Ideas to Action

Search

Put On Your Own Mask First: Energy and Leadership in Challenging Times

A leader’s job is to manage energy: their own, their reports’ and their organization’s. Virtual work poses additional challenges around all of these, especially as issues of trust and credibility have nuances obfuscated by the absence of face-to-face meetings. Professor Joe Harder provides insights on overcoming such challenges.

Get Back to BASICS: Company Culture in Times of Upheaval

In the face of a pandemic, how can we be bigger than the sum of our parts? Laura Morgan Roberts addresses how to maintain and evolve culture from afar: how to bond, stay agile, ensure physical and psychological safety, promote inclusion, offer compassion, and strategically align to determine what the new normal requires — and what needs to change.

When science collides with stock market pressure

In April 2009, Genzyme became the target of Relational Investors (RI), an activist investment fund. It had built a 2.6 percent stake and demanded that Termeer focus on returning cash to shareholders. Should he fight RI and risk being ousted, or should he welcome the activist’s advice on creating shareholder value and risk losing control?

Scale Up a Startup: The Importance of Operations

Professor Chao looks at Husk Power Systems and the operations surrounding this start up.

Entrepreneurs’ Secrets to Surviving COVID-19 Business Disruption

No event in modern history has driven so much change, so fast, as the coronavirus pandemic. In a world beset by the challenges presented by COVID-19, can we look into the minds of entrepreneurs to discover how businesses and individuals might start to rebuild?

What Can Operations Management Teach Us About the COVID-19 Crisis?

As COVID-19 continues to spread, hospitals in the hardest-hit areas operate at near capacity. Professor Elliott N. Weiss believes that understanding capacity management and other fundamental concepts in operations can help us make sense of the current crisis and invites us to examine it through the lens of operations.

Q&A: Societal Costs of COVID-19 Outweigh Individual Costs

Epidemiology and economics: A smart containment strategy for COVID-19 could save the U.S. economy $10 trillion. Here: the effects of states easing lockdowns, putting a (literal) price on individual vs. societal costs of the disease, how to get the economy running and what changes to expect long-term, and why public health measures are so important.

Q&A: How ‘FOMO’ Changed Shape During Quarantine

A feeling so common it has an acronym: fear of missing out. But what happens when activities are unavailable due to the coronavirus? Lalin Anik, an expert on consumer behavior and social connections, discusses FOMO in the pandemic: how it’s changed shape, the effect on mental health, and how we may balance it with risk aversion as states open up.

What Now in Race Work? 3 Zones of Action

The convergence of racism, economic downturns and public health crises reflect wicked problems in complex systems fraught with inequality. Enduring strains of racism play out overtly and subtly, both violently in the streets and systemically in the workplace. So what now? Laura Morgan Roberts offers three zones of action as we move forward.

Time to Stress Test Supply Chains?

The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 has hit global trade and investment with devastating force and speed. Why did the world fail to learn the lessons of SARS, H1N1 or other major disruptions? What’s behind the fragility in supply chains that can derail global trade and transactions when the unexpected strikes? How can we guard against future shocks?