HBR's 10 Must Reads 2018: The Definitive Management Ideas of the Year from Harvard Business Review

by 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 Michael E. Porter to Daniel Kahneman and company examples from P&G to Adobe, this volume brings the most current and important management conversations to your fingertips.

This book will inspire you to:


Reconsider what keeps your customers coming back
Create visualizations that send a clear message
Assess how quickly disruptive change is coming to your industry
Boost engagement by giving your employees the freedom to break the rules
Understand what blockchain is and how it will affect your industry
Get your product in customers' hands faster by accelerating your research and development phase
This collection of articles includes "Customer Loyalty Is Overrated," by A.G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin; "Noise: How to Overcome the High, Hidden Cost of Inconsistent Decision Making," by Daniel Kahneman, Andrew M. Rosenfield, Linnea Gandhi, and Tom Blaser; "Visualizations That Really Work," by Scott Berinato; "Right Tech, Wrong Time," by Ron Adner and Rahul Kapoor; "How to Pay for Health Care," by Michael E. Porter and Robert S. Kaplan; "The Performance Management Revolution," by Peter Cappelli and Anna Tavis; "Let Your Workers Rebel," by Francesca Gino; "Why Diversity Programs Fail," by Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev; "What So Many People Don't Get About the U.S. Working Class," by Joan C. Williams; "The Truth About Blockchain," by Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani; and "The Edison of Medicine," by Steven Prokesch.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Management, Leadership

202 pages, Paperback

Published October 31, 2017

Reviews

[Diana Nassar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very insightful and useful series! I have challenged the idea of "reading about business" for a while; but every HBR publication I read shifts this thinking a bit. I liked this book because it doesn't specialize in one topic, it picks your mind on different ideas from different areas that are very new and amazingly relevant. Was it right of Instagram to change their logo? Would you make the same decision given the same data if you were to make the decision once again? Everyone can make charts now; is this all there is to data visualization? Is it too soon to worry about disruptive tech? Is there a better health insurance system that can actually work for everyone? Shall we evaluate employees based on their past performance or push them beyond their potential in the future? Should we evaluate them "formally" at all? Why do we like subordinates who tell us what we like to hear? Do we allow them to challenge our ideas and decisions? Are formal diversity programs necessary? Then, why is it that our orgs are still not "diverse enough"? Why did Trump win the elections by speaking economics? Shall I care about Bitcoin and Blockchain? How can I invest in an effective R&D strategy that launches actual products in the market?
I highly recommend this read for leaders, employees, and innovators alike. I would also like to meet Bob Langer one day!

[Shubham Bansal · Rating 2 out of 5]

As the title says, this book is a collection of best articles from HBR. I read two books in this series and realized that an article is meant to be read like an article. We expect a comprehensive theory from a book which has depth. Although it is mentioned that this book is a collection of Articles, there is no value addition apart from the fact the that HBR earns some more. Also, not all the articles are interesting enough and insightful.

[Ayush Kumar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some articles are fantastic. Others are instructive, but certainly not good enough to be in HBR's Top 10 Must Reads. I guess the emphasis is more on variety than on strictly picking the best, most useful articles.

[Pavel Annenkov · Rating 4 out of 5]

О чем книга в целом.
Подборка лучших статей журнала Harvard Business Review за прошлый год. Каждый год говорю себе, что надо обязательно читать все выпуски HBR. Но времени на всё не хватает) Хорошее решение - это читать дайджест лучших статей за прошедший год, который выпускают сами издатели журнала. В очередной раз большинство статей просто убойные. Все они есть в свободном доступе на русском.

ТОП3 статей
1. Подборка начинается со статьи Алана Лафли и Роджера Мартина «Лояльность не главное»
- Клиенты будут продолжать делать то же, что и делали всегда. Главное не мешайте им покупать и не пропустите следующий технологический скачок, который изменит их модель покупок.
Эти же авторы написали несколько лет назад одну из лучших книг по разработке стратегии «Игра на победу».

2. Рон Аднер "Кошмарный сон новатора» Очень важная статья. Обязательна к прочтению.
Многие продукты и услуги терпеть неудачу, потому что выходят на рынок слишком рано, когда еще нет экосистемы через которую можно ими пользоваться, либо доставлять клиентам. Сейчас это происходит с большинством VR продуктов, например.

3. Карим Лакхани «Правда о блокчейн»
Просто и понятно про блокчейн для тех, у кого нет времени читать длинные книги.

[AnnaG · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book principally to read the Kahnemann article on Noise as a pre-cursor to getting round to reading Thinking Fast and Slow; as it happened this book slipped down the reading list and I got to his main book first. Actually that was very helpful as Kahneman's insights on judgement really built on the previous book's message about intuitive decision-making and I got a lot more out of the article for having recently read TFAS.

The other articles were a mixed bag - "Customer loyalty is over-rated" applied behavioural economics and I enjoyed. "Let Your Workers Rebel" seemed to be a filler article and in part contradicted the Kahneman article (which had proved there is too little conformity in many cases not too much). "Why Diversity Programs Fail" was a very helpful article on the psychology behind HR programming. Overall 4 articles were genuinely interesting, 3 were good and 4 I felt were a waste of time. If this is a sample of the best articles from HBR, I shan't be subscribing.

[anna b · Rating 3 out of 5]

I find this very American-centric as most articles used American case studies e.g. healthcare. The one on white working class is especially interesting which I feel Singaporean politicians should read.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another HBR collection or "Must Reads" that I picked up at the Hershey Public Library.

Continuing my trend of reading management books and HBR (Harvard Business Review) works and collections (one of those "things" I'm trying to do to better myself as a person/employee and to try [and most likely fail for an unprecedented fourth time] at getting promoted).

This is another interesting collection of essays about management, and corporations, and businesses in general. A bit more eclectic than the "mental toughness" collection of essays I previously read, this one is much more 'all over the place', but in a good way, and a lot to read, digest, think about, and learn from.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid batch of articles on varying business topics. Best ones address understanding blue collar America and why diversity programs don't work. An explainer in blockchain taught me something completely new. I'm hooked on the HBR series and feel a bit more informed now, for someone who doesn't work in corporate America.

[Charluff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great read to reflect on a variety of topics. Still relevant even though it’s from 2018 and the articles usually come with a summary to spot the main idea.

The one I enjoyed the best was “Let your workers rebel” that provides ideas to empower your team to challenge the status quo and outperform themselves.

Happy read!

[Enda Hackett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of these articles do not warrant inclusion. Random selection and from 2016.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the "Edison of Medicine" article about innovative R&D that most companies vie for. Most of the other articles felt like much more middle-of-the-ground summaries of trends.

[Camilo Angel · Rating 4 out of 5]

These articles are always fresh with new and interesting ideas and managerial concepts. Particularly enjoyed the ones on Middle Income America, Noise, Blockchain and MIT Labs.

[Jane Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good stuff but not a lot new for me.

[Akanksha Susarla · Rating 5 out of 5]

i think its amazing and that i really love business books and i am very eager to read it