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HBR's 10 Must Reads 2024: The Definitive Management Ideas of the Year from Harvard Business Review
A year's worth of management wisdom, all in one place.
We've reviewed the ideas, insights, and best practices from the past year of Harvard Business Review to keep you up to date on the most cutting-edge, influential thinking driving business today. With authors from Satya Nadella to Lynda Gratton and company examples from Nestlé to TikTok, this volume brings the most current and important management conversations right to your fingertips.
This book will inspire you
Radically redefine the role of managers in your organizationIntegrate your ESG goals into your company's core business modelSeparate the hype from the reality of Web3 and identify opportunities for your businessNavigate conflict and embrace mutual learning across generational differencesIdentify the soft skills needed in the C-suite—and build themEncourage all employees to develop the capabilities around digital transformation
This collection of articles includes "Managers Can't Do It All," by Diane Gherson and Lynda Gratton; "What Is Web3?," by Thomas Stackpole; "Selling on TikTok and Taobao," by Thomas S. Robertson; "Managing in the Age of Outrage," by Karthik Ramanna; "The Five Stages of DEI Maturity," by Ella F. Washington; "The Essential Link Between ESG Targets and Financial Performance," by Mark R. Kramer and Marc W. Pfitzer; "Make the Most of Your One-on-One Meetings," by Steven G. Rogelberg; "Harnessing the Power of Age Diversity," by Megan W. Gerhardt, Josephine Nachemson-Ekwall, and Brandon Fogel; "The C-Suite Skills That Matter Most," by Raffaella Sadun, Joseph Fuller, Stephen Hansen, and PJ Neal; "Your Company Needs a Space Strategy. Now.," by Matthew Weinzierl, Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury, Tarun Khanna, Alan MacCormack, and Brendan Rosseau; and "Democratizing Transformation," by Marco Iansiti and Satya Nadella.
HBR's 10 Must Reads paperback series is the definitive collection of books for new and experienced leaders alike. Leaders looking for the inspiration that big ideas provide, both to accelerate their own growth and that of their companies, should look no further. HBR's 10 Must Reads series focuses on the core topics that every ambitious manager needs to leadership, strategy, change, managing people, and managing yourself. Harvard Business Review has sorted through hundreds of articles and selected only the most essential reading on each topic. Each title includes timeless advice that will be relevant regardless of an ever‐changing business environment.
We've reviewed the ideas, insights, and best practices from the past year of Harvard Business Review to keep you up to date on the most cutting-edge, influential thinking driving business today. With authors from Satya Nadella to Lynda Gratton and company examples from Nestlé to TikTok, this volume brings the most current and important management conversations right to your fingertips.
This book will inspire you
Radically redefine the role of managers in your organizationIntegrate your ESG goals into your company's core business modelSeparate the hype from the reality of Web3 and identify opportunities for your businessNavigate conflict and embrace mutual learning across generational differencesIdentify the soft skills needed in the C-suite—and build themEncourage all employees to develop the capabilities around digital transformation
This collection of articles includes "Managers Can't Do It All," by Diane Gherson and Lynda Gratton; "What Is Web3?," by Thomas Stackpole; "Selling on TikTok and Taobao," by Thomas S. Robertson; "Managing in the Age of Outrage," by Karthik Ramanna; "The Five Stages of DEI Maturity," by Ella F. Washington; "The Essential Link Between ESG Targets and Financial Performance," by Mark R. Kramer and Marc W. Pfitzer; "Make the Most of Your One-on-One Meetings," by Steven G. Rogelberg; "Harnessing the Power of Age Diversity," by Megan W. Gerhardt, Josephine Nachemson-Ekwall, and Brandon Fogel; "The C-Suite Skills That Matter Most," by Raffaella Sadun, Joseph Fuller, Stephen Hansen, and PJ Neal; "Your Company Needs a Space Strategy. Now.," by Matthew Weinzierl, Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury, Tarun Khanna, Alan MacCormack, and Brendan Rosseau; and "Democratizing Transformation," by Marco Iansiti and Satya Nadella.
HBR's 10 Must Reads paperback series is the definitive collection of books for new and experienced leaders alike. Leaders looking for the inspiration that big ideas provide, both to accelerate their own growth and that of their companies, should look no further. HBR's 10 Must Reads series focuses on the core topics that every ambitious manager needs to leadership, strategy, change, managing people, and managing yourself. Harvard Business Review has sorted through hundreds of articles and selected only the most essential reading on each topic. Each title includes timeless advice that will be relevant regardless of an ever‐changing business environment.
264 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 10, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
May 30, 2024
This is the 11 best articles from HBR from 2023 and are the following: Managers can’t do it all, What is web3, Selling on tiktok and taobao, Managing in the age of outrage, The 5 stages of DEI maturity, The essential link between ESG targets and financial performance, Make the most of your 1on1 meetings, Harnessing the power of age diversity, The C-suite skills that matter most, Your company needs a space strategy now, Democratizing transformation. Some of the insights for me from the articles are:
3 fundamental shifts in the role of managers today: a power shift - from me to we (making the team successful and not themselves, being rewarded for improving team engagement, inclusion and skills relevancy not just achieving business goals, instead of controlling how people move beyond my unit to scout for talent and help your team move fluently to wider opportunities), a skills shift (from task overseer to performance coach, to track outcomes instead of overseeing work, instead of assessing team members against expectations to coach them to achieve their potential and invite their feedback to your management, from providing of work direction and sharing info from above to supplying inspiration, sense making and emotional support), a structural shift - from static and physical to fluid and digital (I manage an intact team of people in fixed jobs in a physical workplace becomes my team is fluid and the workplace is digital, from setting goals and making assessments annually to providing ongoing guidance on priorities and performance feedback, from holding annual career discussions focused on the next promotion to always retraining the team and providing career coaching).
There are 3 drivers of outrage: despair about the future, feeling that the game has been rigged, or an ideology of othering. Managing stakeholder outrage:
1. Turning down the temperature - acknowledging the clinical basis of outrage (physical environment matters - we are more likely to lose our temper in hot and humid environment than in a well ventilated one; when our cognitive reasoning resources are limited, emotions are likely to drive our actions - a busy and distracted brain tends to react emotionally and thus aggressively as part of fight or flight response in a crisis; we interpret events trough mental scripts - heuristics for how we think the world works - they are developed from and reinforced by prior experiences) and observing processes for engagement that stakeholders have ideally previously agreed upon in advance of situations that raise the temperature (identify your key steak-holders and seek their commitment before you get into a firefighting mode).
2. Analyzing the outrage - causal analysis of what is the reason for the outrage, identify it out of the 3 drivers of outrage. Catalytic analysis - identify the forces contributing to the intensity of stakeholder outrage (eg people or events) and they might provide a path for mitigation.
3. Shaping and bounding your responses - consider asymmetric capabilities (4 questions: 1) Are we directly responsible for the outrage? 2) Will our inaction exacerbate it? 3) Is acting to alleviate the outrage part of our implicit contract with stakeholders? 4) Do we want it to be? Only if the answer to all 4 is No then you shouldn’t act.) For an organization that makes a moral commitment to its stakeholders must repeatedly ask itself these questions, which serve as a reality check for entities under pressure: 1) What is our strategy for authentically meeting this commitment? 2) What are the boundaries of this commitment and how have they been communicated to stakeholders? 3) What is our strategy for dealing with shifting expectations around this commitment?
4. Understanding your power to mobilize others - first identify the internal and external sources to the organization of your ability to mobilize others (spacial mapping), then ask how your power will evolve as you exercise it (temporal mapping). It helps to divide power in 4 categories: coercive power (the ability to control others actions trough command, it made derive trough hierarchical authority and ability to control scarce resources, eg hiring, promoting and firing), reciprocal power (derives from exchanges, it can be purely transactional, salaries, bonuses, based in relationships), emotive power (emanates from personal charisma, based in relationships but an exchange is rarely expected, eg in parents and children), rational power (the ability to provide a reasoned, logical and evidentiary explanation of your goals and methods, managers often use it to bring well informed peers on board). 3 basic ways power can be exercised: implicitly (trough organizational culture, shared beliefs), indirectly (trough control of the agenda), and explicitly (trough direct engagement by yourself or by others acting for you).
5. Renewing resilience (ability to recover from negative shocks). Organizational resilience comes from distributing decision-making responsibilities among trusted and competent delegates situated close to realities on the ground and requires relational contracts (implicit understandings about the values that will guide each side’s decisions and reactions to the decisions of others, eg the Toyota cord case). Managers often conflate the urgent with the important. There are always urgent issues especially in a crisis and responding to them can quickly become all consuming. The more they focus on firefighting the less they focus in fire prevention. Personal resilience: don’t confuse optimism with resilience (a positive mindset must be balanced with continual reprisal of the situation at hand to allow of recalibration of strategy and tactics). Beware of learned helplessness - we often create false narratives about adversity. Cultivate detachment - ability to identify clearly for oneself what is not under your control and what choices you can actually control.
To avoid diversity and inclusion backlash, focus on changing systems not people.
Make the most from your 1on1 meetings: the manager should consider the meeting a focused space for the direct report and make that explicit. The meeting should be dominated by topics relating to the needs, concerns and hopes of the employee, who should take an active role in presenting them. Before you start with the meetings, communicate the initiative by announcing it at a team meeting so everyone gets the information at the same time. Tie the meetings to your organization’s values, eg the importance of hearing employees voices, and to your personal values - striving to be a supportive leader. Also stress that these meetings aren’t to signal a dissatisfaction with the team’s work and aren’t about micromanaging rather they are opportunities to get to know each other better, learn about challenges, discuss careers, give help when it’s needed. Share that they should drive the agenda with key priorities, be curious, be actively engaged, communicate candidly, think deeply about problems and solutions, be willing to ask for help and act on feedback. Collaborate on an agenda before the meeting. Some broad questions could be: what would you like to talk about today; how are things going with you and your team; what are your current priorities and are there any problems or concerns you’d like to talk trough; is there anything I can help you with or anywhere I can better support you; what do I need to know about or understand from your perspective. But those tend to prioritize immediate issues and fires to be put out. However, you should schedule at least monthly discussions about: career planing and developmental opportunities. Sample questions for 1on1: tell me about the best manager you ever had, what did that person do that you thought was most effective and helpful; what is your favourite/ least favourite part of the job; is anything slowing you down or blocking you right now, how can I help and support you; what aspects of our team culture you think we should maintain, change or work on; what feedback from me could be helpful - any particular projects, skills, tasks, would you like more or less coaching or direction from me; what would you like to be doing in 5 years, what work are you doing here that is most aligned with your longterm goals; what are your favourite podcasts, books, hobbies.
5 questions every manager needs to ask their direct reports:
1) How would you like to grow within this organization? / What role would you love to have and what can I do as your manager to encourage your development in this company?
2) Do you feel a sense of purpose in your job?
3) What do you need from me to do your best work? / What is your biggest frustration and what action can I take to help you deal with it? What have you been trying to tell me that I haven’t been hearing? How would you like to be recognized?
4) What are we currently not doing as a company that you feel we should do?
5) Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day? / What is the best part of your job? Which of your talents you aren’t using in your current role? What part of your job you would eliminate if you could?
3 fundamental shifts in the role of managers today: a power shift - from me to we (making the team successful and not themselves, being rewarded for improving team engagement, inclusion and skills relevancy not just achieving business goals, instead of controlling how people move beyond my unit to scout for talent and help your team move fluently to wider opportunities), a skills shift (from task overseer to performance coach, to track outcomes instead of overseeing work, instead of assessing team members against expectations to coach them to achieve their potential and invite their feedback to your management, from providing of work direction and sharing info from above to supplying inspiration, sense making and emotional support), a structural shift - from static and physical to fluid and digital (I manage an intact team of people in fixed jobs in a physical workplace becomes my team is fluid and the workplace is digital, from setting goals and making assessments annually to providing ongoing guidance on priorities and performance feedback, from holding annual career discussions focused on the next promotion to always retraining the team and providing career coaching).
There are 3 drivers of outrage: despair about the future, feeling that the game has been rigged, or an ideology of othering. Managing stakeholder outrage:
1. Turning down the temperature - acknowledging the clinical basis of outrage (physical environment matters - we are more likely to lose our temper in hot and humid environment than in a well ventilated one; when our cognitive reasoning resources are limited, emotions are likely to drive our actions - a busy and distracted brain tends to react emotionally and thus aggressively as part of fight or flight response in a crisis; we interpret events trough mental scripts - heuristics for how we think the world works - they are developed from and reinforced by prior experiences) and observing processes for engagement that stakeholders have ideally previously agreed upon in advance of situations that raise the temperature (identify your key steak-holders and seek their commitment before you get into a firefighting mode).
2. Analyzing the outrage - causal analysis of what is the reason for the outrage, identify it out of the 3 drivers of outrage. Catalytic analysis - identify the forces contributing to the intensity of stakeholder outrage (eg people or events) and they might provide a path for mitigation.
3. Shaping and bounding your responses - consider asymmetric capabilities (4 questions: 1) Are we directly responsible for the outrage? 2) Will our inaction exacerbate it? 3) Is acting to alleviate the outrage part of our implicit contract with stakeholders? 4) Do we want it to be? Only if the answer to all 4 is No then you shouldn’t act.) For an organization that makes a moral commitment to its stakeholders must repeatedly ask itself these questions, which serve as a reality check for entities under pressure: 1) What is our strategy for authentically meeting this commitment? 2) What are the boundaries of this commitment and how have they been communicated to stakeholders? 3) What is our strategy for dealing with shifting expectations around this commitment?
4. Understanding your power to mobilize others - first identify the internal and external sources to the organization of your ability to mobilize others (spacial mapping), then ask how your power will evolve as you exercise it (temporal mapping). It helps to divide power in 4 categories: coercive power (the ability to control others actions trough command, it made derive trough hierarchical authority and ability to control scarce resources, eg hiring, promoting and firing), reciprocal power (derives from exchanges, it can be purely transactional, salaries, bonuses, based in relationships), emotive power (emanates from personal charisma, based in relationships but an exchange is rarely expected, eg in parents and children), rational power (the ability to provide a reasoned, logical and evidentiary explanation of your goals and methods, managers often use it to bring well informed peers on board). 3 basic ways power can be exercised: implicitly (trough organizational culture, shared beliefs), indirectly (trough control of the agenda), and explicitly (trough direct engagement by yourself or by others acting for you).
5. Renewing resilience (ability to recover from negative shocks). Organizational resilience comes from distributing decision-making responsibilities among trusted and competent delegates situated close to realities on the ground and requires relational contracts (implicit understandings about the values that will guide each side’s decisions and reactions to the decisions of others, eg the Toyota cord case). Managers often conflate the urgent with the important. There are always urgent issues especially in a crisis and responding to them can quickly become all consuming. The more they focus on firefighting the less they focus in fire prevention. Personal resilience: don’t confuse optimism with resilience (a positive mindset must be balanced with continual reprisal of the situation at hand to allow of recalibration of strategy and tactics). Beware of learned helplessness - we often create false narratives about adversity. Cultivate detachment - ability to identify clearly for oneself what is not under your control and what choices you can actually control.
To avoid diversity and inclusion backlash, focus on changing systems not people.
Make the most from your 1on1 meetings: the manager should consider the meeting a focused space for the direct report and make that explicit. The meeting should be dominated by topics relating to the needs, concerns and hopes of the employee, who should take an active role in presenting them. Before you start with the meetings, communicate the initiative by announcing it at a team meeting so everyone gets the information at the same time. Tie the meetings to your organization’s values, eg the importance of hearing employees voices, and to your personal values - striving to be a supportive leader. Also stress that these meetings aren’t to signal a dissatisfaction with the team’s work and aren’t about micromanaging rather they are opportunities to get to know each other better, learn about challenges, discuss careers, give help when it’s needed. Share that they should drive the agenda with key priorities, be curious, be actively engaged, communicate candidly, think deeply about problems and solutions, be willing to ask for help and act on feedback. Collaborate on an agenda before the meeting. Some broad questions could be: what would you like to talk about today; how are things going with you and your team; what are your current priorities and are there any problems or concerns you’d like to talk trough; is there anything I can help you with or anywhere I can better support you; what do I need to know about or understand from your perspective. But those tend to prioritize immediate issues and fires to be put out. However, you should schedule at least monthly discussions about: career planing and developmental opportunities. Sample questions for 1on1: tell me about the best manager you ever had, what did that person do that you thought was most effective and helpful; what is your favourite/ least favourite part of the job; is anything slowing you down or blocking you right now, how can I help and support you; what aspects of our team culture you think we should maintain, change or work on; what feedback from me could be helpful - any particular projects, skills, tasks, would you like more or less coaching or direction from me; what would you like to be doing in 5 years, what work are you doing here that is most aligned with your longterm goals; what are your favourite podcasts, books, hobbies.
5 questions every manager needs to ask their direct reports:
1) How would you like to grow within this organization? / What role would you love to have and what can I do as your manager to encourage your development in this company?
2) Do you feel a sense of purpose in your job?
3) What do you need from me to do your best work? / What is your biggest frustration and what action can I take to help you deal with it? What have you been trying to tell me that I haven’t been hearing? How would you like to be recognized?
4) What are we currently not doing as a company that you feel we should do?
5) Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day? / What is the best part of your job? Which of your talents you aren’t using in your current role? What part of your job you would eliminate if you could?
October 7, 2025
Her yıl iş dünyasındaki en önemli fikirleri özlü ama derin bir şekilde sunma konusunda gerçekten benzersiz olan be yine çok sevdiğim HBR yayınlarının bu kitabında, 2024 yılında öne çıkan dijital dönüşüm, insan-merkezli liderlik, sürdürülebilir büyüme ve çalışma kültürünün yeniden tasarımı gibi konular ele alınmış. Özetle; hibrit çalışmanın artık geçici bir trend yerine kalıcı bir yönetim şekli olması, yapay zeka ile karar verme süreçlerinin getirdiği etik sorular, duygusal çeviklik (emotional agility) ve liderlikte radikal açıklık (radical candor) temaları ve geçen yıl da olduğu gibi ölçeklenebilirlik ve adaptasyon dengesi gibi konular 2024 yılı iş hayatına damga vuruyor.
December 11, 2023
This is a good compendium of some very relevant and insightful articles previously published in HBR. I liked the collection which ranged from an interesting take about companies getting into the space game to digital transformation. All the articles are extremely practical and provide value to the practitioner. Worth collecting for your use at work
July 4, 2024
Interesting to read what HBR editors regard as the 10 must-read articles of the year. Some articles were mostly intuitive. Others more thought provoking. A key theme included the focus on data - collecting, organizing, and utilizing it in the context of large language model AIs and instantaneous connectivity. I’m interested to explore more titles in these HBR collections.
December 11, 2024
This book is a summary of the best HBR articles from 2024. It includes interesting ideas such as the significance of streaming for sales, the necessity of having a space strategy, and an explanation of Web3. While it provides a good overview of trending topics, it does not introduce any groundbreaking concepts.
January 15, 2024
A good collection of the latest trends in the corporate world - from Web3 to D&I maturity models , the compilation manages to cover most of the relevant topics. What the articles lack is more detailed case studies and citations
February 5, 2024
HBR 10 must reads
I have been reading this collection for a number of years. It distills the most important management thinking and trends. I would recommend it as a must read at every beginning of your year
I have been reading this collection for a number of years. It distills the most important management thinking and trends. I would recommend it as a must read at every beginning of your year
July 17, 2024
This includes ten articles that the Harvard Business Review considers must-reads for 2024. From discussing diversity to ESGs and other useful processes, this book has a great basis for advice on running a business most efficiently.
October 26, 2024
Few interesting reads
1 managers can’t do it all
2 make the most of your one-on-one meetings
3 your company needs a space strategy. now
The rest are too academic/ only relevant to specific industries.
1 managers can’t do it all
2 make the most of your one-on-one meetings
3 your company needs a space strategy. now
The rest are too academic/ only relevant to specific industries.
November 24, 2023
Lazy thinking at its finest. Only article worth skimming was the "one-on-one".
January 8, 2024
Useful article on how to do effective one-on-ones with employees.
January 29, 2024
Not the best collection of studies. Mostly common sense practices and articles that have not aged well despite only being a few years old (looking at you, web3).
February 17, 2024
Great 2024 lookahead
Covered a great range of topics
Recommended for all leaders in a growing organisation
I'll probably revist this book again
Covered a great range of topics
Recommended for all leaders in a growing organisation
I'll probably revist this book again
May 27, 2024
Not the greatest collection from HBR..but then the year is not over!
January 4, 2025
I read:
Managing in the Age of Outrage - focused on stakeholder outrage
Make the Most of Your One-on-One Meetings - found this helpful
The Five Stages of DEI Maturity
Managing in the Age of Outrage - focused on stakeholder outrage
Make the Most of Your One-on-One Meetings - found this helpful
The Five Stages of DEI Maturity
August 5, 2025
If these are the 10 best articles of the year, then I'm glad I didn't read many others.
As usual, there are a few gems surrounded by several articles that are a waste of time for anyone with a modicum of introspection.
As usual, there are a few gems surrounded by several articles that are a waste of time for anyone with a modicum of introspection.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews