Cold Call
HBR Presents / Brian Kenny
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Top 10 Cold Call Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Cold Call episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Cold Call for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Cold Call episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
11/05/19 • 34 min
In 2014, Neel Ghose (MBA 2019) created The Robin Hood Army, an organization entirely based on volunteer work that used food redistribution as a medium to bring out the best in humanity. By the end of 2018, the Robin Hood Army was present in twelve countries, was serving over 500,000 meals per month, and had helped more than 750 children enroll in public schools. All of it without raising a single rupee, in line with their “golden rule” of being a zero-funds organization. Harvard Business School’s Susanna Gallani and Ghose discuss the challenges and opportunities associated with fast growth and international expansion of a startup that operates with no monetary assets, including how to attract, retain, and motivate workers.
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11/15/22 • 27 min
Sylvia’s Restaurant, which celebrated its 60th anniversary in August 2022, is a testament to the values instilled by the founder and matriarch, Sylvia Woods. She cultivated a strong community around her soul food restaurant in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood that has continued to thrive, even after her passing a decade ago.
Amid business expansions and succession planning, the legacy of Sylvia Woods continues to live on. But as Sylvia’s grandson takes over the business, a new challenge faces him and his family: what should the next 60 years of Sylvia’s look like?
Harvard Business School senior lecturer Christina Wing and Kenneth De’Sean Woods, chief executive officer of Sylvia Woods Inc., discuss the case, “Sixty Years of Sylvia’s.”
2 Listeners
06/28/22 • 20 min
Esusu launched in 2018 with a rotational savings product and continued growing their fintech startup in late 2019 with Esusu Rent, a rent reporting tool that enables renters to improve their credit scores. In March 2020, co-founders Abbey Wemimo and Samir Goel were working to determine how best to scale Esusu to advance their mission of promoting financial inclusion in the U.S.
Harvard Business School assistant professor Emily Williams discusses how the two co-founders decided how to allocate resources and scale their business in the case, “Esusu: Solving Homelessness Backwards.”
2 Listeners
06/14/22 • 33 min
In the wake of George Floyd’s killing and widespread protests for social justice in the United States, OneTen was formed by a coalition of 40 large companies to address the disparity in job opportunities for African-Americans without four-year college degrees. Their goal was to provide one million jobs in 10 years. But in order to do that, OneTen had to analyze the underlying problems and formulate recommendations for both system-level problems and those that manifest themselves at an organizational level.
Professor Kash Rangan and OneTen CEO Maurice Jones discuss OneTen’s approach in the case, “OneTen: One Million Opportunities in Ten Years.”
2 Listeners
01/05/21 • 25 min
For family social workers, coping with the hardships of children and parents is part of the job. But that can cause a lot of stress. Is it possible for financially constrained organizations to improve social workers’ well-being using non-cash rewards, recognition, and other strategies from behavioral science?
Harvard Business School assistant professor Ashley Whillans describes the experience of Chief Executive Michael Sanders at the What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care, as he led a research program aimed at improving the morale of social workers in the U.K. The conversation is based on Whillans’ case, “The What Works Centre: Using Behavioral Science to Improve Social Worker Well-being.”
1 Listener
09/20/22 • 30 min
In 2014, Larry Fink started writing letters to the leaders of some of the largest publicly listed companies, urging them to consider the importance of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues.
Fink is the chairman and CEO of BlackRock, one of the largest asset management houses in the world. The firm’s success was rooted in its cost-effective, passive investment products that rely on tracking indices and funds. But Fink wanted his firm to engage with the companies in which they invest and hold them accountable for their social and environmental impacts.
What role should investors play in urging business leaders to take ESG issues more seriously and enforcing compliance? Harvard Business School professor George Serafeim discusses the merits of Fink’s approach, the importance of corporate investments in ESG themes, and how to lead a company driven by purpose and profit in his case, “BlackRock: Linking Purpose to Profit,” and his new book Purpose and Profit: How Business Can Lift Up The World.
1 Listener
08/23/22 • 36 min
Captain Michael Davidson, of the container ship SS El Faro, was determined to make his planned shipping trip on time—but a hurricane was approaching his intended path. To succeed, Davidson and his fellow officers had to plot a course to avoid the storm in the face of conflicting weather reports from multiple sources and differing opinions among the officers about what to do. Over the 36-hour voyage, tensions rose as the ship got closer and closer to the storm.
And there were other factors compounding the challenge. The El Faro was an old ship, about to be scrapped. Its owner, TOTE Maritime, was in the process of selecting officers to crew its new ships. Davidson and some of his officers knew the company measured a ship’s on-time arrival and factored that into performance reviews and hiring decisions.
When the ship ultimately sunk on October 1, 2015, it was the deadliest American shipping disaster in decades. But who was to blame for the tragedy and what can we learn from it?
Harvard Business School professor Joe Fuller discusses the culpability of the captain, as well as his subordinates, and what it reveals about how leaders and their teams communicate under pressure in his case, Into the Raging Sea: Final Voyage of the SS El Faro.
1 Listener
05/31/22 • 22 min
Corruption is as old as humanity, with cases documented as far back as the Egyptian dynasties. While the World Bank estimates that international bribery exceeds $1.5 trillion annually, the larger and more subtle effects of corruption on economies and populations is incalculable.
Harvard Business School professors Geoff Jones and Tarun Khanna explore how corruption uniquely affects business in emerging markets, and why it should be addressed by the public and private sectors in their case, “Corruption and Business in Emerging Markets,” and companion video interviews with more than 100 iconic entrepreneurs in emerging markets.
1 Listener
10/01/19 • 26 min
Harvard Business School professors John Deighton and Jeffrey Rayport discuss their case, “Gimlet Media: A Podcasting Startup,” and how two former public radio producers launch a podcast network, entering the last frontier of digital media. Can they turn a content supplier into a disruptive platform?
1 Listener
01/03/23 • 22 min
Wordle went from a personal game, created by a developer for his girlfriend, to a global phenomenon with two million users in just a few months. Then The New York Times made an unexpected bid to acquire it. But will Wordle outlast other pandemic pastimes?
Harvard Business School senior lecturer Christina Wallace discusses the journey of software engineer and accidental entrepreneur Josh Wardle in the case, “Wordle.”
1 Listener
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FAQ
How many episodes does Cold Call have?
Cold Call currently has 247 episodes available.
What topics does Cold Call cover?
The podcast is about Learning, Marketing, Management, Harvard, Hbr, Teaching, Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Study, Podcasts and Business.
What is the most popular episode on Cold Call?
The episode title 'Can the Robin Hood Army Grow with Zero Financial Resources?' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Cold Call?
The average episode length on Cold Call is 23 minutes.
How often are episodes of Cold Call released?
Episodes of Cold Call are typically released every 13 days, 23 hours.
When was the first episode of Cold Call?
The first episode of Cold Call was released on Sep 16, 2016.
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