HBR 10 Must Reads: 2024
HBR Editors and Various Contributors
Harvard Business Review Press (October 2024)
The definitive management ideas of the year from Harvard Business Review
This is the latest volume in a series introduced in 2015. If you were to purchase all 11 articles in the 2024 edition as individual reprints, the total cost would be about $135.
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The “Editors’ Note” provides a brilliant introduction to articles that really are a “must read” for executives who are determined to accelerate their personal growth and professional development. According to the Editors, “Keeping up with the latest research, trends, and influential thinking is time-consuming. If you are able to read only 11 articles, whether all at once on a flight or in stolen sports during your day, which ones will bring you and your organization the most value? Which will surprise and delight you? Which will you talk about with friends and colleagues? Which will spur your thinking to action? We believe the articles in this collection meet those criteria.”
The material in this book will help those who read to achieve these specific objectives, each preceded by HOW TO:
o Radically redefine the role of managers in their organization
o Integrate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals into the company’s core business model
o Separate the hype from the reality of Web3and identify opportunities for their business
o Navigate conflict and embrace mutual learning across generational differences
o Identify the soft skills needed in the C-suite — and build them
o Encourage all employees to develop the capabilities around digital transformation
Here are three of the dozens of observations that caught my eye:
o “Change has come along three dimensions: power (managers have to think about making teams successful, not being served by them); skills (they’re expected to coach performance, not oversee tasks; and structure (they have to lead in more fluid environments).” Diane Gerson and Lynda Bratton, “Managers Can’t Do It All” (Page 3)
o “A positive mindset is an element in individual resilience, but when managing in the age of outrage, it must be balanced with continual reappraisal of the situation at hand to allow for the recalibration of strategy and tactics. The author and consultant Jim Collins captured the difference when he suggested that leaders must have both an unfailing belief in ultimate victory and the daily discipline to acknowledge and address harsh realities.” Karthik Rammana, “Managing in the Age of Outrage” (Page 63)
o “The mandate for digital transformation creates a leadership imperative: Embrace transformation, and work to sustain it. Articulate a clear strategy and communicate it relentlessly. Establish an organizational architecture to evolve into as you make the myriad daily decisions that define your technology strategy. Deploy a real governance process to track the many technology projects underway, and coordinate and integrate them whenever possible. Champion agility in all business initiatives you touch and influence. And finally, break free of tradition. Train and coach your employees to understand the potential of technology and data, and release the innovators within your workforce.” Marco Iansiti and Satya Nadella, “Democratizing Transformation” (Page 171)
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Here are two suggestions while you are reading HBR 10 Must Reads, 2024: First, highlight key passages Also, perhaps in a notebook kept near-at-hand (e.g. Apica Premium C.D. Notebook A5), record your comments, questions, action steps (preferably with deadlines), page references, and whatever you have learned that will be most helpful. Pay special attention to the “Idea in Brief” feature in each article.
These two simple tactics — highlighting and documenting — will facilitate, indeed e<em>xpedite</em> your frequent reviews of key material later.