Johnny C. Taylor Jr., CEO and President of the Society for Human Resource Management, says that this is a reset moment for organizations that want to finally get human resources right. The crisis has taught leaders just how important it is to find and mobilize talent and evaluate and adjust to employee needs. He shares research on several trends set to accelerate, including hybrid and contract work and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, and offers guidance to leaders around the world trying to identify what the "new normal" should look like in their organizations.Taylor is the author of the book "Reset: A Leader's Guide to Work in an Age of Upheaval."

Carol Fishman Cohen, human resource consultant and CEO of iRelaunch, says that extended career breaks have always been common. Now the pandemic has made them even more widespread. So, companies are increasingly considering formal back-to-work programs and “returnships.” That’s where employers set up special training and support mechanisms to ease people back into work. Cohen speaks about the best practices for organizations and returning workers alike. She's the author of the HBR article "Return-to-Work Programs Come of Age."

Mehran Sahami, a Stanford professor and former Google employee, wants to see a reset from the technology industry. For the past few decades, the world's technologists (many of whom become its corporate executives and venture capitalists) have been taught to prioritize optimization and efficiency without thinking a whole lot about ethics. The result has been stunning corporate success but significant costs to society. Sahami argues that regulation can certainly help right the balance. But he also believes that tech company leaders and employees can shift their mindsets and practices to ensure they're serving the greater good, not just themselves. He's the coauthor, along with Rob Reich and Jeremy Weinstein, of "System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot."

When it comes to work, it's easy to focus on the near term: the next meeting, project, promotion. The global pandemic pushed many of us even further into heads-down mode. But Dorie Clark, author of the book The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-term World, wants everyone to step back, take a breath, and start thinking longer term about what you really want to do and how to progress toward those goals. She offers advice on how to ignore social media distractions, balance priorities, cultivate patience, and make the right strategic decisions. Clark also wrote the HBR article "Feeling Stuck or Stymied."

Marco Bertini, marketing professor at Esade Business School, says more and more companies are turning to pricing algorithms to maximize profits. But many are unaware of a big downside. The constant price shifts can hurt the perception of the brand and its products. He warns that overreliance on artificial intelligence and machine learning without considering human psychology can cause serious damage to the customer relationship. And he outlines steps managers should take, including implementing guardrails, overrides, and better communication tactics. With London Business School professor Oded Koenigsberg, Bertini wrote the HBR article "The Pitfalls of Pricing Algorithms."

If you're feeling distracted, mentally fogged, and unable to pay attention to (or focus on if attention is in hed) the task at hand, you're not alone. The human brain is highly susceptible to often unproductive mind-wandering, and modern technology has only made the problem worse. But we all know that the best work comes when you're able to really zero in on an idea or problem for a sustained period of time. So we need better strategies for blocking out the external and internal noise. Dr. Amishi Jha, a neuroscientist and professor of psychology at the University of Miami and the author of "Peak Mind," offers recommendations based on studies of people in some of the most high-pressure jobs in the world.

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."

Mita Mallick, head of inclusion, equity, and impact at the firm Carta, says gaslighting at the office is more common than many people realize. That's when a manager or coworker engages in behavior where one thing happens, and they try to convince the victim otherwise. Gaslighting can damage the victim’s well-being and performance as well as the company overall. She explains how to recognize the manipulative behavior, what to do about it in the moment, and how companies can respond. Mallick wrote the HBR.org article "How to Intervene When a Manager Is Gaslighting Their Employees."

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.”

Jonathan Gottschall, a distinguished fellow at Washington & Jefferson College, has researched storytelling and its unique power to inspire. But as he spoke at business conferences and grew aware of the popularity of storytelling in the corporate world, he came to realize just how much stories can also manipulate and destroy. From addressing climate change to the Theranos scandal, he explains the ins and outs of stories and argues for establishing a culture of honest storytelling in business. Gottschall is the author of the book "The Story Paradox: How Our Love of Storytelling Builds Societies and Tears them Down".

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.”

There’s been much talk about the Great Resignation and what’s driving it. The pandemic has exacerbated a long-term problem: many of us struggle to find any pleasure in our work. But quitting isn’t the only the solution. Often, it’s not feasible. In this special series from HBR, we look at a different path: figuring out what you really love and crafting your current role around that. In this episode, we dig into the data showing why people feel so disengaged and what they feel is missing from their work. IdeaCast co-host Alison Beard speaks with Marcus Buckingham, head of research on people and performance at the ADP Research Institute and author of the new book Love + Work.

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."

Not everyone likes everything about their job all the time. But we know from research that people who are energized by at least parts of their work perform better – and feel a greater sense of well-being. So there’s a huge benefit when teams and organizations encourage employees to spend more of their work day focused on their strengths and passions. In this special series from HBR, we’re looking at how to figure out what you really love about work and craft your current job around that. In this episode, we’re scaling up from self-help for individuals to advice for managers and explaining how they can balance these efforts with business goals. IdeaCast co-host Alison Beard speaks with Marcus Buckingham, head of research on people and performance at the ADP Research Institute and author of the new book Love + Work.

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."

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 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.”

As the novel coronavirus surfaced in Wuhan in 2019, Chinese officials called for mobile isolation wards. Haier Group partnered with suppliers to design and construct units quickly, thanks to the openness of the leading manufacturer’s digital platforms. Unlike Haier, many companies have tightly regulated, siloed platforms. Georgetown Professor Kasra Ferdows says more companies can unlock innovations by extending their platforms to facilitate a broader range of collaborations. He breaks down how Haier capitalizes on the expertise and resources of its ecosystem and rapidly exploits new business opportunities. Ferdows is a coauthor of the HBR article "How to Turn a Supply Chain Platform into an Innovation Engine."

When things aren't going well -- in our own lives, our community, our country, or the world -- it's hard to be productive at work. Most of us also shy away from sharing what we're feeling with colleagues and bosses. But when strong emotions like anxiety, anger, and despair hit you -- due to problems at work or outside it -- it's important to recognize and thoughtfully address them. Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy are coauthors of the book "Big Feelings: How to Be Okay When Things Are Not Okay," and they share research-backed advice on how to do just that.

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.

Work-life support programs have long been known to lower turnover and raise employee loyalty. But new research shows they also have a positive effect on promoting diversity among managers at those firms, an effect that’s even stronger than that of some popular racial-equity programs. Alexandra Kalev chairs the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University, and she explains why having strong, thoughtful policies around flexibility, time off, and dependent care pay off for companies. With Harvard sociologist Frank Dobbin, Kalev wrote the HBR article “The Surprising Benefits of Work/Life Support.”

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.”

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.

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

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

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

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.”

Companies offer sponsorship programs to help a more diverse group of high performers and future leaders advance. But the efforts can often misfire. Herminia Ibarra, professor at London Business School, says that’s because these arranged developmental relationships can lack authenticity and meaningful paths for action. She explains the key distinctions of mentorship and sponsorship and recommends that companies focus on two vital qualities: public advocacy and relational authenticity. Ibarra wrote the HBR article “How to Do Sponsorship Right.”

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."

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.

In The New World of Work video series, host and HBR Editor in Chief Adi Ignatius explores how top-tier executives see the future and how their companies are trying to set themselves up for success. Each week, he interviews a top leader live on LinkedIn, and in this special IdeaCast episode, he speaks with LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky on how his company adapted during the pandemic (and after) and how he approaches growth, talent management, and more. You can browse previous episodes of The New World of Work on the HBR YouTube channel and follow HBR on LinkedIn to stay up-to-date on future live interviews. Ignatius also shares an inside look at these conversations —and solicits questions for future discussions — in a newsletter just for HBR subscribers. If you’re a subscriber, you can sign up here.

It's the start of a fresh year, and optimism is in the air. But if you want happiness to extend far beyond your New Year's resolution, Robert Waldinger says you can take some inspiration from the longest-running study of happiness out there. He’s a psychiatrist who runs the Harvard Study of Adult Development. The longitudinal research has followed individuals and their families for nine decades. He shares what makes people happiest in the long run and how their work factors into that. Waldinger is the author of the new book "The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness."

We all know that creativity is the backbone of innovation and, ultimately, business success. But we don't always think deeply about how creative people get their ideas and the steps we might take to do the same. Gabriella Rosen Kellerman, a physician and chief product and chief innovation officer at BetterUp, and Martin Seligman, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, say there are four types of creativity -- integration, splitting, figure-ground reversal, and distal thinking -- and explain how each shows up at work. Amid startling advances in artificial intelligence, people who hone these skills will set themselves apart. Kellerman and Seligman are the authors of the HBR article “Cultivating the Four Kinds of Creativity” and the book Tomorrowmind.

From Theranos to Enron, we can't get enough of corporate scandals. We also can't get enough of the intriguing people who perpetrate them. But instigators of fraud are not all Disneyesque villains chasing money and power at any cost, says DePaul University accounting professor Kelly Richmond Pope. She studies white-collar crime and finds that besides intentional perpetrators, there are also accidental and righteous ones. And she shares real stories of these long-overlooked employees and explains exactly which behaviors and incentives should raise red flags for managers and leaders. Pope is the author of the new book Fool Me Once: Scams, Stories, and Secrets from the Trillion-Dollar Fraud Industry.

Many people blame the shortage of low-wage workers on the enduring impact of the pandemic. But management professor Joseph Fuller and senior researcher Manjari Raman of Harvard Business School say that the real reason has been long in the making. Their studies show that companies view low-wage workers as people who will be in the job only for a short time. Instead, the researchers find that these employees are loyal and want development and a clear path to career advancement. The researchers share practical suggestions for how leaders and managers can do better in hiring, development, and mentoring. Fuller and Raman wrote the HBR article "The High Cost of Neglecting Low-Wage Workers."

As a founding board member of PayPal, cofounder of LinkedIn, and a partner at Silicon Valley VC firm Greylock, Reid Hoffman has long been at the forefront of the U.S. tech industry, from the early days of social media to the launch of new artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT. He acknowledges that technologists are often better at seeing the benefits of their products and services than they are at predicting the problems they might create. But he says that he and his peers are working harder than ever to understand and monitor the downstream effects of technological advancements and to minimize risks by adapting as they go. He speaks about the future of A.I., what he looks for in entrepreneurs, and his hopes for the future. Hoffman is the host of the podcast Masters of Scale as well as the new show Possible.

Unless you're famous - or want to be - you might not think of yourself as a brand. But whether you're in a meeting or on social media, interviewing for a job or asking for a promotion, the way you carry yourself conveys a certain image to the people around you. Jill Avery studies marketing and is a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, and Rachel Greenwald is a professional matchmaker and dating coach. Together, they explain why a strong personal brand is important for professional success. They walk us through how to think about reputation, identify core values, and project our authentic selves. Avery and Greenwald wrote the HBR article “A New Approach to Building Your Personal Brand.”

Read just about any business history and you realize just how much a firm’s success depends on its culture. Without the right culture, you can't have successful innovation. You can't compete successfully. You can't thrive over the long term. So, if you want to lead your organization into a future that features generative artificial intelligence, you need to build the right culture for it. In this episode, How Generative AI Changes Organizational Culture, HBR editor Amy Bernstein speaks to two experts, Nitin Mittal and Tsedal Neeley, about how to adopt generative AI effectively and ethically within your organization. Mittal leads Deloitte’s global AI business and cowrote the book All-in On AI: How Smart Companies Win Big with Artificial Intelligence. Neeley is a professor at Harvard Business School and wrote the HBR article “8 Questions About Using AI Responsibly, Answered.” They discuss the risks, challenges, and emerging best practices of adapting organizational culture to generative AI. How Generative AI Changes Everything is a special series from HBR IdeaCast. Each week, HBR editor in chief Adi Ignatius and HBR editor Amy Bernstein host conversations with experts and business leaders about the impact of generative AI on productivity, creativity and innovation, organizational culture, and strategy. The episodes publish in the IdeaCast feed each Thursday in May, after the regular Tuesday episode. And for more on ethics in the age of AI, check out HBR’s Big Idea on implementing the new technology responsibly.

One of the first things we learn about people is what they do for a living. But the link between work and identify has moved far beyond that, especially in certain industries, geographies, and cultures. Many of us put everything we have into our jobs, expecting our careers to fulfill us. Author Simone Stolzoff argues for a different approach. He wants us to find work that keeps us engaged and gives us the security we need, while still allowing us to define ourselves in other ways. Drawing on research and real-life stories, he explains what it means to have a "good enough" job, and why this shift in thinking could be good not just for individuals but also for teams and organizations. Stolzoff is the author of The Good Enough Job: Reclaiming Life from Work.

Sabbaticals have long been thought of as an academic privilege, but a growing number of companies offer them, especially since the pandemic. DJ DiDonna, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and founder of The Sabbatical Project, has interviewed hundreds of workers who’ve taken them and studied organizations that offer them. From his research and his own experience on a sabbatical, DiDonna shares the surprising impacts that extended time off—paid or unpaid—can have on workers, teams, and the overall organization. And he explains how organizations can make sabbaticals work both financially and culturally.