Cold Call

Harvard Business School professor Bill George discusses the role of cost cutting, regulatory pressure, and CEO succession in the two tragic plane crashes of the Boeing 737 Max. He examines the cultural shifts at Boeing, the role of the FAA, and the importance of leadership during a crisis.

Rubicon began with a bold idea: create a cloud-based, full-service waste management platform providing efficient service anywhere in the U.S. Their mobile app did for waste management what Uber had done for taxi service. Five years after the case’s publication, Harvard Business School associate professor Shai Bernstein and Rubicon founder and CEO Nate Morris discuss how the software startup leveraged technology to disrupt the waste industry and other enduring lessons of professor Bill Sahlman’s case about Rubicon.

Guild Education is an education marketplace that connects employers and universities to provide employees with “education as a benefit.” The Denver-based company is transforming traditional tuition-assistance programs by facilitating direct payment by the employer to the academic institution and by supporting students with coaching and advising. Now CEO and co-founder Rachel Carlson must decide how to manage the company’s future growth. Should she focus on expanding Guild’s core education marketplace, or extend the business model to include the career placement market? Harvard Business School professor Bill Sahlman discusses this unique start-up and Carlson’s plans for its growth in his case, “Guild Education: Unlocking Opportunity for America’s Workforce.“

In 2000, Rohit Gera turned his family’s boutique real estate development firm in Pune, India, into a dynamic innovator in housing solutions for urban Indian families. Today Gera Developments stands at a crossroads, with Gera planning the end of his managerial career. How should the family think about scaling the business? And, should the company seek a successor to lead those efforts from inside or outside the family? Senior Lecturer Christina Wing and case protagonist Rohit Gera discuss the family business and the crucial decisions it faces in the case, “Gera Developments: Leadership at a Crossroads.”

Survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre and their descendants believe historic social injustices should be addressed through reparations. Harvard Business School professor Mihir Desai discusses the arguments for and against reparations in response to the Tulsa Massacre and, more broadly, to the effects of slavery and racist government policies in the U.S. in his case, “The Tulsa Massacre and the Call for Reparations.”

The late 20th century saw dramatic growth in incarceration rates in the United States. Of the more than 2.3 million people in U.S. prisons, jails, and detention centers in 2020, 60 percent were Black or Latinx. Harvard Business School assistant professor Reshmaan Hussam probes the assumptions underlying the current prison system, with its huge racial disparities, and considers what could be done to address the crisis of the American criminal justice system in her case, “Race and Mass Incarceration in the United States.”

As the first Black female factory manager to lead a John Deere plant, Rosalind Fox must figure out how to build relationships with her staff, who are mostly white men. Harvard Business School senior lecturer Tony Mayo discusses the pressure on Fox to assimilate into the dominant culture, her decision to lean into her authentic self, and the deep connection between employee engagement and authenticity in his case, “Rosalind Fox at John Deere.”

As a Black female CEO, Shellye Archambeau is no stranger to adversity. Becoming a leader was her goal since high school, and she achieved it through decades of hard work and skillful decision making. Now she faces her most critical leadership decision. The software company she leads, MetricStream, is losing customers, hemorrhaging cash, and struggling to make payroll. Several board members are pressing to sell the company even at dismally low valuations. She and her board chairman need to decide and act swiftly. Harvard Business School professor Tsedal Neeley discusses Archambeau’s leadership style and the importance of developing resilience, particularly when managing through a crisis, in her case, “Shellye Archambeau: Becoming a CEO.”

Bill Riddick, an African-American community leader and counselor, must find a way to bridge the divide between Black and white community leaders, who are on opposing sides of school integration in Durham, North Carolina, in 1971. Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino and senior researcher Jeffrey Huizinga explain how empathy and curiosity can foster understanding in divisive situations in their case, “Bill Riddick and the Durham S.O.S. Charrette.”

Melvin Carter, the mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota, swept into office in 2018, promising to improve equity. In his campaign, he had spoken from experience about what it felt like to be pulled over by police as a Black man. He wanted to create a new public safety framework that would be rooted in community. But then the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out much of the city’s budget and the May 2020 killing of George Floyd by a police officer in neighboring Minneapolis sparked calls to defund the police. How would Mayor Carter make these changes happen? Harvard Business School professor Mitch Weiss discusses the challenges and rewards of “possibility government” in his case, “Community-First Public Safety.”