HBR IdeaCast

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 varied groups, or having an expansive list of contacts. But she says we can also tweak the way we build relationships to meet our changing needs. For example, widening our outreach to boost creativity and innovation or focusing on trusted friends and colleagues to increase trust and happiness. King is the author of the book "Social Chemistry: Decoding the Patterns of Human Connection.”

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 companies that have put off digital transformations. She explains how established firms can avoid bet-the-farm moves and instead take small steps and quickly target their experiments. McGrath is the coauthor of the HBR article "Discovery-Driven Digital Transformation."

Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize winner and emeritus professor at Princeton University, and Olivier Sibony, professor of strategy at HEC, say that bias isn't the only thing that prevents people and organizations from making good choices. We’re also susceptible to something they call "noise" - variability in calls made by otherwise interchangeable professionals and even by the same person at a different time or day. But the solution isn’t necessarily taking humans out of the equation with artificial intelligence. There are ways to combat noise, and leaders should take steps to do so. Kahneman and Sibony are the coauthors, along with Cass Sunstein, of the book "Noise: A Flaw In Human Judgment."

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 into and shares how the best ones excel by thinking longer-term and trusting their teams with operational details. He also finds that companies that put people ahead of the bottom line tend to weather these storms better. McNulty is a coauthor of the book “You’re It: Crisis, Change, and How to Lead When It Matters Most” and the HBR article “Are You Leading Through Crisis... Or Managing the Response?”

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 negative affects, including increased blood pressure, reduced immune response, and decreased engagement and productivity at work. But organizations can be a place where people find a greater sense of belonging. Murthy wants us to take loneliness more seriously and focus on fostering the types of authentic connections -- face-to-face and virtual -- that we need to combat it. He's the author of the book "Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World."