Building Emotional Energy for Renewal: Nissan (Condensed Version)

Nissan was in a desparate situation with staggering debts, losses, producing good but plain-looking cars. How did Carlos Ghosn and the French team manage to implement massive changes in a company deeply embedded in the Japanese culture that is reputed to be nationalistic and averse to major change? How did Ghosn manage to cut cost and increase innovation dramatically at the same time?

While other cases about Nissan may stress the role of urgency, vision, or stretched objectives, and use Kotter's model as an analytic framework to discuss what went right and wrong, this case highligthts the valuable role of middle managers in strategy realization and the role of emotion management to facilitate strategic renewal. The model for emotion management is published in: Huy, Q. 1999. Emotional Capability, Emotional Intelligence, and Radical Change. Academy of Management Review, 24(2): 325-345.