Nashater Deu Solheim, a forensic psychologist and leadership coach, says many people struggle to gain influence with those in their organization who don't report directly to them. That has only become more difficult in virtual office settings. But she says whether it comes to managing up to your bosses or out to your peers and clients, there are proven techniques to understand others’ thinking and win their respect. She explains her framework of preparation, behavior, and communication methods t...
Dec 22, 2020•25 min•Ep. 772
Christina Maslach, professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, has been studying the causes of burnout, and its impact, for decades. She says that, in a year when everyone feels overwhelmed and exhausted, it's more important than ever for managers to recognize when and why employees are suffering and take steps to solve those problems. In her framework, burnout stems from not only large workloads but also lack of control, community, and/or reward and values mismatches. She...
Dec 15, 2020•25 min•Ep. 771
Barry Nalebuff, professor at Yale School of Management and cofounder of Honest Tea, says too many companies shy away from cooperating with a competitor, and they’re leaving value on the table. He says even when working with other companies to find mutual benefits is not a clear win, cooperating may still be better than not cooperating. He shares how Honest Tea, Apple, Ford, and other firms analyze and capitalize on opportunities without giving up their secret sauce. Nalebuff is the author, with ...
Dec 08, 2020•24 min•Ep. 770
Race at Work is an HBR Presents podcast hosted by Porter Braswell about the role race plays in our careers and lives. In this episode, he speaks with Donna Johnson, former chief diversity officer at Mastercard, about leading the charge on changing company culture and how diversity can drive real business results.
Dec 03, 2020•25 min
Jeff John Roberts, an author and journalist, dug deep into the world of cryptocurrency to figure out what the rest of us really need to know about it. He acknowledges that the proliferation and volatility of digital currencies can make them seem like a fad but argues that the oldest among them -- bitcoin -- and the blockchain technology behind it are here to stay because they offer a more efficient way for companies and consumers to transact. He describes in plain English how crypto works and ex...
Dec 01, 2020•27 min•Ep. 769
Joseph Fuller, professor at Harvard Business School, and Allison Bailey, senior partner at Boston Consulting Group, say that the Covid-19 pandemic is only accelerating a recent trend of companies turning to digital talent platforms for highly skilled workers. The need for agility and specialized skills has more firms seeking help with projects. Meanwhile, more workers are joining these online marketplaces for the promise of greater flexibility and agency. Fuller and Bailey explain how organizati...
Nov 24, 2020•24 min•Ep. 768
Women at Work is a podcast from Harvard Business Review that looks at the struggles and successes of women in the workplace, hosted by HBR's Amy Bernstein, Amy Gallo, and Emily Caulfield. In this episode, you'll hear about the tension that comes from feeling like you are a shy person, but also an ambitious one who want to lead a team. Former clinical psychologist Alice Boyes gives advice on the professional advantages of certain personality traits related to shyness — like sensitivity and though...
Nov 23, 2020•40 min
Sunil Gupta, Harvard Business School professor, has spent years studying successful digital strategies, companies, and leaders, and he's made Amazon and its legendary CEO Jeff Bezos a particular areas of focus. Drawing on his own in-depth research and other sources, including a new collection of Bezos' own writing, "Invent and Wander," Gupta explains how Amazon has upended traditional corporate strategy by diversifying into multiple products serving many end users instead of focusing more narrow...
Nov 17, 2020•27 min•Ep. 767
Ellen Ernst Kossek, management professor at Purdue University, is researching how the pandemic is putting an enormous strain on working parents and the new challenge that poses for their managers. She shares how supervisors can offer much-needed consistency and predictability for working parents on their teams. She also outlines specific ways to give working parents more flexibility while still holding them accountable. Kossek is the coauthor, with Kelly Schwind Wilson and Lindsay Mechem Rosokha...
Nov 10, 2020•28 min•Ep. 766
Suzanne Peterson, associate professor at Thunderbird School of Global Management, says many talented professionals get held back from leadership roles because of relatively intangible reasons. She argues aspiring managers can intentionally alter their everyday interactions in small ways to have a large influence on their professional reputation. She explains how to adopt markers of different leadership styles to be seen as both influential and likable. Peterson is a coauthor of the HBR article “...
Nov 06, 2020•22 min•Ep. 765
Tsedale Melaku, sociologist at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, and David Smith, professor at the U.S. Naval War College, have been looking at the ways people with the most power in society and organizations can become better allies to those who have less authority and influence. In the United States, that typically means white men helping their female co-workers or colleagues of color to advance. In an era when the push for gender and racial equity is gaining momentum, Melaku a...
Oct 27, 2020•38 min•Ep. 764
Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury, associate professor at Harvard Business School, was studying the growing work-from-anywhere movement long before the Covid-19 pandemic forced many more of us into virtual work. He says that more and more organizations are adopting WFA as a business strategy, one that not only reduces real estate costs but also boosts employee engagement and productivity. He acknowledges that there are challenges to creating and maintaining all-remote workforces but outlines research-b...
Oct 20, 2020•27 min•Ep. 763
James Suzman, an anthropologist and former executive, says one way to better understand the future of work is to learn from the history of it. He has studied an ancient hunter-gatherer society in Namibia and says our modern notions of work, economy, and productivity are perhaps too limiting. Suzman argues that humans have always been drawn to work for its intrinsic value, and that managers can prepare for the future workplace by broadening their thinking about work and purpose. Suzman is the aut...
Oct 13, 2020•26 min•Ep. 762
John Macomber, senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and a veteran of the real estate industry, was studying ways to make workplaces safer for employees long before the Covid-19 crisis hit. Now that issues like air and water quality are top of mind, he is encouraging organizations to think more holistically about the buildings in which they operate, balancing cost efficiency and even eco-friendliness with investments in improvements that boost health. Studies show this will not only stop wo...
Oct 06, 2020•27 min•Ep. 761
Roger Martin, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, says that for decades the U.S. corporate system has been obsessed with eliminating inefficiencies. There's a point, his research shows, when these efficiency gains come with even greater social and economic costs. And he believes that the Covid-19 pandemic is increasingly exposing those weaknesses. He argues that leaders and CEOs should reassess and, in some ways, reverse course in their perpetual drive ...
Sep 29, 2020•24 min•Ep. 760
Bruce Tulgan, founder of the management training firm RainmakerThinking, says that the key to career success isn't only embracing opportunities; it's also declining projects, tasks, and requests for help so you create time for the most value-added work. He explains how to evaluate each ask, determine which you should prioritize, and deliver either a strategic "yes" or a well-thought-through no. Tulgan is the author of the HBR article "Learn When to Say No."
Sep 22, 2020•26 min•Ep. 759
Katina Sawyer, assistant professor at the George Washington University, says transgender workers continue to be overlooked even as organizational diversity initiatives become more widespread. Her research shows that many trans employees experience ongoing discrimination, from microaggression to job loss. Sawyer shares effective formal policies and details the informal ways managers can make their workplaces — physical and virtual — truly welcoming for trans people. Sawyer is the author, along wi...
Sep 15, 2020•26 min•Ep. 758
Willy Shih, professor at Harvard Business School, says that the complex, global, and just-in-time manufacturing processes we've developed in recent decades are highly susceptible to breakdowns, especially during a global pandemic. He explains why the shortages we’ve seen in 2020 - in goods from toilet paper to appliances - are indicative of a bigger problem and talks through ways can businesses protect themselves and consumers in the future. Shih is the author of the HBR article "Global Supply C...
Sep 08, 2020•25 min•Ep. 757
Shannon Huffman Polson, a consultant and former military pilot, experienced early on how to build grit. At 19, she was the youngest woman to summit Denali, North America’s highest peak. Then she overcame many obstacles to fly U.S. Army attack helicopters. Today Polson coaches people on developing grit in their careers and workplaces. Building it like a muscle, the process begins with recognizing your story and understanding your core purpose. And she explains how it’s still possible to strengthe...
Sep 01, 2020•25 min•Ep. 756
Shasta Nelson, relationship expert and author, says that work friendships are critical to individual and organizational success but acknowledges that it's not always easy to build these personal -- but still professional - connections, especially when work is virtual. She explains why consistency, vulnerability, and positivity are fundamental to friendship and offers specific suggestions for how to build those things with colleagues. Nelson is the author of the book "The Business of Friendship: ...
Aug 25, 2020•27 min•Ep. 755
Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini, cofounders of the consultancy Management Lab, say that even though we all lament how rigid, parochial, and time sucking bureaucracies can be, they still seem inescapable. The managers who’ve excelled in them often don’t know how to dismantle them — or else they don’t want to. But Zanini and Hamel have studied and collaborated with innovative organizations, and they outline bottom-up ways to empower workers and hack management. Hamel and Zanini wrote the new book “H...
Aug 18, 2020•28 min•Ep. 754
Jonah Berger, professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, says that most of us aren’t approaching persuasion the right way. Pushing people to behave how you’d like them to or believe the same things you do just doesn’t work, no matter how much data you give or how many emotional appeals you make. Studying both psychology and business, he’s found better tactics for bringing people over to your side. One of the keys? Asking questions so people feel like they’re making the de...
Aug 11, 2020•27 min•Ep. 753
Leigh Thompson, professor at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, studies negotiations to understand the path to the "sweet spot" where all sides of the table come away happy. And she says there are more pitfalls on that path when more of us are working remotely and online. She shares how to overcome the common traps of virtual negotiations with trust-enhancing hacks such as E-charisma and language style matching. Thompson is the author of the book “Negotiating the Sweet Spot...
Aug 04, 2020•23 min•Ep. 752
Peter Scoblic, cofounder and principal of the consultancy Event Horizon Strategies, says that too many companies are short-sighted in their strategy-making and don't effectively plan for different potential futures. Using examples from the U.S. Coast Guard, he explains how thoughtful and ongoing scenario planning exercises can help organizations decide which investments will allow them to thrive in varying circumstances and navigate many types of crisis. Scoblic is the author of the HBR article ...
Jul 28, 2020•26 min•Ep. 751
Robbie Kellman Baxter, a strategy consultant, says that subscriptions aren’t just for newspapers and Netflix. She says they can help companies from local retailers to giant industrial manufacturers earn more consistent revenue and develop stronger customer loyalty. And she explains how even during an economic crisis, leaders can adopt a subscription business model to give their organizations a better chance of surviving and thriving. Kellman Baxter is the author of the book "The Forever Transact...
Jul 21, 2020•27 min•Ep. 750
Richard Tedeschi, a psychology professor and distinguished chair of the Boulder Crest Institute, says that crises like the Covid-19 pandemic and its economic fallout as well as the recent racial violence and social unrest in the United States, can yield not just negative but also positive outcomes for individuals, teams, companies, industries, communities and nations. He has spent decades studying this phenomenon of post-traumatic growth and identified strategies for achieving it as well as the ...
Jul 14, 2020•24 min•Ep. 749
Rafi Mohammed, founder of the consulting firm Culture of Profit, says a crisis or recession is not the time to panic and slash prices. He says leaders should instead reevaluate their price strategy — or develop one for the first time — to better respond to customers during the slump and keep them when the economy recovers. He shares examples of companies across a variety of industries that have created effective price strategies as well as his advice for changing prices in response to Covid-19. ...
Jul 07, 2020•21 min•Ep. 748
Carlos Brito, the CEO of Anheuser-Busch InBev since 2008, has worked to build a culture of adaptability and customer centricity at the global brewer. Many of his leadership principles are paying off during the Covid-19 pandemic, as empowered employees have quickly changed course to respond to the crisis. Brito explains the challenges his company faces in a making beer for social gatherings at a time when people need to stay apart for safety, how the company has shifted operations and supply chai...
Jun 30, 2020•23 min•Ep. 747
Katherine Gehl, a former CEO and the founder of the Institute for Political Innovation, and Michael Porter, a professor at Harvard Business School, apply his Five Forces framework to explain why U.S. politics are dysfunctional. They argue that the Republican and Democratic parties make up an industry duopoly with high barriers to entry and low consumer power, and that the resulting lack of competition incentivizes these two dominant players to avoid compromises with majority support. Gehl and Po...
Jun 23, 2020•23 min•Ep. 746
Megan Rapinoe, U.S. women's soccer star and World Cup champion, knows how to perform under pressure, motivate her teammates, and advocate for the causes she believes in. In addition to her stellar play as a professional athlete, she's been outspoken about racial justice, LGBTQ rights, and gender pay equity. She offers lessons on overcoming losses, growing into a leadership role, becoming an ally, and operating as your authentic self.
Jun 16, 2020•25 min•Ep. 745
