Alexandra Feldberg and Tami Kim, assistant professors at Harvard Business School and the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, respectively, say companies are overlooking an important place to root out bias: on the front lines with customers. While many firms are promoting a more equitable workforce through their HR functions, too few firms even realize how costly bias can be in everyday interactions between workers and customers. The researchers explain how organizations can identify and address this overlooked problem. Feldberg and Kim are the coauthors of the HBR article "Fighting Bias on the Front Lines."

Companies of every size in every industry and part of the world are basing more of their work around projects. And yet research shows that nearly two-thirds of those efforts fail. Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, who has studied projects and project management for decades, explains how we can do better. He offers advice on the right way to frame projects, how to structure organizations around them, and pitfalls to avoid. Nieto-Rodriguez is the author of the Harvard Business Review Project Management Handbook and author of the article "The Project Economy Has Arrived."

Debbie Cohen and Kate Roeske-Zummer, cofounders of HumanityWorks, are sounding an alarm bell for employee retention. Record numbers of people are quitting their jobs due to burnout and better opportunities. Those resignations leave their former colleagues burdened with even more work and a sense of despair. Cohen and Roeske-Zummer argue that employers should re-recruit their existing employees and even think of them as customers. And the two consultants outline steps managers can take to openly appreciate those employees and keep a positive culture. Cohen and Roeske-Zummer wrote the HBR.org article "With So Many People Quitting, Don’t Overlook Those Who Stay.”

When was the last time you really took a sustained break from work? No emails. No calls. No taking care of that one little thing. For most of us — particularly in the United States -- it's been too long. As we head into the end-of-year holidays, we asked University of Texas psychology professor Art Markman and Cornell University associate professor Kaitlin Wooley to explain why it's so important to take real vacations (or even staycations) and how individuals, bosses, and organizations can do a better job of making them happen.

Heidi Grant, a motivational psychologist, has studied successful people and what makes them tick. In this classic episode, she and former host Sarah Green Carmichael discuss the behaviors of high achievers and how to incorporate them into your own life and work. Grant is the author of the HBR article and e-book "Nine Things Successful People Do Differently.”

Sarah Federman, assistant professor at the University of Baltimore, studies how companies handle their historical misdeeds and what that means for employees and customers. From insurance firms that backed slave owners to railroad companies that transported victims of the Holocaust, many legacy companies can find they played a role in past transgressions. Federman makes a moral and practical argument for uncovering and addressing these misdeeds, even though there may no longer be legal repercussions. And she shares how some leaders have been transparent, apologized, and found meaningful ways to make up for their organization's difficult history. Federman wrote the HBR article “How Companies Can Address Their Historical Transgressions: Lessons from the Slave Trade and the Holocaust.”

A decade ago, the U.S. Supreme Court changed the rules on how businesses could donate to political campaigns. Since then, hundreds of millions of corporate dollars have been spent on local, state, and federal elections, often without transparency. Many CEOs and boards feel this is the only way they can curry favor with policymakers. Dorothy Lund, an associate professor of law at the University of Southern California, and Leo Strine Jr., counsel at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, and Katz and a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Delaware, say this isn't just bad for democracy. It's bad for business because it distracts companies from innovation and growth and risks serious backlash from consumers, employees, and shareholders. They suggest ways to dial back corporate political spending and improve the economy for all. They are the authors of the HBR article "Corporate Political Spending is Bad Business: How to Minimize the Risks and Focus on What Counts.”

Looking at business news and stock market coverage over the past decade (including a few HBR articles), you'd think that just about every traditional, old-economy company has fallen prey -- or will soon -- to tech-focused competitors. But London Business School's Julian Birkinshaw says that story of disruption and destruction is overblown. His research into Fortune 500 and Global 500 organizations shows that, despite the rise of a few tech giants like Amazon and Google, many industries haven't been radically remade and that many older incumbents are still standing strong. He outlines the strategies they've used to do so, from fighting back to reinvention. Birkinshaw is the author of the HBR article “How Incumbents Survive and Thrive.”

You've probably heard about the benefits of mindfulness and how meditation can help you achieve it. But you still can't find the inclination to start or the time to practice regularly. In this short bonus episode, Rasmus Hougaard, the CEO of Potential Project and a meditation expert who has studied with the Dalai Lama, takes us through a short exercise and explains why mindfulness is a game-changer for our careers and well-being. Skeptics welcome!

Purpose has become a corporate buzzword over the past decade. Leaders are embracing the idea that companies can’t just do well financially; they also have to do good for society. But how many organizations are really walking the talk? Ranjay Gulati, professor at Harvard Business School, has studied how dozens of purpose-driven companies -- from Etsy in the United States to Recruit in Japan -- simultaneously pursue profits. He argues that while we all want a win-win, leaders must also sometimes learn to make thoughtful tradeoffs. Gulati is the author of the book "Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies” and the HBR article “The Messy but Essential Pursuit of Purpose.”

Keith Ferrazzi, founder of the consulting firm Ferrazzi Greenlight, led a survey of more than 2,000 executives to study how they reengineered operations during the pandemic. The research identified a kind of extreme adaptability at the team and organizational levels that helped some companies come out on top. Ferrazzi argues that after months of ruthlessly adapting, leaders should continue on a path of resilience and agility to stay competitive in the post-Covid-19 world. And he offers concrete steps to take. Ferrazzi is a coauthor of the new book "Competing in the New World of Work: How Radical Adaptability Separates the Best from the Rest."

Megan Gerhardt, management professor at Miami University, studies the impact of generational conflict on organizations. She says too many leaders see generational lines as a source of division that hurts productivity. But her research shows that age is often an untapped source of diversity. When age-diverse teams are managed well, members share more knowledge, skills, and networks with each other. To foster intergenerational collaboration, she lays out a four-part framework that starts with questioning assumptions and ends with embracing mutual learning. Gerhardt is a coauthor of the HBR article "Harnessing the Power of Age Diversity.”

Over the past few years in the United States, we’ve seen some horrific examples of racism seize the public consciousness. Amid all these tragedies – and the protests that followed – U.S. business leaders promised they would do their part to fight the problem, making workplaces more diverse, equitable and inclusive. But now it's time to go a step further, say James White and Krista White, father-and-daughter authors of the new book, “Anti-Racist Leadership: How to Transform Corporate Culture in a Race-Conscious World”. They share their own experiences as Black Americans in the workplace and lessons from James' time as CEO of Jamba Juice. And they offer advice on how corporate leaders can promote lasting change in their own organizations and society at large.

Madeleine Dore, an author and podcast host, offers a cure for “productivity guilt.” That’s the cycle of dejection she says many of us suffer from when we never reach the end of our lengthy to-do lists (even with modern technology to make us more efficient). Instead of trying to optimize our time, she suggests ways we can step back, listen to ourselves, and plan our days around delight. She offers tips and tricks to make this transition and explains why it can be good for business overall. Dore hosts the podcast Routines & Ruts and wrote the new book I Didn't Do the Thing Today.

As the acclaimed documentarian releases a new two-part PBS series about Ben Franklin, he describes how the U.S. founding father transformed himself from teen runaway to newspaperman, then inventor, then political elder. He explains what current leaders can learn from how Franklin approached business, scientific discovery, and his fellow nation-builders. Ken Burns, whose films have covered everything from the Civil War to baseball, also shares insights on how he and his teammates get their own groundbreaking work done.

Randall Peterson, founding director of the Leadership Institute at London Business School, studies coworker dynamics. He says lately, the idea of head-to-head competition for advancement has gone out of style in favor of a more cooperative ideal. In reality, he says, interpersonal relationships at work can be both. Sometimes you cooperate closely with colleagues. Sometimes you compete directly with them. And sometimes it’s most effective to work independently. He explains how to deal with each scenario. And he shares how managers can help their teams find the right balance. Peterson is a coauthor of the HBR article “When to Cooperate with Colleagues and When to Compete.”

Politics has traditionally been a taboo topic to discuss on the job. But as people get more vocal about their views -- on everything from from climate change to racial justice, elections to invasions -- it's increasingly hard to keep debate out of the workplace. And that can lead to conflicts between colleagues. Julia Minson of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School have studied how political polarization is affecting organizations and have advice on handling the challenges it presents. Together, they wrote the HBR article “Managing A Polarized Workforce: How to Foster Debate and Promote Trust.”

Deborah Ancona, a professor at MIT Sloan School of Management, and Dennis Perkins, CEO of The Syncretics Group, have researched how family dynamics play out in the workplace. They say people often revert to childhood patterns at work. By applying a concept from psychology known as family systems theory, managers and leaders can come to understand how their past influences their behavior and thus can grow professionally. Ancona and Perkins wrote the HBR article "Family Ghosts in the Executive Suite."

We’re all prone to procrastinate. We feel guilty about it. And yet, we still do it. Alice Boyes, a former clinical psychologist and author, says breaking the habit is more than simply a matter of discipline. She explains the different causes of procrastination and shares three approaches to beat it: through habits, emotions, and thought patterns. Boyes wrote the book Stress-Free Productivity and the HBR article “How to Stop Procrastinating.”

It's a cliche, but they say it's best to write what you know. That was the case for comedian Sarah Cooper, who rose to viral social media fame in the Trump era through her lip sync TikTok videos. She formerly worked at Yahoo and Google, and she found her way into comedy, in part, by looking at and pointing out the absurdities of corporate culture. She speaks about how humor helped her manage a team, why she took the big risk to quit her job, and how she's navigating the new work world of Hollywood. Cooper is the author of the forthcoming audio book "Let's Catch Up Soon: How I Won Friends and Influenced People Against My Will."

It feels like a moment of panic for many. While there were some success stories in how public and private sector leaders managed the global pandemic, it isn't over, and many more crises -- from political polarization to climate change to new technological threats -- loom. But one leading political scientist is hopeful that countries and corporations can find ways to overcome their divisions and better collaborate on our most pressing issues over next ten years. He points to historic precedents and makes specific recommendations for the future, noting that in areas where political divisions cause roadblocks, it will be up to corporate leaders to ensure progress. Ian Bremmer is the president and founder of the Eurasia Group and author of the book “The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats – and Our Response – Will Change the World.”

Underperforming state agencies, a natural disaster, and a pandemic are among the many challenges that faced Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker and his former Chief of Staff Steve Kadish. Looking back during the final year of the Baker Administration, they say running a government is very different and often much harder than leading a private-sector company. And they share their four-part framework for breaking down complicated problems with many stakeholders to get results. It’s valuable for anyone in public service, as well as for leaders and managers in large organizations hamstrung by bureaucracy and politics. Baker and Kadish wrote the new book "Results: Getting Beyond Politics to Get Important Work Done."

In eras past, the United States welcomed immigrant laborers to build and support the country's infrastructure and innovators and entrepreneurs to advance its businesses and technology. And yet immigration is a hot-button issue today, with many saying it's a drain on the U.S. economy. Ran Abramitzky, a professor at Stanford University, and Leah Boustan, a professor at Princeton, looked at decades of data to understand the real impact that immigrants and their descendants have on America today. Their findings dispel several modern-day myths and suggest that not just political but also corporate leaders need to push for more rational rhetoric and policies. Abramitzky and Boustan are the authors of "Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story of Immigrant Success."

Kathryn Judge, a finance professor at Columbia Law School, is troubled by the rise of intermediary platforms between products and services and the customers who eventually purchase them. Thanks to technology and globalization, she shows how the importance of “middlemen” in the value chain has increased, along with the length of global supply chains. Judge details the downsides and risks of this trend. And she explains how customers and workers alike can lead to intermediaries offering more transparency and social value. Judge wrote the book "Direct: The Rise of the Middleman Economy and the Power of Going to the Source.”

In an ideal world, professional conflicts are settled with thoughtful discussion and collaborative decision-making. But that’s not usually how it works. More typically, you see leaders - or the loudest voices - win out, leaving others resentful. And sometimes people don’t even try to hash out differences of opinion; they’d prefer to avoid a fight. Bo Seo, two-time world champion debater, says we can learn to disagree in healthier, more effective ways that ultimately generate better outcomes for teams, customers, and shareholders. Seo is also the author of the book “Good Arguments: How Debate Teaches us to Listen and Be Heard.”

For a long time, we have believed that strong corporate governance is enough to prevent CEO malfeasance. However, new research shows that the lifestyle behaviors of executives can spell trouble for companies, regardless of the guardrails in place. Aiyesha Dey, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, has investigated executives’ past criminal records and the cost of their homes and automobiles. Her research has linked an individual’s materialism and propensity for rule breaking to fraud, insider trading, and risky business activities. She says that boards and other hiring bodies should pay more attention to personal behavior when picking organizational leaders. Dey wrote the HBR article "When Hiring CEOs, Focus on Character."

For years, union membership has been shrinking in the United States and many other countries. But recently we've seen a resurgence, with employees in sectors like retail, hospitality, and media organizing to collectively bargain for better pay, benefits, and job flexibility. Thomas Kochan, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, has long studied how unions affect individual, team, and corporate performance. He explains why some fears about them are overblown, how workers form successful ones, and how leaders can partner with these groups to ensure the best outcomes for everyone.

For many of us, uncertainty is nerve-wracking. However, many of our best achievements and meaningful experiences come from a trying time of ambiguity. INSEAD professor Nathan Furr and entrepreneur Susannah Harmon Furr argue that uncertainty and possibility are two sides of the same coin. By learning to welcome and cope with the gray area, an individual can reach better outcomes. They reviewed research and interviewed innovators and changemakers to share best practices of stepping proactively into the unknown. They wrote the new book "The Upside of Uncertainty: A Guide to Finding Possibility in the Unknown" and the HBR article "How to Overcome Your Fear of the Unknown."

Around the world, we've become increasingly cynical about other people, public institutions, and corporations. In Edelman's 2022 Trust Barometer, nearly 60% of respondents across 27 countries reported that their default is to distrust. And that's very bad for business, says Stanford University associate professor of psychology Jamil Zaki. He says that cynics perform and feel worse, and in workplaces, they breed toxicity and lead to poor outcomes . He explains how to identify and change this kind of behavior at your organization. Zaki wrote the HBR article, “Don't Let Cynicism Undermine Your Workplace."

Making business decisions often means choosing one path over another. And psychology research shows that our brains are wired to make either-or choices. But Wendy Smith, management professor at the University of Delaware, and Marianne Lewis, dean of the University of Cincinnati Lindner College of Business, argue for moving beyond tradeoffs. The researchers teach leaders how to embrace ambiguity and paradox to come up with solutions that are far better than one choice or the other. And they share practical advice as well as stories of people who have discovered opportunities for innovation and personal growth. Smith and Lewis wrote the new book "Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems."

Work is challenging for lots of reasons, but most of us have probably come to realize that what makes or break a professional experience is people - and sometimes we encounter a boss, peer, or direct report that isn’t at all fun to work with. Amy Gallo is a contributing editor at HBR, and author of the book "Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone, Even Difficult People" and the HBR article “How to Navigate Conflict with a Coworker.” She shares some of the best ways to deal with these kinds of colleagues – how to identify them, engage with them, and manage yourself through the conflict.

It's a dilemma facing more and more brands: should you sell your goods on Amazon? It's the most visited e-commerce platform in the U.S. and the dominant retailer in 28 other countries. But that reach comes at a price. There are downsides like costs, competition, and lack of data. Ayelet Israeli is an associate professor at Harvard Business School and a coauthor of the HBR article "Should Your Company Sell on Amazon?" She talks through step-by-step how businesses can decide whether Amazon is right for them.

Rolling Stone launched in 1967 with a mission to not only redefine music journalism but also chronicle important societal changes. Under the leadership of founding editor and publisher Jann Wenner, it published work from some of the 20th century’s greatest writers, reporters, designers and photographers. He explains how he identified and managed that talent and shares other lessons from his five decades at the forefront of rock and roll. Wenner is the author of "Like a Rolling Stone: A Memoir."

Measuring a broad set of standards across the organization seems like a fair way to judge employees’ performance year over year. But Heidi Gardner, distinguished fellow at Harvard Law School, says performance management systems often incentivize employees to scramble to hit their numbers and lose sight of the organizations’ bigger objectives. To boost collaboration and long-term customer value, Gardner shares a four-part scorecard that establishes shared organizational goals while also holding employees accountable for individual results. With Ivan Matviak of Clearwater Analytics, Gardner wrote the HBR article “Performance Management Shouldn’t Kill Collaboration.”

Most organizations have now accepted that the days of all their knowledge workers coming into the office full time are over. So what's next? Sid Sijbrandij, CEO and cofounder of Gitlab, thinks all-remote can be the answer. His open-source software development company took that approach from the start not because of the pandemic but because its founding team was dispersed and early employees were more productive at home. Now with more than 1,300 people spread across more than 60 countries, GitLab is said to be the world’s largest all-remote company. He shares the lessons he's learned about the best way to manage a distributed workforce.

Influential business and management ideas have tremendous influence over us. Like it or not, they shape how organizations are run and how people around the world spend their days. And Harvard Business Review has introduced and spread many of these consequential ideas since its founding in 1922. HBR IdeaCast is taking this 100th anniversary to ask: how have these ideas changed our lives? And where are they taking us in the future? Each Thursday in October, the podcast feed will feature a bonus series: 4 Business Ideas That Changed the World. Each week, a different HBR editor talks to world-class scholars and experts on influential business and management ideas of HBR’s first 100 years: disruptive innovation, scientific management, shareholder value, and emotional intelligence. Listen to the conversations to better understand our work life, how far it’s come, and how far it still has to go.

Artificial intelligence technology has been advancing, and businesses have been putting it into action. But too many companies are just gathering a bunch of data to kick out insights and not really using AI to its fullest potential. Joshua Gans, professor at Rotman School of Management, says businesses need to apply AI more systemically. Because decision-making based on AI usually has ripple effects throughout the organization. Gans cowrote the HBR article “From Prediction to Transformation" and the new book "Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence."

In 1878, a machinist at a Pennsylvania steelworks noticed that his crew was producing much less than he thought they could. With stopwatches and time-motion studies, Frederick Winslow Taylor ran experiments to find the optimal way to make the most steel with lower labor costs. It was the birth of a management theory, called scientific management or Taylorism. Critics said Taylor’s drive for industrial efficiency depleted workers physically and emotionally. Resentful laborers walked off the job. The U.S. Congress held hearings on it. Still, scientific management was the dominant management theory 100 years ago in October of 1922, when Harvard Business Review was founded. It spread around the world, fueled the rise of big business, and helped decide World War II. And today it is baked into workplaces, from call centers to restaurant kitchens, gig worker algorithms, and offices. Although few modern workers would recognize Taylorism, and few employers would admit to it. 4 Business Ideas That Changed the World is a special series from HBR IdeaCast. Each week, an HBR editor talks to world-class scholars and experts on the most influential ideas of HBR’s first 100 years, such as disruptive innovation, shareholder value, and emotional intelligence. Discussing scientific management with HBR senior editor Curt Nickisch are: Nancy Koehn, historian at Harvard Business School Michela Giorcelli, economic historian at UCLA Louis Hyman, work and labor historian at Cornell University Further reading: Book: The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency, by Robert Kanigel Case Study: Mass Production and the Beginnings of Scientific Management, by Thomas K. McCraw Oxford Review: The origin and development of firm management, by Michela Giorcelli

No industry has had more impact than technology over the past few decades. Tech companies have changed the way we live, work, and interact with each other. They’ve helped us in a lot of ways, but they’ve also created some big problems. Kara Swisher is a journalist, entrepreneur, and host of the podcast On with Kara Swisher. She’s had a front row seat to the tech industry’s evolution and interviewed all of its biggest players. She speaks with us about key trends — past, present, and future — and the lessons she’s learned as not just an observer but also a media entrepreneur herself along the way.

In the 1980s, Clayton Christensen cofounded a startup that took over a market niche from DuPont and Alcoa. That experience left Christensen puzzled. How could a small company with few resources beat rich incumbents? It led to his theory of disruptive innovation, introduced in the pages of Harvard Business Review in 1995 and popularized two years later in The Innovators Dilemma. The idea has inspired a generation of entrepreneurs. It has reshaped R&D strategies at countless established firms. And it has changed how investors place billions of dollars and how governments spend billions more, aiming to kickstart new industries and spark economic growth. But disruption has taken on a popular meaning well beyond what Christensen’s research describes. Some critics argue that the theory lacks evidence. Others say it glosses over the social costs of lost jobs of bankrupted companies. And debate continues over the best way to apply the idea in practice. 4 Business Ideas That Changed the World is a special series from HBR IdeaCast. Each week, an HBR editor talks to world-class scholars and experts on the most influential ideas of HBR’s first 100 years, such as shareholder value, scientific management, and emotional intelligence. Discussing disruptive innovation with HBR editor Amy Bernstein are: Rita McGrath, professor at Columbia Business School Felix Oberholzer-Gee, professor at Harvard Business School Derek van Bever, senior lecturer at Harvard Business School Further reading: HBR: What Is Disruptive Innovation?, by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor, and Rory McDonald New Yorker: The Disruption Machine: What the Gospel of Innovation Gets Wrong, by Jill Lepore Business History Review: How History Shaped the Innovator’s Dilemma, by Tom Nicholas HBR: Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave, by Joseph L. Bower and Clayton M. Christensen

In 2021, the U.S. space agency NASA launched a spacecraft toward a pair of asteroids more than 11 million kilometers away. The target? The smaller of the two asteroids, just 170 meters wide. The success of the $300 million, seven-year project demanded careful coordination of scientists, engineers, and project managers across different national space agencies. It also required strong leadership from NASA's head of science, Thomas Zurbuchen. He shares his path to an executive role at NASA, his management philosophies, and how he oversees trailblazing space missions with high risk of failure.

The idea that maximizing shareholder value takes legal and practical precedence above all else first came to prominence in the 1970s. The person who arguably did the most to advance the idea was the business school professor Michael Jensen, who wrote in Harvard Business Review and elsewhere that CEOs pursue their own interests at the expense of shareholders' interests. Among other things, he argued for stock-based incentives that would neatly align CEO and shareholder interests. Shareholder primacy rapidly became business orthodoxy. It dramatically changed how and how much executives are compensated. And it arguably distorted capitalism for a generation or more. Critics have long charged that maximizing shareholder value ultimately just encourages CEOs and shareholders to feather their own nests at the expense of everything else: jobs, wages and benefits, communities, and the environment. The past few years have seen a backlash against shareholder capitalism and the rise of so-called stakeholder capitalism. After reigning supreme for half a century, is shareholder value maximization on its way out? 4 Business Ideas That Changed the World is a special series from HBR IdeaCast. Each week, an HBR editor talks to world-class scholars and experts on the most influential ideas of HBR’s first 100 years, such as disruptive innovation, scientific management, and emotional intelligence. Discussing shareholder value with HBR editor in chief Adi Ignatius are: Lynn Paine, professor at Harvard Business School Mihir Desai, professor at Harvard Business School Carola Frydman, professor at Kellogg School of Management Further reading: HBR: CEO Incentives—It’s Not How Much You Pay, But How, by Michael C. Jensen and Kevin J. Murphy New York Times: A Friedman doctrine‐- The Social Responsibility Of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, by Milton Friedman HBR: The Error at the Heart of Corporate Leadership, by Joseph L. Bower and Lynn S. Paine U.S. Business Roundtable: Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation, 2019

Nouriel Roubini, professor emeritus at NYU’s Stern School of Business, says that a confluence of trends – from skyrocketing public and private debt and bad monetary policies to demographic shifts and the rise of AI – are pushing the world toward catastrophe. He warns of those interconnected threats, but also has suggestions for how political and business leaders can prepare for and navigate through these challenges. He draws on decades of economic research as well as his experience accurately predicting, advising on, and observing responses to the 2008 global financial crisis, and he's the author of "Megathreats: Ten Dangerous Trends that Imperil our Future, and How to Survive Them.”

In the early 1990s, publishers told science journalist Daniel Goleman not to use the word “emotion” in a business book. The popular conception was that emotions had little role in the workplace. When HBR was founded in October 1922, the practice of management focused on workers’ physical productivity, not their feelings. And while over the decades psychologists studied “social intelligence” and “emotional strength,” businesses cultivated the so-called hard skills that drove the bottom line. Until 1990, when psychologists Peter Salovey and John Mayer published their landmark journal article. It proposed “emotional intelligence” as the ability to identify and manage one's own emotions as well as those of others. Daniel Goleman popularized the idea in his 1995 book, and companies came to hire for “EI” and teach it. It’s now widely seen as a key ingredient in engaged teams, empathetic leadership, and inclusive organizations. However, critics question whether emotional intelligence operates can be meaningfully measured and contend that it acts as a catchall term for personality traits and values. 4 Business Ideas That Changed the World is a special series from HBR IdeaCast. Each week, an HBR editor talks to world-class scholars and experts on the most influential ideas of HBR’s first 100 years, such as disruptive innovation, shareholder value, and scientific management. Discussing emotional intelligence with HBR executive editor Alison Beard are: Daniel Goleman, psychologist and author of Emotional Intelligence Susan David, psychologist at Harvard Medical School and author of Emotional Agility Andy Parks, management professor at Central Washington University Further reading: HBR: Leading by Feel, with Daniel Goleman New Yorker: The Repressive Politics of Emotional Intelligence, by Merve Emre HBR: Emotional Agility, by Susan David and Christina Congleton Book: Emotional Intelligence, by Daniel Goleman

The number of women—especially women of color—in leadership ranks at the world’s largest companies remains desperately small. Tina Opie, associate professor of management at Babson College, offers a new practice for women to lift each other up and fight systemic bias in the workplace, something she calls “shared sisterhood.” The idea is to be more honest with each other, forming truer bonds. That involves listening, understanding yourself, and a willingness to take risks. With University of Iowa management professor Beth Livingston, Opie wrote the new book “Shared Sisterhood: How to Take Collective Action for Racial and Gender Equity at Work.”

From politics to sports to business, we tend to glorify those who persevere, show grit, never give up. But former professional poker player and consultant Annie Duke argues that there is also great value in quitting — whether it’s a project, job, career, or company. She walks us through the biases that keep us stuck in the status quo even when other paths would be more fruitful and explains how to make better decisions. Duke is the author of "Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away.”

From videos of drunk and disorderly airline passengers to stories of hospital visitors angrily refusing to wear masks, customer-facing work seems to have gotten a lot more difficult – even dangerous -- over the past few years. It's important that organizations understand the experience of frontline workers now, and help to better protect their employees, says Christine Porath, professor of management at Georgetown University. She's studied incivility for 20 years, and has spoken to workers in many industries in the last few years about what it's like working with customers today - with stress, anger, and incivility seemingly on the rise. And she has advice for managers and leaders. Porath is the author of the HBR Big Idea article "Frontline Work When Everyone Is Angry."

From corporate social responsibility to ESG to “doing well by doing good,” an increasing number of organizations are pursuing positive social impact, and it’s not just nonprofits and government agencies. But incorporating social impact into a for-profit business raises all kinds of system dilemmas, says Jacob Harold, a cofounder of the philanthropy data platform Candid and the former CEO of GuideStar. He explains a bundle of tools that can be used together to create meaningful change. Harold wrote the new book “The Toolbox: Strategies for Crafting Social Impact.”

Managing rapid growth is a huge challenge for young businesses. Even start-ups with glowing reviews and skyrocketing sales can fail. That’s because new ventures and corporate initiatives alike have to sustain profitability at scale, according to Harvard Business School senior lecturer Jeffrey Rayport. He has researched some of the biggest stumbling blocks to long-lasting success and explains how to make the tricky transition out of the start-up phase successfully. With professors Davide Sola and Martin Kupp of ESCP Business School, Rayport cowrote the HBR article “The Overlooked Key to a Successful Scale-Up.”

For decades, actor-producer-director Ron Howard has made popular and critically acclaimed movies while also maintaining a reputation for being one of the nicest guys in Hollywood. He explains how he turned early TV gigs into long-term success and why he often involves his cast and crew members in creative decisions. His latest film is Thirteen Lives.