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• Case | HBS Case Collection | June 2017 (Revised October 2017)

  Becton Dickinson: Innovation and Growth (A)

  Raffaella Sadun, Michael Beer and James Weber

  In late 2015, CEO Vince Forlenza was reviewing Becton Dickinson’s transformation efforts designed to enable the company to innovate and grow in a changing environment. Becton Dickinson had been a successful medical device company for over 100 years. In recent years, cost pressures were causing its major customers to consolidate as well as rethink their purchasing practices—moving from looking for products to looking for cost-effective solutions that added value and improved patient outcomes. These market forces caused Becton Dickinson to try to adapt to remain successful. In 2009, the company used the Growth and Innovation Profiling process to determine what barriers were preventing the company from achieving its strategic objectives. The result showed that the company needed to make changes in the areas of capabilities, coordination, and culture. Forlenza then led a transformation effort consisting of numerous initiatives to overcome these barriers. Despite significant progress over the next few years, by 2013 Forlenza and his team became convinced that these changes alone would not be enough to enable Becton Dickinson to transform into a solutions company and achieve sufficient growth to remain relevant. In early 2015, Becton Dickinson acquired CareFusion, an acquisition 25-times larger than any of its previous acquisitions, and set out to create a new, integrated company made up of the best of both. By late that year, with the integration well underway, Forlenza was asking himself how successful the transformation had been and what he should do next to continue the journey.

  Keywords: Transformation; Change Management; Innovation Leadership; Mergers and Acquisitions; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Health Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States;

  Citation:

  Sadun, Raffaella, Michael Beer, and James Weber. "Becton Dickinson: Innovation and Growth (A)." Harvard Business School Case 717-419, June 2017. (Revised October 2017.)  View Details

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• Supplement | HBS Case Collection | July 2017 (Revised October 2017)

  Becton Dickinson: Innovation and Growth (B)

  Raffaella Sadun, Michael Beer and James Weber

  This (B) case supplements the (A) case by providing additional information and updates through early 2016.

  Keywords: Transformation; Change Management; Innovation Leadership; Mergers and Acquisitions; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Strategy; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Health Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States;

  Citation:

  Sadun, Raffaella, Michael Beer, and James Weber. "Becton Dickinson: Innovation and Growth (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 717-504, July 2017. (Revised October 2017.)  View Details

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• Article | Harvard Business Review

  Why Leadership Training Fails—and What to Do about It

  Michael Beer, Magnus Finnström and Derek Schrader

  U.S. corporations spend enormous amounts of money—some $456 billion globally in 2015 alone—on employee training and education, but they aren't getting a good return on their investment. People soon revert to old ways of doing things, and company performance doesn't improve. To fix these problems, senior executives and their HR departments should change the way they think about learning and development, and because context is crucial, needed fixes in organizational design and managerial processes must come first. The authors have identified six common barriers to change: (1) unclear direction on strategy and values, which often leads to conflicting priorities; (2) senior executives who don't work as a team and haven't committed to a new direction or acknowledged necessary changes in their own behavior; (3) a top-down or laissez-faire style by the leader, which prevents honest conversation about problems; (4) a lack of coordination across businesses, functions, or regions due to poor organizational design; (5) inadequate leadership time and attention given to talent issues; and (6) employees' fears of telling the senior team about obstacles to the organization's effectiveness. They advocate six basic steps to overcoming these barriers and achieving greater success in talent development.

  Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leadership Development; Organizational Design; Employees; Business Processes; United States;

  Citation:

  Beer, Michael, Magnus Finnström, and Derek Schrader. "Why Leadership Training Fails—and What to Do about It." Harvard Business Review 94, no. 10 (October 2016): 50–57.  View Details

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