Cold Call

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.

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.