Special Coverage
Coronavirus
Leading and working through a pandemic.

by Alisa Cohn
March 30, 2020

All leaders are trying to find their footing right now. You are probably shoring up your business plan, situating your team, and juggling your own constellation of remote working arrangements — possibly alongside your spouse and children. On top of that, you will face a test you probably couldn’t have imagined a few weeks ago: When one of your employees tells you they have tested positive for Covid-19. If you haven’t dealt with that already, you almost certainly will.

by Eric J. McNulty and Leonard Marcus
March 25, 2020

The coronavirus crisis, like every crisis, is unfolding over an arc of time with a beginning, middle, and end. It is useful to think what distinguishes what was, is, and will be. There was a past of relative stability and predictability. There now is chaos and disruption. There will be … a different state. As this future unfolds, some organizations will be resilient. For others, this future will be catastrophic. The actions of executives and their teams now, in the midst of this crisis, will significantly determine their fate.

by Paul A. Argenti
March 13, 2020

The coronavirus epidemic seemed far away for me until last week. Then came news reports about someone infected in New Hampshire. Rumors started to spread, closely followed by questions: How can we find out more information? Should we send the kids to school? The next day, we discovered in both the local and national news that the infected person, a resident at our local hospital, had attended a party with students from the Tuck School, where I teach, bringing the crisis right to my office door. Classes and events were canceled and all international travel was suspended for the university. My mind was racing. Should I go in to work? Is it OK to buy lunch here? Are we prepared to quarantine at home? How long will this go on?

by Martin Reeves , Nikolaus Lang and Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak
February 27, 2020

The Covid-19 crisis has now reached a new critical phase where public health systems need to act decisively to contain the growth in new epicenters outside China.

Clearly, the main emphasis is and should be on containing and mitigating the disease itself. But the economic impacts are also significant, and many companies are feeling their way towards understanding, reacting to, and learning lessons from rapidly unfolding events. Unanticipated twists and turns will be revealed with each news cycle, and we will only have a complete picture in retrospect.

Podcast
March 30, 2020

The world is facing an economic crisis never seen before, says equity analyst Pierre Ferragu. Consumer demand remains strong and supply infrastructure is still healthy, but both are in lockdown and unable to function. In this wide-ranging conversation with Azeem Azhar, Ferragu explains how the pandemic will affect the technology industry and its major players.

by Rafi Mohammed
March 26, 2020

All businesses are suffering today. One industry that is especially visible and emblematic of our economic struggles is restaurants. In many states, dining rooms are closed, and restaurants that choose to remain open are allowed to provide meals via takeout or delivery only. They’re making this shift as customers face deep financial uncertainty. Their customers face another dilemma: whether it’s worth leaving the house (and risking possible exposure to the virus) in search of takeout food to break the monotony of our new stay-at-home reality.

by Sean Nicholson and David A. Asch
March 25, 2020

U.S. hospitals are battling Covid-19 on many fronts: Scrambling to create new intensive care unit beds, trying to secure scarce medical equipment to protect their patients and their workforces, training staff on novel treatment protocols, and hiring more nurses. In order to divert resources to the patients in the greatest need — and to protect the safety of the patients who can wait — hospitals are also postponing non-emergency care, canceling elective procedures and, in general, halting the very activities that used to keep them in business.

by Timothy R. Clark
March 24, 2020

The Covid-19 virus has disrupted and rearranged the workplace with breathtaking speed. In the span of a week, organizations across every sector have sent millions of employees home to work remotely. Without warning — and in many cases, without preparation of any kind — managers have been thrust into the position of leading virtual teams, many for the first time.

by Adil Najam
March 24, 2020

Right now, around the world, countless negotiations are underway, and the results will literally influence life and death. Leaders and their advisers at innumerable school boards, town halls, universities, C-suites and boardrooms, governors’ mansions, and presidential palaces are desperately deliberating over policies for social distancing, reducing density, setting restrictions, relaxing standard procedures, working remotely, teaching online, and much more that will determine the ultimate outcome of this pandemic.

by Bill Taylor
March 20, 2020

It’s easy to look around and see how the Covid-19 crisis has brought out the worst in some people — from hoarding thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer to crowding bars and restaurants despite public-health guidelines. But such irresponsible behavior, I believe, is more the exception than the rule. Time and again, individuals and communities have demonstrated that the worst situations tend to bring out the best in people and the organizations to which they belong. In every moment of darkness, it seems, there are countless moments of light — small gestures of compassion and connection that allow people to show who they are, how they want to live, and what matters to them.

by Andy Molinsky
March 19, 2020

Those of us who present, facilitate, and teach for a living understand the importance of developing a personal connection with an audience. It’s critical to be and feel natural; to make people laugh, feel at ease, and fully engage — and perhaps even lose themselves — in the content you’re delivering. That’s why it feels so unnatural and awkward to create this kind of atmosphere in a virtual environment where you have no in-person audience at all.

by Barbara Z. Larson , Susan R. Vroman and Erin E. Makarius
March 18, 2020

In response to the uncertainties presented by Covid-19, many companies and universities have asked their employees to work remotely. While close to a quarter of the U.S. workforce already works from home at least part of the time, the new policies leave many employees — and their managers — working out of the office and separated from each other for the first time.

by Tsedal Neeley
March 16, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic is expected to fundamentally change the way many organizations operate for the foreseeable future. As governments and businesses around the world tell those with symptoms to self-quarantine and everyone else to practice social distancing, remote work is our new reality. How do corporate leaders, managers, and individual workers make this sudden shift? Tsedal Neeley, a professor at Harvard Business School, has spent two decades helping companies learn how to manage dispersed teams. In this edited Q&A, drawn from a recent HBR subscriber video call in which listeners were able to ask questions, she offers guidance on how to work productively at home, manage virtual meetings, and lead teams through this time of crisis.

by Justin Hale and Joseph Grenny
March 09, 2020

These days it’s hard to get people to pay attention in any meeting, but when people aren’t in the same room, it can be especially difficult. And it’s particularly annoying when you make a nine-minute argument, pause for an expected reaction, and get: “I’m not sure I followed you” which might as well mean: “I was shampooing my cat and didn’t realize I would be called on.”

by Thomas Y. Choi, Dale Rogers, and Bindiya Vakil
March 27, 2020

As procurement teams struggle to cope with the Covid-19 global pandemic, most have been trying to keep up with the news about global response measures and have been working diligently to secure raw materials and components and protect supply lines. However, vital information is often not available or accessible across their global teams. As a result, their response to the disruption has been reactive and uncoordinated, and the impact of the crisis is hitting many of their companies' full force.

Catherine Monson
March 27, 2020

As local and state governments issue shelter-in-place orders, asking residents to remain home for all but essential errands, businesses — especially small local businesses — across the U.S. are facing difficult decisions. These institutions are crucial to our nation’s economy, employing 58.9 million people in the United States, or about 47.5% of the total private sector workforce. Their GDP contribution measured $5.9 trillion in 2014, the most recent year for which small business GDP data is available.

by Nathan Furr
March 27, 2020

A friend who runs a restaurant group recently endured a month of empty tables due to a transportation strike, only to have his restaurants shut down to slow the spread of Covid-19. Of course, he’s not alone as businesses around the world face similar situations. Between disruption and the ongoing pandemic, we are all trying to cope with unprecedented levels of uncertainty.

by Timothy R. Clark
March 24, 2020

The Covid-19 virus has disrupted and rearranged the workplace with breathtaking speed. In the span of a week, organizations across every sector have sent millions of employees home to work remotely. Without warning — and in many cases, without preparation of any kind — managers have been thrust into the position of leading virtual teams, many for the first time.

by Tsedal Neeley
March 16, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic is expected to fundamentally change the way many organizations operate for the foreseeable future. As governments and businesses around the world tell those with symptoms to self-quarantine and everyone else to practice social distancing, remote work is our new reality. How do corporate leaders, managers, and individual workers make this sudden shift? Tsedal Neeley, a professor at Harvard Business School, has spent two decades helping companies learn how to manage dispersed teams. In this edited Q&A, drawn from a recent HBR subscriber video call in which listeners were able to ask questions, she offers guidance on how to work productively at home, manage virtual meetings, and lead teams through this time of crisis.

by Paul A. Argenti
March 13, 2020

The coronavirus epidemic seemed far away for me until last week. Then came news reports about someone infected in New Hampshire. Rumors started to spread, closely followed by questions: How can we find out more information? Should we send the kids to school? The next day, we discovered in both the local and national news that the infected person, a resident at our local hospital, had attended a party with students from the Tuck School, where I teach, bringing the crisis right to my office door. Classes and events were canceled and all international travel was suspended for the university. My mind was racing. Should I go into work? Is it OK to buy lunch here? Are we prepared to quarantine at home? How long will this go on?

by Liz O’Donnell
March 31, 2020 

Amy Carrier is a foundation director with a long-distance spouse and a 74-year old mother, who has Alzheimer’s and lives with her.

Even on a normal day, her life is complicated. Amy employs two private-pay caregivers to assist her mother while she is at work, managing a team of ten at the Oregon State University Foundation. When she gets home, she takes over: making dinner, managing medications, and helping with small tasks like choosing clothes and operating the television. Her husband lives and works in New Rochelle, New York.

by Tony Schwartz and Emily Pines
March 23, 2020

Late last week, we gave a presentation to about 20 chief medical officers from health care systems around the country. I began by asking them to share a sentence or two about how they were feeling, personally. Over the next half hour, their answers spilled out in a torrent.

by Scott Berinato
March 23, 2020

Some of the HBR edit staff met virtually the other day — a screen full of faces in a scene becoming more common everywhere. We talked about the content we’re commissioning in this harrowing time of a pandemic and how we can help people. But we also talked about how we were feeling. One colleague mentioned that what she felt was grief. Heads nodded in all the panes.

by Bill Taylor
March 20, 2020

It’s easy to look around and see how the Covid-19 crisis has brought out the worst in some people — from hoarding thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer to crowding bars and restaurants despite public-health guidelines. But such irresponsible behavior, I believe, is more the exception than the rule. Time and again, individuals and communities have demonstrated that the worst situations tend to bring out the best in people and the organizations to which they belong. In every moment of darkness, it seems, there are countless moments of light — small gestures of compassion and connection that allow people to show who they are, how they want to live, and what matters to them.

by Avni Patel Thompson
March 19, 2020

Amir and Ria are working professionals living in Seattle: he works at Amazon and she’s the CEO of an early-stage start-up. They have two kids, Amara and Aryan, who are 6 and 2 years old. They’re used to managing the usual challenges of dual working parents — coordinating childcare with schools and activities, managing meals and household chores, and spending quality time together on the weekends.

by Rasmus Hougaard , Jacqueline Carter and Moses Mohan
March 19, 2020

As the spread and far-reaching impacts of Covid-19 dominate the world news, we have all been witnessing and experiencing the parallel spread of worry, anxiety, and instability. Indeed, in a crisis, our mental state often seems only to exacerbate an already extremely challenging situation, becoming a major obstacle in itself. Why is this and how can we change it? As the CEO of a firm that brings mindfulness to companies to unlock new ways of thinking and working, let me share a bit about how the mind responds to crises, like the threat of a pandemic.

March 16, 2020
Podcast

The rapid onset of the coronavirus is changing our work – and our lives. For those who own businesses or work in the gig economy, the stress and financial uncertainty is even greater. When we don’t know what the future will hold, or are working in isolation, what can we do?

July 22, 2018

Clarity and consistency are key. For more, read How to Collaborate Effectively If Your Team Is Remote.

Special Coverage
Coronavirus
Leading and working through a pandemic.

by Alisa Cohn
March 30, 2020

All leaders are trying to find their footing right now. You are probably shoring up your business plan, situating your team, and juggling your own constellation of remote working arrangements — possibly alongside your spouse and children. On top of that, you will face a test you probably couldn’t have imagined a few weeks ago: When one of your employees tells you they have tested positive for Covid-19. If you haven’t dealt with that already, you almost certainly will.

by Eric J. McNulty and Leonard Marcus
March 25, 2020

The coronavirus crisis, like every crisis, is unfolding over an arc of time with a beginning, middle, and end. It is useful to think what distinguishes what was, is, and will be. There was a past of relative stability and predictability. There now is chaos and disruption. There will be … a different state. As this future unfolds, some organizations will be resilient. For others, this future will be catastrophic. The actions of executives and their teams now, in the midst of this crisis, will significantly determine their fate.

by Paul A. Argenti
March 13, 2020

The coronavirus epidemic seemed far away for me until last week. Then came news reports about someone infected in New Hampshire. Rumors started to spread, closely followed by questions: How can we find out more information? Should we send the kids to school? The next day, we discovered in both the local and national news that the infected person, a resident at our local hospital, had attended a party with students from the Tuck School, where I teach, bringing the crisis right to my office door. Classes and events were canceled and all international travel was suspended for the university. My mind was racing. Should I go in to work? Is it OK to buy lunch here? Are we prepared to quarantine at home? How long will this go on?

by Martin Reeves , Nikolaus Lang and Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak
February 27, 2020

The Covid-19 crisis has now reached a new critical phase where public health systems need to act decisively to contain the growth in new epicenters outside China.

Clearly, the main emphasis is and should be on containing and mitigating the disease itself. But the economic impacts are also significant, and many companies are feeling their way towards understanding, reacting to, and learning lessons from rapidly unfolding events. Unanticipated twists and turns will be revealed with each news cycle, and we will only have a complete picture in retrospect.

Podcast
March 30, 2020

The world is facing an economic crisis never seen before, says equity analyst Pierre Ferragu. Consumer demand remains strong and supply infrastructure is still healthy, but both are in lockdown and unable to function. In this wide-ranging conversation with Azeem Azhar, Ferragu explains how the pandemic will affect the technology industry and its major players.

by Rafi Mohammed
March 26, 2020

All businesses are suffering today. One industry that is especially visible and emblematic of our economic struggles is restaurants. In many states, dining rooms are closed, and restaurants that choose to remain open are allowed to provide meals via takeout or delivery only. They’re making this shift as customers face deep financial uncertainty. Their customers face another dilemma: whether it’s worth leaving the house (and risking possible exposure to the virus) in search of takeout food to break the monotony of our new stay-at-home reality.

by Sean Nicholson and David A. Asch
March 25, 2020

U.S. hospitals are battling Covid-19 on many fronts: Scrambling to create new intensive care unit beds, trying to secure scarce medical equipment to protect their patients and their workforces, training staff on novel treatment protocols, and hiring more nurses. In order to divert resources to the patients in the greatest need — and to protect the safety of the patients who can wait — hospitals are also postponing non-emergency care, canceling elective procedures and, in general, halting the very activities that used to keep them in business.

by Timothy R. Clark
March 24, 2020

The Covid-19 virus has disrupted and rearranged the workplace with breathtaking speed. In the span of a week, organizations across every sector have sent millions of employees home to work remotely. Without warning — and in many cases, without preparation of any kind — managers have been thrust into the position of leading virtual teams, many for the first time.

by Adil Najam
March 24, 2020

Right now, around the world, countless negotiations are underway, and the results will literally influence life and death. Leaders and their advisers at innumerable school boards, town halls, universities, C-suites and boardrooms, governors’ mansions, and presidential palaces are desperately deliberating over policies for social distancing, reducing density, setting restrictions, relaxing standard procedures, working remotely, teaching online, and much more that will determine the ultimate outcome of this pandemic.

by Bill Taylor
March 20, 2020

It’s easy to look around and see how the Covid-19 crisis has brought out the worst in some people — from hoarding thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer to crowding bars and restaurants despite public-health guidelines. But such irresponsible behavior, I believe, is more the exception than the rule. Time and again, individuals and communities have demonstrated that the worst situations tend to bring out the best in people and the organizations to which they belong. In every moment of darkness, it seems, there are countless moments of light — small gestures of compassion and connection that allow people to show who they are, how they want to live, and what matters to them.

by Andy Molinsky
March 19, 2020

Those of us who present, facilitate, and teach for a living understand the importance of developing a personal connection with an audience. It’s critical to be and feel natural; to make people laugh, feel at ease, and fully engage — and perhaps even lose themselves — in the content you’re delivering. That’s why it feels so unnatural and awkward to create this kind of atmosphere in a virtual environment where you have no in-person audience at all.

by Barbara Z. Larson , Susan R. Vroman and Erin E. Makarius
March 18, 2020

In response to the uncertainties presented by Covid-19, many companies and universities have asked their employees to work remotely. While close to a quarter of the U.S. workforce already works from home at least part of the time, the new policies leave many employees — and their managers — working out of the office and separated from each other for the first time.

by Tsedal Neeley
March 16, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic is expected to fundamentally change the way many organizations operate for the foreseeable future. As governments and businesses around the world tell those with symptoms to self-quarantine and everyone else to practice social distancing, remote work is our new reality. How do corporate leaders, managers, and individual workers make this sudden shift? Tsedal Neeley, a professor at Harvard Business School, has spent two decades helping companies learn how to manage dispersed teams. In this edited Q&A, drawn from a recent HBR subscriber video call in which listeners were able to ask questions, she offers guidance on how to work productively at home, manage virtual meetings, and lead teams through this time of crisis.

by Justin Hale and Joseph Grenny
March 09, 2020

These days it’s hard to get people to pay attention in any meeting, but when people aren’t in the same room, it can be especially difficult. And it’s particularly annoying when you make a nine-minute argument, pause for an expected reaction, and get: “I’m not sure I followed you” which might as well mean: “I was shampooing my cat and didn’t realize I would be called on.”

by Thomas Y. Choi, Dale Rogers, and Bindiya Vakil
March 27, 2020

As procurement teams struggle to cope with the Covid-19 global pandemic, most have been trying to keep up with the news about global response measures and have been working diligently to secure raw materials and components and protect supply lines. However, vital information is often not available or accessible across their global teams. As a result, their response to the disruption has been reactive and uncoordinated, and the impact of the crisis is hitting many of their companies' full force.

Catherine Monson
March 27, 2020

As local and state governments issue shelter-in-place orders, asking residents to remain home for all but essential errands, businesses — especially small local businesses — across the U.S. are facing difficult decisions. These institutions are crucial to our nation’s economy, employing 58.9 million people in the United States, or about 47.5% of the total private sector workforce. Their GDP contribution measured $5.9 trillion in 2014, the most recent year for which small business GDP data is available.

by Nathan Furr
March 27, 2020

A friend who runs a restaurant group recently endured a month of empty tables due to a transportation strike, only to have his restaurants shut down to slow the spread of Covid-19. Of course, he’s not alone as businesses around the world face similar situations. Between disruption and the ongoing pandemic, we are all trying to cope with unprecedented levels of uncertainty.

by Timothy R. Clark
March 24, 2020

The Covid-19 virus has disrupted and rearranged the workplace with breathtaking speed. In the span of a week, organizations across every sector have sent millions of employees home to work remotely. Without warning — and in many cases, without preparation of any kind — managers have been thrust into the position of leading virtual teams, many for the first time.

by Tsedal Neeley
March 16, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic is expected to fundamentally change the way many organizations operate for the foreseeable future. As governments and businesses around the world tell those with symptoms to self-quarantine and everyone else to practice social distancing, remote work is our new reality. How do corporate leaders, managers, and individual workers make this sudden shift? Tsedal Neeley, a professor at Harvard Business School, has spent two decades helping companies learn how to manage dispersed teams. In this edited Q&A, drawn from a recent HBR subscriber video call in which listeners were able to ask questions, she offers guidance on how to work productively at home, manage virtual meetings, and lead teams through this time of crisis.

by Paul A. Argenti
March 13, 2020

The coronavirus epidemic seemed far away for me until last week. Then came news reports about someone infected in New Hampshire. Rumors started to spread, closely followed by questions: How can we find out more information? Should we send the kids to school? The next day, we discovered in both the local and national news that the infected person, a resident at our local hospital, had attended a party with students from the Tuck School, where I teach, bringing the crisis right to my office door. Classes and events were canceled and all international travel was suspended for the university. My mind was racing. Should I go into work? Is it OK to buy lunch here? Are we prepared to quarantine at home? How long will this go on?

by Liz O’Donnell
March 31, 2020 

Amy Carrier is a foundation director with a long-distance spouse and a 74-year old mother, who has Alzheimer’s and lives with her.

Even on a normal day, her life is complicated. Amy employs two private-pay caregivers to assist her mother while she is at work, managing a team of ten at the Oregon State University Foundation. When she gets home, she takes over: making dinner, managing medications, and helping with small tasks like choosing clothes and operating the television. Her husband lives and works in New Rochelle, New York.

by Tony Schwartz and Emily Pines
March 23, 2020

Late last week, we gave a presentation to about 20 chief medical officers from health care systems around the country. I began by asking them to share a sentence or two about how they were feeling, personally. Over the next half hour, their answers spilled out in a torrent.

by Scott Berinato
March 23, 2020

Some of the HBR edit staff met virtually the other day — a screen full of faces in a scene becoming more common everywhere. We talked about the content we’re commissioning in this harrowing time of a pandemic and how we can help people. But we also talked about how we were feeling. One colleague mentioned that what she felt was grief. Heads nodded in all the panes.

by Bill Taylor
March 20, 2020

It’s easy to look around and see how the Covid-19 crisis has brought out the worst in some people — from hoarding thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer to crowding bars and restaurants despite public-health guidelines. But such irresponsible behavior, I believe, is more the exception than the rule. Time and again, individuals and communities have demonstrated that the worst situations tend to bring out the best in people and the organizations to which they belong. In every moment of darkness, it seems, there are countless moments of light — small gestures of compassion and connection that allow people to show who they are, how they want to live, and what matters to them.

by Avni Patel Thompson
March 19, 2020

Amir and Ria are working professionals living in Seattle: he works at Amazon and she’s the CEO of an early-stage start-up. They have two kids, Amara and Aryan, who are 6 and 2 years old. They’re used to managing the usual challenges of dual working parents — coordinating childcare with schools and activities, managing meals and household chores, and spending quality time together on the weekends.

by Rasmus Hougaard , Jacqueline Carter and Moses Mohan
March 19, 2020

As the spread and far-reaching impacts of Covid-19 dominate the world news, we have all been witnessing and experiencing the parallel spread of worry, anxiety, and instability. Indeed, in a crisis, our mental state often seems only to exacerbate an already extremely challenging situation, becoming a major obstacle in itself. Why is this and how can we change it? As the CEO of a firm that brings mindfulness to companies to unlock new ways of thinking and working, let me share a bit about how the mind responds to crises, like the threat of a pandemic.

March 16, 2020
Podcast

The rapid onset of the coronavirus is changing our work – and our lives. For those who own businesses or work in the gig economy, the stress and financial uncertainty is even greater. When we don’t know what the future will hold, or are working in isolation, what can we do?

July 22, 2018

Clarity and consistency are key. For more, read How to Collaborate Effectively If Your Team Is Remote.