HBR IdeaCast

By Harvard Business Review

Business

What's HBR IdeaCast about?

A weekly podcast featuring the leading thinkers in business and management from Harvard Business Review.

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Goodbye Bureaucracy, Hello ...

01.19.2021

Martin Lindstrom, founder and chairman of Lindstrom Company, says that many companies are still held back by doing things the way they've always done them, or failing to break down bureaucracy. For Lindstrom, it's not just about getting away from ...

HBR IdeaCast episodes:

01.19.2021 Goodbye Bureaucracy, Hello Common Sense Martin Lindstrom, founder and chairman of Lindstrom Company, says that many companies are still held back by doing things the way they've always done them, or failing to break down bureaucracy. For Lindstrom, it's not just about getting away from ...
01.12.2021 How Empathy Helps Bridge Generational Differences Mimi Nicklin, a business coach and executive, has seen many leaders blame poor performance and communication on generational differences. But she argues managers should spend less time forcing Millennial and Gen Z employees to conform to company culture and more ...
01.05.2021 What Kind of Networker Are You? Marissa King, professor at Yale School of Management, has studied the strengths and weaknesses of different types of social networks. She argues that most of us have a natural style of networking: we favor tight social circles, or brokering across ...
12.29.2020 Stop Micromanaging and Give People the Help They Really Need Colin Fisher, associate professor at University College London's School of Management, conducted in-depth studies at several companies to determine how managers can effectively help employees who need assistance without demoralizing them. He found that the most effective helpers were the ...
12.22.2020 Better Ways to Manage Up and Out 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 ...
12.15.2020 Why Burnout Happens — and How Bosses Can Help 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 ...
12.08.2020 When to Team Up with Your Competition 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 ...
12.03.2020 Race at Work: Lessons in Diversity and Culture from Mastercard 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 ...
12.01.2020 What Business Leaders Should Know About Cryptocurrency 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 ...
11.24.2020 Why Companies and Skilled Workers Are Turning to On-Demand Work 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 ...
11.23.2020 Women at Work: Too Shy to Be a Leader 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 ...
11.17.2020 How Jeff Bezos Built One of the World’s Most Valuable Companies 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, ...
11.10.2020 Managing Working Parents During the Pandemic 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 ...
11.06.2020 Defining and Adapting Your Leadership Style 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 ...
10.27.2020 How Those With Power and Privilege Can Help Others Advance 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 ...
10.20.2020 Why Work-From-Anywhere Is Here to Stay 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 ...
10.13.2020 The Fundamental Human Relationship with Work 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 ...
10.06.2020 How to Build Workplaces That Protect Employee Health 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 ...
09.29.2020 When Efficiency Goes Too Far 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 ...
09.22.2020 The Subtle Art of Saying No 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 ...
09.15.2020 Cultivate a Trans-Inclusive Workplace 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 ...
09.08.2020 Creating More Resilient Supply Chains 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 ...
09.01.2020 To Build Grit, Go Back to Basics 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 ...
08.25.2020 Why Work Friends are Worth It 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 ...
08.18.2020 Breaking Down Bureaucracy and Building Up Workers 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 ...
08.11.2020 Mastering the Art of Persuasion 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 ...
08.04.2020 Adapting Negotiations to a Remote World 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 ...
07.28.2020 Future-Proofing Your Strategy with Scenario Planning 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 ...
07.21.2020 Every Business Can Be a Subscription Business 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 ...
07.14.2020 Helping People Move from Trauma to Growth 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 ...
07.07.2020 Pricing Strategies for Uncertain Times 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 ...
06.30.2020 AB InBev CEO on Adapting in the Face of Crisis 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 ...
06.23.2020 Applying Porter’s Five Forces to Fix U.S. Politics 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 ...
06.16.2020 Megan Rapinoe on Leading — On and Off the Field 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 ...
06.09.2020 Corporate America’s Work in Fighting Racism is Just Beginning Ella Washington, an organizational psychologist at Georgetown University, argues that private sector American organizations have a big role to play in sustaining the fight for racial justice that has gained such momentum in recent weeks. She says that widespread protests ...
06.02.2020 Great Leaders Use Tough Love to Improve Performance Frances Frei, professor at Harvard Business School, says that trust, empathy - and even a bit of tough love - are all essential ingredients to strong leadership in today's world. Successful managers focus on the effect they have on others, ...
05.26.2020 Staying Agile Beyond a Crisis Darrell Rigby, partner at Bain & Company, says many firms have rapidly adopted agile principles to react to the coronavirus crisis. Namely, they’ve been ditching bureaucratic planning processes and instead fast-tracking ideas, holding focused meetings, and empowering decisions at lower ...
05.19.2020 Smarter Side Gigs Ken Banta, founder of the Vanguard Network, and Orlan Boston, partner at Ernst & Young, argue that every aspiring leader needs to have a side gig -- not to pursue a crazy dream or earn some extra cash but to ...
05.12.2020 To Build Strategy, Start with the Future Mark Johnson, cofounder of the consulting firm Innosight, says that too many managers develop strategy while focusing on problems in the present, and that’s especially true during a crisis. Instead, he argues, leaders should imagine the future and work backward, ...
05.05.2020 How Marketers Can Drive Social Change and Profits Myriam Sidibe, senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, says that brands are uniquely positioned to encourage shifts in consumer behavior that benefit individuals, communities, and the environment. A public health expert, she has studied these types of mission-led marketing ...
04.28.2020 Digital Transformation, One Discovery at a Time Rita McGrath, professor at Columbia Business School, says the need for organizations to adopt digital business models is more important than ever. Change is accelerating as startups tackle incumbents. And suddenly the coronavirus crisis is forcing the hand of many ...
04.21.2020 Another Workplace Crisis: Loneliness Vivek Murthy, former U.S. Surgeon General, says that, even before the Covid-19 pandemic, we were facing another health crisis: loneliness. Studies show that, around the world, more people have been feeling a greater sense of social isolation, which has many ...
04.14.2020 Managing Crises in the Short and Long Term Eric McNulty, associate director of Harvard’s National Preparedness Leadership Initiative, studies how managers successfully lead their companies through crises such as the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster and the Boston Marathon terror attack. He identifies the common traps that leaders fall ...
04.07.2020 How Entrepreneurs Succeed Outside Silicon Valley Alex Lazarow, venture capitalist at Cathay Innovation, says that start-ups in cities around the U.S. and the world are creating their own rules for success. While Silicon Valley companies have sparked key innovations and generated huge wealth over the past ...
03.31.2020 Working Parents, Let Go of the Idea of Balance Stewart Friedman, organizational psychologist at The Wharton School, and Alyssa Westring, associate professor at DePaul University’s Driehaus College of Business, say it’s a mistake for a working parent to think of career and home life as competing interests that have ...
03.26.2020 Real Leaders: Oprah Winfrey and the Power of Empathy In 1976, broadcast journalist Oprah Winfrey moved to Baltimore to coanchor the evening newscast at a local TV station. But she struggled in that spot and was moved to the morning talk show. That demotion led Winfrey to discover a ...
03.24.2020 Adjusting to Remote Work During the Coronavirus Crisis Tsedal Neeley, a professor at Harvard Business School, says that there are simple ways leaders can help their employees stay productive, focused, and psychologically healthy as they work from home during the current global pandemic. The right technology tools and ...
03.19.2020 Real Leaders: Abraham Lincoln and the Power of Emotional Discipline In 1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln wrote a scathing letter to his top Union general, who had squandered a chance to end the Civil War. Then Lincoln folded it up and tucked it away in his desk. He never sent ...
03.17.2020 Square’s Cofounder on Discovering — and Defending — Innovations Jim McKelvey, entrepreneur and cofounder of Square, says that most companies that think of themselves as innovative are really just copycats. True innovation, he argues, is about fearlessly exploring novel solutions and dramatically expanding markets. Doing so also helps startups ...
03.12.2020 Real Leaders: Rachel Carson Seeds the Environmental Movement In 1958, writer Rachel Carson began her exhaustive research on the effects of widespread pesticide use for her next book, Silent Spring. Over the next four years, she built up an airtight case showing how the world’s most powerful chemical ...

Older episodes

HBR IdeaCast

What's HBR IdeaCast about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

HBR IdeaCast episodes:

Goodbye Bureaucracy, Hello Common Sense

How Empathy Helps Bridge Generational Differences

What Kind of Networker Are You?

Stop Micromanaging and Give People the Help They Really Need

Better Ways to Manage Up and Out

Why Burnout Happens — and How Bosses Can Help

When to Team Up with Your Competition

Race at Work: Lessons in Diversity and Culture from Mastercard

What Business Leaders Should Know About Cryptocurrency

Why Companies and Skilled Workers Are Turning to On-Demand Work

Women at Work: Too Shy to Be a Leader

How Jeff Bezos Built One of the World’s Most Valuable Companies

Managing Working Parents During the Pandemic

Defining and Adapting Your Leadership Style

How Those With Power and Privilege Can Help Others Advance

Why Work-From-Anywhere Is Here to Stay

The Fundamental Human Relationship with Work

How to Build Workplaces That Protect Employee Health

When Efficiency Goes Too Far

The Subtle Art of Saying No

Cultivate a Trans-Inclusive Workplace

Creating More Resilient Supply Chains

To Build Grit, Go Back to Basics

Why Work Friends are Worth It

Breaking Down Bureaucracy and Building Up Workers

Mastering the Art of Persuasion

Adapting Negotiations to a Remote World

Future-Proofing Your Strategy with Scenario Planning

Every Business Can Be a Subscription Business

Helping People Move from Trauma to Growth

Pricing Strategies for Uncertain Times

AB InBev CEO on Adapting in the Face of Crisis

Applying Porter’s Five Forces to Fix U.S. Politics

Megan Rapinoe on Leading — On and Off the Field

Corporate America’s Work in Fighting Racism is Just Beginning

Great Leaders Use Tough Love to Improve Performance

Staying Agile Beyond a Crisis

Smarter Side Gigs

To Build Strategy, Start with the Future

How Marketers Can Drive Social Change and Profits

Digital Transformation, One Discovery at a Time

Another Workplace Crisis: Loneliness

Managing Crises in the Short and Long Term

How Entrepreneurs Succeed Outside Silicon Valley

Working Parents, Let Go of the Idea of Balance

Real Leaders: Oprah Winfrey and the Power of Empathy

Adjusting to Remote Work During the Coronavirus Crisis

Real Leaders: Abraham Lincoln and the Power of Emotional Discipline

Square’s Cofounder on Discovering — and Defending — Innovations

Real Leaders: Rachel Carson Seeds the Environmental Movement

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