Harvard Business Review
500 episodes listed below
Adi Ignatius and Alison Beard interview scholars and executives on management and AI.
HBR IdeaCast treats management as a discipline, not a motivational genre. Recent episodes test ideas about customer loyalty, circadian work design, AI transformation, sustainability strategy, disagreement, and the changing relationship between business and government.
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HBR IdeaCast is Harvard Business Review's weekly interview show, co-hosted by Adi Ignatius and Alison Beard, who lead conversations with one guest per episode. Most episodes are tied directly to a recently published HBR article or book, with the guest walking through their research, data, and recommendations for managers. Guests are predominantly academics and authors: Marcus Buckingham on customer and employee loyalty, Gautam Chalagala of IMD Business School on sustainability strategy, Andy McAfee of MIT on AI adoption, Don Tapscott on AI agents and 'Identic AI,' Stefan Volk of the University of Sydney on circadian rhythms at work, and Tim Elmore on managing Gen Z employees. A recurring throughline across recent episodes is artificial intelligence's effect on management and productivity, covering AI-generated 'workslop,' agentic AI, and how leaders should structure AI adoption rather than mandate it top-down. Other frequent subjects include workplace scheduling and biology (chronotypes, circadian troughs), customer experience design, sustainability strategy tied to business value rather than altruism, and generational differences in workforce motivation. Episodes often cite specific studies or statistics, such as a cited $9 million annual productivity loss from AI workslop or a 0.12 correlation between sustainability and profit, rather than relying only on anecdote. The format is consistent: a short framing segment from the hosts followed by a guest interview, occasionally referencing HBR's Leadership Summit or other HBR programming. The show is aimed at managers, executives, and organizational leaders looking for research-backed perspectives on strategy, leadership, and changing workplace norms. Production is credited to HBR staff including producers Rob Eckhart, Mary Du, and Ian Fox, with no narrative or documentary framing — it functions as a recurring interview digest of HBR's own published thinking.
Made for: Managers and executives seeking research-backed perspectives on leadership, AI adoption, and workplace strategy.
What sets it apart: Each episode is anchored to a specific HBR article or book and its author, grounding interviews in named studies and data rather than general business commentary.
A weekly podcast featuring the leading thinkers in business and management.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
HBR IdeaCast turns emerging management ideas into clear questions about strategy, culture, customers, and the changing design of work.
HBR IdeaCast turns management questions into decisions leaders can examine and apply. Alison Beard and Adi Ignatius set up each issue clearly, then use sustained guest conversations and occasional masterclasses to connect broad ideas with workplace consequences.
HBR IdeaCast turns management fashion into the questions you will wish your next meeting had asked.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Marcus Buckingham turns customer and employee love into a practical test of future business value.
HBR IdeaCast frames loyalty as something more demanding than satisfaction, with Marcus Buckingham arguing that leaders should ask whether more customers love the business tomorrow than today, and whether more people love working there.
A useful HBR case for treating body clocks as part of workplace design.
Work design starts with the body's clock in this HBR IdeaCast episode, which treats circadian rhythm less as a personal preference than as something managers should account for.
A practical AI strategy session on why culture, hierarchy, and bottom-up experimentation may decide who pulls ahead.
AI strategy is framed here as an organizational question, not just a software rollout. Andy McAfee, MIT principal research scientist and co-founder and co-director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, argues that the companies with the best chance of using AI well will…
A grounded sustainability episode about making purpose survive customers, margins, and scale.
HBR IdeaCast frames sustainability less as a branding exercise than as a customer and economics problem. The discussion is sharpest when it separates companies that can charge for purpose from those selling at mass-market scale.
A sharp management take on AI workslop, with practical emphasis on team redesign, trust, and employee agency.
HBR IdeaCast treats AI workslop as a leadership problem: passable AI output that shifts cleanup costs onto other people. The episode points to broad mandates, thin strategy, weak trust, and employee anxiety about whether efficiency gains are really a prelude to layoffs.
A sharp management take on AI agents, human agency, and the judgment leaders need as more thinking moves into software.
HBR IdeaCast frames the rise of AI agents as a management challenge: if companies start handing off more thinking to software, leaders need a clearer view of what human agency, judgment, and learning are still meant to do.
A practical HBR listen on motivating Gen Z through coaching, context, and a less disposable view of early career work.
HBR IdeaCast uses the familiar complaints about younger workers as a sharper management prompt: what changes when employers treat Gen Z employees as people to invest in, not labor to burn through?
Tyler Selhorn interviews remote-work founders and researchers on building distributed team culture.
Love gets treated like a business metric.
Some workers are not going to become morning people by trying harder.
AI strategy works best when leaders back it from the top but let the useful ideas surface from below.
HBR IdeaCast’s "Building a Sustainability Strategy Around Customers" features Adi Ignatius, Alison Beard, and Gautam Chalagala, professor at IMD Business School and co-author of Clean Winners: Sustainability Strategy That Puts Customers First.
This episode explores different approaches to handling disagreement at work, featuring a conversation between hosts with contrasting conflict styles.
This episode features a masterclass from HBS professor Siddal Neely on how organizations can successfully implement AI transformation, including the 30% rule and real-world examples from companies like Moderna and Domino's Pizza.
This episode explores the evolving relationship between the U.S.
A conversation with Nigel Vaz on why AI should be treated as an operating system and how companies can avoid being left behind.
AI mandates can lead straight to work slop.
Hosts discuss how organizations can foster innovation by creating environments where ideas are surfaced, tested, and scaled.
This episode discusses adopting a positive intent mindset to improve workplace relationships and collaboration.
AI agents put management on unfamiliar ground.
HBR IdeaCast discusses business opportunities in helping people achieve self-improvement goals, featuring an interview with an expert.
This episode explores how to reframe your identity and adapt when your career path is suddenly disrupted.
HBR IdeaCast discusses how organizations can become more nimble by adopting a project-driven model of work.
HBR IdeaCast hosts discuss the challenges of being an executive in today's complex global environment with investor Ray Dalio.
Hosts discuss how senior leaders can impress executive recruiters to advance their careers.
This episode explores how McKinsey and the consulting industry are adapting to AI-driven changes, including shifts in recruitment and workforce composition.
Gen Z is not a commodity.
This episode features an interview with McLaren Racing CEO Zach Brown about the leadership lessons from Formula One, focusing on how he engineered a remarkable turnaround of the iconic racing team through rebuilding brand, overcoming low morale, and developing clarity of vision.
HBR IdeaCast hosts discuss leadership essentials with Scott Cook, co-founder of Intuit, who argues that senior executives must engage deeply in execution details.
HBR IdeaCast interviews Mars CEO Paul Weihrauch about the role of business in society and responsible growth.
Hosts discuss whether traditional company structures are outdated and explore agile reorganization for modern business challenges.
CEO Noubar Afeyan discusses breakthrough innovation and leadership lessons from his work at Flagship Pioneering and Moderna.
HBR IdeaCast hosts interview Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales about building a trusted crowdsourced encyclopedia and lessons for business leaders.
Hosts discuss the concept of 'enshittification' of tech platforms with author Cory Doctorow, exploring how platforms deteriorate over time.
HBR IdeaCast hosts discuss essential leadership skills for navigating uncertainty and transformation.
The hosts introduce a concept called 'flash teams' and preview an interview with a researcher who studies temporary, cross-functional teams that form quickly to accomplish a task.
HBR IdeaCast hosts discuss the challenges of delegation for leaders, sharing personal experiences and insights.
A business podcast episode where hosts interview a futurist about a framework for better predicting the future amid uncertainty.
Hosts discuss the role of data versus intuition in business decision-making, featuring insights from leaders.
Hosts discuss decision-making approaches, contrasting data-driven methods with gut instinct, featuring insights from business leaders.
This episode explores how business leaders can effectively build and implement AI assistants for various challenges, featuring insights from Harvard Business School professor Kareem Lakhani.
This episode explores the practical challenges and opportunities of adopting generative AI in business, featuring insights from Harvard Business School professor Kareem Lakhani.
This episode discusses the ongoing debate about hybrid work policies, exploring disagreements between managers and employees, different organizational approaches, and perspectives from leaders like Amazon's CEO Andy Jassy.