Best Practices of the Best Companies: The Agenda Archives

MicroStrategy Inc.
People and Technology
MicroStrategy Inc. is setting the agenda for leveraging digital technology to create a fast, focused, and well-run organization; to strengthen relationships with customers, suppliers, and partners; and to cultivate new market opportunities.

Updating the Agenda: One Year Later
"If I had more experience, if I was more careful, if I was more competent, maybe this wouldn't have happened."

Web-Exclusive Feature
A year after MicroStrategy Inc. made our Agenda issue for its visionary use of the Web, the company's outspoken CEO shares the key to surviving a nearly catastrophic crash.

Action Items
Four rules for a young, aggressive company that's applying the latest technology to its internal and external operations.

Pioneer Human Services
Social Justice
One of the largest self-sustaining nonprofits in the country, Pioneer has succeeded as a business by employing society's most marginalized people, many of whom have been deemed unemployable by other companies.

Action Items
Four key points of a nonprofit agenda that emphasizes performance as well as people.

1999

Navy Commander D. Michael Abrashoff
Grassroots Leadership
D. Michael Abrashoff sees his mission as nothing less than the reorientation of a famously rigid 200-year-old hierarchy. His aim: to focus on purpose rather than on chain of command.

Updating the Agenda: One Year Later
"I let people know that there's no excuse not to change."

Action Items
Five rules for running a tight ship with grassroots leadership.

The Freeplay Group
Social Justice
The Freeplay Group, based in Cape Town, South Africa, builds products that capture the imagination of the world -- and that change the world.

Updating the Agenda: One Year Later
"We're trying to go from being funky and by-the-seat-of-our-pants to being more organized."

Special Report
The Freeplay Group announces major layoffs.

Action Items
Five principles for making a difference as well as making a profit.

Mayo Clinic
Total Teamwork
Teams of doctors, nurses, and technicians at the world-renowned Mayo Clinic bring new-economy practices to "old-fashioned" medicine.

Updating the Agenda: One Year Later
"It's crucial that the people who make decisions actually know how those decisions will affect patients."

Action Items
Five principles that define Mayo-style teamwork.

Tivoli Systems
Fast Change
Tivoli Systems Inc., a fast-growing outfit that was acquired by IBM, is teaching Big Blue how to move.

Updating the Agenda: One Year Later
"I don't want to use the word 'structure,' but there are now more things in place to help us manage a large global operation."

Action Items
Five rules for blending the power of a corporate giant with the agility of a startup.

1998

Interface Inc.
Sustainable Growth
Ray Anderson of Interface Inc. points the way to high profitability and zero waste -- a future that merges economic growth with social responsibility.

Updating the Agenda: One Year Later
"I want to pioneer the company of the next industrial revolution."