Achieving Breakthrough Value: Action Learning Program

Achieving Breakthrough Value was developed by Professors James Heskett and Earl Sasser of The Harvard Business School and Leonard Schlesinger, former HBS professor and now Vice Chairman and COO of Limited Brands

Achieving Breakthrough Value is a set of concepts that helps senior executives understand how to drive greater profitability by focusing on employee satisfaction and loyalty, which in turn leads to customer satisfaction and loyalty, and ultimately to increased value for shareholders.

These concepts are explored fully in the Achieving Breakthrough Value Action Learning Program, a 4-CD toolkit of materials developed through a collaboration between the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Harvard Business School. In classroom videos, video cases, animated frameworks, slides, and workbook exercises, each CD brings key concepts to life, using best practice examples from well-known organizations.
Module 1: Understanding the Value Profit Chain
Creating value for customers, employees, and shareholders simultaneously is the key to building a successful business. This module introduces the Value Profit Chain framework—a set of relationships that helps executives understand how creating value for employees and customers leads to shareholder value. Southwest Airlines is featured as a best practice example.

Module 2: Launching Transformation Using Value Profit Chain Principles
Once leaders understand the Value Profit Chain, they are ready to learn how to design and lead their own value-based change initiatives. This module describes transformation efforts at Office Depot and Loomis Fargo, and shows a framework of what's needed to make change happen: leadership, values, and vision.

Module 3: Putting the Value Profit Chain to Work
Leonard Schlesinger, former Harvard Business School professor, is putting theory into practice in his current role as Vice Chairman and COO of Limited Brands. In this module he describes the firm's experiments with the Value Profit Chain, and discusses how he engaged managers' support in rolling out changes company-wide.

Module 4: The Value Profit Chain: Sustaining the Gains
Leaders who are successful with short-term business improvements often fail to sustain them in the long term. This module focuses on the need to hardwire an organization to achieve results for customers and remain open to learning, change, and innovation. Lessons are drawn from CEMEX as a best practice example.
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