. This case follows the outcomes of this decision from 2006 to mid-2014, and... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Design; Groups and Teams; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Research and Development; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

February 2023 (Revised March 2023)
Case

Twitter Turnaround and Elon Musk

By: Andy Wu and Goran Calic

Late afternoon on Friday, October 27th, 2022, Elon Musk was the center of attention at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters. The night before, Musk officially took the company private and became Twitter’s majority shareholder, finally ending a months-long acquisition... View Details

Keywords: Elon Musk; Twitter; Acquisition; Revenue; Advertising; Social Media; Business or Company Management; Public Opinion; Job Cuts and Outsourcing

February 2015
Case

Sarah Sullivan at Greater Marketing Solutions (GMS)

By: Thomas J. DeLong, Paul McKinnon and Rebecca McCue

Sarah Sullivan, the new Managing Director of Greater Marketing Solutions, faces the difficult challenge of letting seven professionals go within a short span of time. In doing so she faces two greater challenges: figuring out which individuals to let go and getting her... View Details

Keywords: Stack Ranking; Management; Performance Evaluation

2012
Book

Sleeping with Your Smartphone: How to Break the 24-7 Habit and Change the Way you Work

By: Leslie A. Perlow

Does it have to be this way? Can't resist checking your smartphone or mobile device? Sure, all this connectivity keeps you in touch with your team and the office—but at what cost? In "Sleeping with Your Smartphone," Leslie Perlow reveals how you can disconnect and... View Details

Keywords: Time Management; Internet and the Web; Groups and Teams; Performance Productivity; Globalized Firms and Management; Service Industry

29 Jan 2018
Book

How 'Teaming' Saved 33 Lives in the Chilean Mining Disaster

is in process. Teaming, she says, is essential to organizational learning. In her new book Extreme Teaming: Lessons in Complex, Cross-Sector Leadership, Edmondson, the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business... View Details

Keywords: by Amy C. Edmondson; Mining

17 Jan 2020
In Practice

6 Traits That Set Top Business Leaders Apart

Outside the Building: How Advanced Leaders Can Change the World One Smart Innovation at a Time. 3. They balance confidence and humility "Great leaders have the ability to act decisively and with confidence to inspire their team while... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

February 2003 (Revised February 2009)
Case

Yahoo!: Becoming a Competitor in the Career Listings Space (A)

By: Kathleen L. McGinn and Nicole Nasser

In late 2001, Yahoo!'s new executive leadership team faces a decision. With online advertising revenues significantly off, the company has decided to explore new strategic businesses, including online recruiting. The team must decide whether to make a bid for... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Decisions; Recruitment; Management Teams; Negotiation Deal; Employment Industry