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• Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2020 (Revised November 2020)

  Gong: Resonating Conversational Insights

  Alison Wood Brooks and Trevor Spelman

  In 2015, Amit Bendov was struck by a realization about a new technology that might be able to transcribe musical notation in real-time, which eventually became known as Gong. Gong’s business proposition was simple: provide software that automatically captures, understands, and analyzes written and spoken sales conversations (not music) to help sales teams sell more effectively. It was a compelling idea with the potential to create significant value for its users. There were, however, many questions. Could the technology live up to its promises? What could salespeople learn from their own conversations and from the best - and worst - salespeople among them? Could leveraging conversational insights make a measurable impact on a company’s bottom line? And how could Gong defend against competitors, both now and in the future?

  Keywords: Software; Communication; Sales;

  Citation:

  Brooks, Alison Wood, and Trevor Spelman. "Gong: Resonating Conversational Insights." Harvard Business School Case 921-015, September 2020. (Revised November 2020.)  View Details

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• Article | Harvard Business Review | July–August 2020

  Sarcasm, Self-Deprecation, and Inside Jokes: A User's Guide to Humor at Work

  Brad Bitterly and Alison Wood Brooks

  Humor is widely considered essential in personal relationships, but in leaders, it’s seen as an ancillary behavior. Though some leaders use humor instinctively, many more could wield it purposefully. Humor helps build interpersonal trust and high-­quality work relationships and influences behaviors and attitudes that matter to leadership effectiveness, including employee performance, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and creativity.
  These benefits don’t come without potential costs. The guidelines in this article suggest ways to capture the benefits of humor while avoiding the downside risks.

  Keywords: managing people; humor; Leadership; Relationships;

  Citation:

  Bitterly, Brad, and Alison Wood Brooks. "Sarcasm, Self-Deprecation, and Inside Jokes: A User's Guide to Humor at Work." Harvard Business Review 98, no. 4 (July–August 2020): 96–103.  View Details

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• Working Paper | 2020

  Older People Are Less Pessimistic About the Health Risks of COVID-19

  Pedro Bordalo, Katherine B. Coffman, Nicola Gennaioli and Andrei Shleifer

  A central question for understanding behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic, at both the individual and collective levels, is how people perceive the health and economic risks they face. We conducted a survey of over 1,500 Americans from May 6–13, 2020, to understand these risk perceptions. Here we report some preliminary results. Our most striking finding is that perceived personal health risks associated with COVID-19 fall sharply with age.

  Keywords: Health Pandemics; Risk and Uncertainty; Perception; Age;

  Citation:

  Bordalo, Pedro, Katherine B. Coffman, Nicola Gennaioli, and Andrei Shleifer. "Older People Are Less Pessimistic About the Health Risks of COVID-19." NBER Working Paper Series, No. 27494, July 2020.  View Details

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