In 1998, the 38-year-old Gary Loveman was completely satisfied with his work as an untenured associate professor at Harvard Business School. He was a popular teacher with a standing room only classes in the service management. He lived comfortably with his family in Massachusetts, and was a successful consulting and executive education jobs with companies such as entertainment Harrah. His prospects of ownership survey, coming in the next year or two, looked good. Then his life changed dramatically when the then CEO of Harrah, Phil Satre, offered him a job as chief operating officer (COO) of the company. Switching from his home in Massachusetts, Loveman took the job and never returned. But hiring Loveman caused some internal and external crash. Loveman had never controlled by anyone except his administrative assistant, and some researchers, it will now operate 15 casinos with more than 10,000 rooms and more than 35,000 employees. The company is also closing one of the largest acquisitions to date, Showboat. In addition, the gaming industry was not, in 1998, the general purpose of MBA, let alone PhD - it was the industry that is dominated by insiders, who spent his career in the gaming industry, working their way from the bottom up. The challenges facing Loveman, he joined the Harrah were huge. He somehow win the trust and respect within Harrah, and in industry. He was to lead through Harrah transition to a more marketing-oriented company and help the company emerge from the financial performance of the plateau. And he had to build a system of relations and potentially achieve energy base position when the CEO Satre retired in five years. What could he do to accomplish this? "Hide
by Victoria Chan, Jeffrey Pfeffer Source: Stanford Graduate School of Business 19 pages. Publication Date: November 4, 2003. Prod. #: OB45-PDF-ENG