Class Takeaways

How do you build successful, diverse teams? How do you offer structure and control while also inviting participation? In this video based on her class Managing Groups and Teams, professor Deborah Gruenfeld shares five key lessons for team leaders.

We often bring our own set of morals into an argument, whether we realize it or not. But knowing the values of our counterparts, can be key in managing conflict and persuading others. In their class Leading with Values, professors Neil Malhotra and Ken Shotts teach how leaders can create and promote good behavior within an organization. In this video, they share five takeaways from their class.

It’s easy to believe that if you take your life or your mission seriously, the presence of humor betrays that mission. But leaders of all stripes know we can do serious things without taking ourselves too seriously. In fact, often we can do them better. Professor Jennifer Aaker and lecturer Naomi Bagdonas, MBA ’15, designed the course Humor: Serious Business to help students develop an appreciation for the role of humor in the workplace. Bagdonas calls humor “an underleveraged superpower in business.”

We often think that the best way to sell our ideas is by making rational arguments. Yet if we really want to convince others, we also need to make emotional appeals that tap into the brain's need for excitement, curiosity, and comfort. That’s one of the counterintuitive — or “frinky” — insights shared by professor Baba Shiv in this video based on his course Designing Solutions by Leveraging the Frinky Science of the Human Mind.

How are startups challenging the status quo? What can big companies do to survive? In his class The Industrialist's Dilemma, lecturer Robert Siegel shares five important takeaways for organizations seeking to weather the disruptions of the digital economy.