Organisational Behaviour
August 2021
Quiet Charisma: Fatima Akilu at the Neem Foundation
By Randall Peterson
When Fati Ibrahim lost her husband and eldest son after Boko Haram insurgents attacked their town of Gwoza in north-eastern Nigeria, she wasn’t alone. She was one of dozens of women who lost family members, homes and livelihoods. Three years later, she found herself queueing outside a tent near Ma...
June 2021
Satya Nadella at Microsoft: Instilling a Growth Mindset (Chinese language)
By Herminia Ibarra, Aneeta Rattan
When Satya Nadella took over as CEO of Microsoft in 2014, he inherited a firm fading toward irrelevance, plagued by internal fights and inertia. Earlier that year his wife, Anu, had given him a best-selling book by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck entitled Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, su...
October 2020
Reinventing performance management at Allen & Overy
By Herminia Ibarra, Carrie J. Fletcher
By early 2019, Magic Circle law firm Allen & Overy (A&O) had replaced its longstanding, traditional annual review system with Compass, a state-of-the-art performance management process based on real-time feedback and planful career development discussions. As Managing Partner Andrew Ballheim...
October 2024
Jean-Philippe Courtois at Microsoft Global Sales, Marketing and Operations: Empowering Digital Success
By Herminia Ibarra, Adam Jones
When Jean-Philippe Courtois took control of Microsoft’s global sales, marketing and operations in 2016, reporting directly to CEO Satya Nadella, he realised that he needed to lead the organisation away from an "inspection culture" towards a culture of learning and coaching. After a first phase of ...
August 2020
Jean-Philippe Courtois at Microsoft Global Sales, Marketing and Operations: Empowering Digital Success (Spanish language)
By Herminia Ibarra
When Jean-Philippe Courtois took control of Microsoft’s global sales, marketing and operations in 2016, reporting directly to CEO Satya Nadella, he realised that he needed to lead the organisation away from an "inspection culture" towards a culture of learning and coaching. After a first phase of ...
June 2016
Satya Nadella at Microsoft: Instilling a Growth Mindset (Spanish language)
By Herminia Ibarra, Aneeta Rattan
When Satya Nadella took over as CEO of Microsoft in 2014, he inherited a firm fading toward irrelevance, plagued by internal fights and inertia. Earlier that year his wife, Anu, had given him a best-selling book by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck entitled Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, su...
March 2020
Ros Atkins and the 50:50 Project at the BBC (B)
By Aneeta Rattan, Oriane Georgeac, Siri Chilazi
Ros Atkins, the presenter of the BBC’s nightly primetime news programme Outside Source, had a distinguished and successful career at the BBC. Despite his successes as a journalist and presenter, however, he knew he was not living up to his own and the BBC’s values and mission when it came to gen...
March 2020
Ros Atkins and the 50:50 Project at the BBC (A)
By Aneeta Rattan, Oriane Georgeac, Siri Chilazi
Outstanding Case Writer Award Finalist (The Case Centre) Ros Atkins, the presenter of the BBC’s nightly primetime news programme Outside Source, had a distinguished and successful career at the BBC. Despite his successes as a journalist and presenter, however, he knew he was not living up to hi...
May 2019
The Maestro Marin Alsop – Leading “Under a Huge Magnifying Glass”
By Randall Peterson, Vyla Rollins, Carrie J. Fletcher
This case study follows the career of world-renowned orchestra conductor Marin Alsop. As a gay woman in a blatantly male-dominated (and often sexist) field, Alsop faced significant challenges in her rise to the top of the profession. At virtually every turning point on her unconventional path, Alsop...
February 2019
Jack Ma at Alibaba: Building a Learning Organisation
By Herminia Ibarra, Jessica Spungin
In September 2018 Alibaba’s co-founder and executive chairman, Jack Ma, announced his plans to step down from the $420 billion Chinese internet company to pursue philanthropy in education. The case describes the evolution of Alibaba’s corporate strategy from Chinese e-commerce pioneer to a compl...