From incivility for frontline workers to struggles with hybrid work to actual progress made since the murder of George Floyd, HBR IdeaCast spent 2022 sharing impactful management research and exploring the social and business trends that affect workers and leaders. Join hosts Alison Beard and Curt Nickisch as they listen in on some of their favorite interviews of the year. They share what made these conversations so memorable and insightful and why they’re still worth a listen—or a re-listen—in 2023.

Alison’s and Curt’s Picks:

The Positives—and Perils—of Storytelling
Let’s Protect Our Frontline Workers from Rude Customers
Fighting Bias and Inequality at the Team Level
Sad, Mad, Anxious? How to Work Through Your ‘Big Feelings’
NASA’s Science Head on Leading Space Missions with Risk of Spectacular Failure
Advice from the CEO of an All-Remote Company

Best of IdeaCast 2022

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Few leaders have been trained to ask great questions. That might explain why they tend to be good at certain kinds of questions, and less effective at other kinds. Unfortunately, that hurts their ability to pursue strategic priorities. Arnaud Chevallier, strategy professor at IMD Business School, explains how leaders can break out of that rut and systematically ask five kinds of questions: investigative, speculative, productive, interpretive, and subjective. He shares real-life examples of how asking the right sort of question at a key time can unlock value and propel your organization. With his IMD colleagues Frédéric Dalsace and Jean-Louis Barsoux, Chevallier wrote the HBR article "The Art of Asking Smarter Questions."

Are You Asking the Right Questions?

Many people aspire to entrepreneurship but we all know it's a high-risk endeavor. Bill Aulet, the Ethernet Inventors Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management, has for decades studied what it takes for start-ups to succeed and advises the next generation of founders on how to do it. He discusses the key trends and changes he's seen over the past few years, and outlines concrete steps anyone can take to get a new venture -- including those within larger organizations -- off the ground. Aulet is the author of the newly updated book Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup.

A Roadmap for Today’s Entrepreneurs

The amount of work we need to get done seems to grow daily. To avoid becoming overwhelmed, we have to become more productive than ever. Laura Mae Martin has advice on what has worked well at one of the biggest organizations in the world. She's the Executive Productivity Advisor at Google and shares the practical ways she helps her colleagues and company executives manage their time, calendars, email inboxes, and more. Martin is the author of the new book Uptime: A Practical Guide to Personal Productivity and Wellbeing.

Treat Email Like Laundry — and Other Tips from Google’s Productivity Expert

It's been nearly two decades since the term "glass cliff" was coined; it refers to the tendency for women to break through the glass ceiling to top management roles only when there is a big crisis to overcome, which makes it more difficult for them to succeed. In short, senior female leaders are often set up to fail — and this continues to happen today, as recent examples from business, politics, and academia show. Sophie Williams, a former C-suite advertising executive and global leader at Netflix, has researched why the glass cliff remains a problem and offers advice for women facing them — as well as lessons for the broader corporate world. She's the author of the book "The Glass Cliff: Why Women in Power Are Undermined - and How to Fight Back."

Why the Glass Cliff Persists

A growing number of workers are reaching retirement age around the globe. At the same time, many countries face a worker shortage, especially in critical areas like health care. Ken Dychtwald, cofounder and CEO of Age Wave, says it’s time for companies to stop overlooking this valuable labor pool, because AI alone won't alleviate the tight supply. He explains why many late-career people want to work longer. And he shares creative and often simple ways that companies can keep older workers engaged, including phased retirements, non-ageist recruiting, mentorship programs, and grandparental leave. Dychtwald is a coauthor of the HBR article "Redesigning Retirement."

Best of IdeaCast 2022

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