HBR’s 10 Must Reads On Managing People (Vol. 2)
Various Contributors
Harvard Business Review Press (March 2010)
“If you put fences around people, you get sheep. GIve people the room they need.” William L. McKnight
I selected a Dale Carnegie observation to serve as the title of this brief commentary but Amazon rejected it because of its length. Here it is: “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
This book is a long-overdue companion to a volume first published in 2011 in a series of volumes that anthologize what the editors of the Harvard Business Review consider to be “must reads” in a given business subject area, in this instance managing people in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous business world. Each of the selections is eminently deserving of inclusion.
If all of the eleven articles were purchased separately as reprints, the total cost would be almost $100 and the practical value of any one of them far exceeds that. Given the fact that Amazon US now sells this volume for only $17.27, that’s quite a bargain.
The same is true of volumes in other series such as HBR Guide to…, Harvard Business Review on…, and Harvard Business Essentials. I also think there is great benefit derived from the convenience of having a variety of perspectives and insights gathered in a single volume.
In all of the volumes in the HBR 10 Must Read series that I have read thus far, the authors and their HBR editors make skillful use of several reader-friendly devices that include “Idea in Brief” and “Idea in Action” sections, checklists with and without bullet points, boxed mini-commentaries (some of which are “guest” contributions from other sources), and graphic charts and diagrams that consolidate especially valuable information. These and other devices facilitate, indeed accelerate frequent review later of key material.
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As indicated, there are eleven articles in the book, including one “bonus” classic: “The Feedback Fallacy” by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall. Those who read HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Managing people (Vol. 2) will have cutting-edge thinking for mastering “the innumerable challenges of being a manager.”
More specifically, they will learn the dos and don’ts with regard to how to
o Determine whether you are a good boss — or a great one
o Let your workers rebel
o Recognize, avoid, or repudiate the “feedback fallacy”
o Maximize and leverage the power of small wins
o Quantify the price of incivility
o Understand — and address — what people get wrong about men and women
o Understand the ways and to the extent Netflix has reinvented HR
o Lead the team you inherited
o Simplify the overcommitted organization
o Learn how and why global teams work most effectively
o Create “the best workplace on Earth”
Earlier, I referred to the brilliant use of reader-friendly devices in the volumes in each of the HBRP anthologies.
Rather than include brief excerpts from several of the articles, I decided to include a list of five exercises that will facilitate, indeed expedite assessments of various kinds:
1. “Measuring Yourself on the Three [Good or Great Boss] Imperatives” (Pages 10-12)
2. “Assessment: Are You a ‘Constructive Nonconformist’?” (30-31)
3. “How Work Gets Stripped of Its Meaning” (60-61)
4. “The Daily Progress Checklist” for small win initiatives (66-67)
5. “The ‘Dream Company’ Diagnostic” (162-163)
The value of these five exercises (all by themselves) is far greater than the cost of the entire volume. The same is true of any one of the eleven articles in this volume.
Whatever the New Normal in business turns out to be, most executives now have more time than they probably want for reading material that can help accelerate their personal growth and professional development.
If you are among them, check out the HBRP anthologies. I highly recommend the two HBR 10 Must Reads on Managing People volumes to initiate that process.