CEOs on Leading Change (HBR Article Collection)

During the best and worst of times, your company must continually adapt to maintain its competitive edge. And as the CEOs in this collection maintain, ongoing change (no matter what your company's situation) requires a critical mass of employees who stay fired up about doing things differently. Consider boom times. Even if business is good, it won't stay good unless you can create an army of change agents--difficult when you lack an immediate, obvious threat. IBM's solution? Build on the core values that made the enterprise successful--and extend those values into the firm's next incarnation. What about when your company looks wildly successful on the surface, but hidden problems (low margins, meager leadership bench strength) spell future doom? Home Depot dealt with this by providing discipline to tame its freewheeling culture. If your company is facing ruin, you have yet another challenge: combating denial. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) won this battle by launching a persuasion campaign spelling out BIDMC's desperate prognosis and the plan to save the organization.