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• Case | HBS Case Collection | 2013

  Southfield Packaging

  Michael Beer and Alisa Zalosh

  Southfield Packaging provides packaging materials and services to medical device manufacturers. The case examines the relationship between a corporate vice president, Mark Sanders, and one of his direct reports, Regional Manager Frank Belby. Sanders' preparation for Belby's annual performance review provides a foundation for discussing the common challenges and difficulties associated with performance reviews. Specific issues include the need to clearly define criteria for evaluation and the question of whether Belby's physical health should play a role in his performance review. Overall, is Southfield's appraisal process a fair and effective way of evaluating employee potential?

  Citation:

  Beer, Michael, and Alisa Zalosh. "Southfield Packaging." Harvard Business School Brief Case 913-562, April 2013.

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• Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | 2013

  Southfield Packaging (Brief Case)

  Michael Beer and Alisa Zalosh

  Citation:

  Beer, Michael, and Alisa Zalosh. "Southfield Packaging (Brief Case)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 913-563, April 2013.

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• Article | Journal of Organization Design | 2013

  The Strategic Fitness Process: A Collaborative Action Research Method for Developing Organizational Prototypes and Dynamic Capabilities

  Michael Beer

  Organizations underperform and sometimes fail because their leaders are unable to learn the unvarnished truth from relevant stakeholders about how the design and behavior of the organization is misaligned with its goals and strategy. The Strategic Fitness Process (SFP) was designed to enable leaders to overcome organizational silence about the misalignment with the environment and chosen strategy. By enabling an honest, organization-wide and public conversation, senior management teams, working collaboratively with scholar-consultants and organizational members, have access to valid data (the unvarnished truth), can conduct a valid diagnosis, and can develop a valid plan to change the structure, processes, and behavior of an organization while at the same time developing commitment that ensures execution. SFP is also a research method. By applying SFP iteratively to new and challenging situations, scholar-consultants can invent new organizational prototypes as well as learn if a standardized and institutionalized organizational learning process like SFP can enhance dynamic capabilities. The SFP model is illustrated with an application to Hewlett-Packard's Santa Rosa Systems Division.

  Keywords: organization alignment; dynamic capabilities; organization design; organizational prototyping; organizational silence; organizational learning;

  Citation:

  Beer, Michael. "The Strategic Fitness Process: A Collaborative Action Research Method for Developing Organizational Prototypes and Dynamic Capabilities." Journal of Organization Design 2, no. 1 (2013).

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