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HBR at 100: The Most Essential, Influential, and Innovative Articles from HBR's First 100 Years
The most definitive management ideas of the century, all in one place.
Harvard Business Review is the foremost destination for smart management thinking. Now, at its 100th anniversary, this commemorative volume brings together the most influential ideas since its inception. With thought leaders including Michael E. Porter, W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, Rosabeth Moss Kantor, Peter Drucker, and Clayton M. Christensen, this book puts HBR's greatest concepts at your fingertips.
HBR at 100 curates twenty of HBR's bestselling articles of all time on key topics such as leadership, strategy, innovation, entrepreneurship, and more. With an introduction by Harvard Business Review Editor-in-Chief Adi Ignatius and additional bonus content, you'll learn how these groundbreaking ideas continue to be relevant in today's business context—and what to keep in mind as you prepare for the future.
Whether you're a longtime reader or you're picking up an HBR volume for the first time, this book offers all you need to understand the most critical ideas in management—and set yourself and your organization up for success.
Harvard Business Review is the foremost destination for smart management thinking. Now, at its 100th anniversary, this commemorative volume brings together the most influential ideas since its inception. With thought leaders including Michael E. Porter, W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, Rosabeth Moss Kantor, Peter Drucker, and Clayton M. Christensen, this book puts HBR's greatest concepts at your fingertips.
HBR at 100 curates twenty of HBR's bestselling articles of all time on key topics such as leadership, strategy, innovation, entrepreneurship, and more. With an introduction by Harvard Business Review Editor-in-Chief Adi Ignatius and additional bonus content, you'll learn how these groundbreaking ideas continue to be relevant in today's business context—and what to keep in mind as you prepare for the future.
Whether you're a longtime reader or you're picking up an HBR volume for the first time, this book offers all you need to understand the most critical ideas in management—and set yourself and your organization up for success.
400 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 29, 2022
448 people are currently reading
1806 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
June 8, 2023
A great read. Despite having read some of these articles before it was a good refresher on some of the ideas presented. 5 stars.
October 28, 2023
Most of the articles were worth reading but a number of them were quite dated; at least they provided a neat window into HBR management thinking at the time. Definitely worth a read.
February 14, 2024
The insightful overview of many years of management practice.
October 6, 2025
One of my favorite books to help provide solutions to any road block mentally at work or with teams
December 29, 2022
Worth reading by everyone!
August 20, 2022
Have you ever had a book in your hands that drives you crazy because of the amount of fantastic ideas that you want to bring to life? This is the one for me. From leadership to personal growth, from business ideas to team management, from innovation to sustainable company development. There is a reason for this book to be too 100 articles. If you use it correctly, there may be plenty of unexpected successful changes in your personal and professional life.
December 3, 2025
This book stands as a monumental achievement, successfully charting the evolution of management thought across ten decades.
The most commendable aspect of this volume is its ability to distill a hundred years of publishing into a coherent set of foundational and pioneering articles. This compilation offers an unparalleled academic resource, showcasing the lineage of seminal concepts from Peter Drucker’s foundational work on management to Clayton Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation which, providing both the historical context and the enduring utility of these ideas. It powerfully demonstrates how core challenges related to organizational structure, motivation, and leadership have persisted, even as technology and markets have transformed. The sheer intellectual caliber of the curated contributions makes this a mandatory read for any executive or scholar seeking to grasp the origins of modern business strategy.
However, any anthology of this scope will present points of friction. Given that the magazine's first century coincided with the rise of the Western global economy, the selection inevitably carries an ingrained institutional bias, sometimes presenting a relatively narrow, US-centric view of global business challenges. While the articles on innovation are exceptional, the book could feel structurally imbalanced, devoting less space to emerging themes like organizational sustainability, complex systems leadership, or the radical shifts brought by digital transformation in the final decades of the compilation. While these topics appear, a critical reader might wish for a more comprehensive counter-balance to the classic manufacturing and financial frameworks of the mid-century.
The most striking revelation for readers is the surprising and enduring relevance of the oldest pieces. One might expect articles from the 1920s or 1930s to be historical curiosities, yet the underlying truths regarding human behavior, ethical leadership, and the psychological contract between employer and employee remain profoundly applicable today. For instance, early discussions on worker motivation or executive compensation reveal that many "modern" problems are merely recycled iterations of perennial management puzzles.
This timeless quality, which is the realization that the human element in business has barely changed, is the collection's true distinguishing feature, offering both a powerful historical anchor and a humbling perspective on management's recurring challenges.
The most commendable aspect of this volume is its ability to distill a hundred years of publishing into a coherent set of foundational and pioneering articles. This compilation offers an unparalleled academic resource, showcasing the lineage of seminal concepts from Peter Drucker’s foundational work on management to Clayton Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation which, providing both the historical context and the enduring utility of these ideas. It powerfully demonstrates how core challenges related to organizational structure, motivation, and leadership have persisted, even as technology and markets have transformed. The sheer intellectual caliber of the curated contributions makes this a mandatory read for any executive or scholar seeking to grasp the origins of modern business strategy.
However, any anthology of this scope will present points of friction. Given that the magazine's first century coincided with the rise of the Western global economy, the selection inevitably carries an ingrained institutional bias, sometimes presenting a relatively narrow, US-centric view of global business challenges. While the articles on innovation are exceptional, the book could feel structurally imbalanced, devoting less space to emerging themes like organizational sustainability, complex systems leadership, or the radical shifts brought by digital transformation in the final decades of the compilation. While these topics appear, a critical reader might wish for a more comprehensive counter-balance to the classic manufacturing and financial frameworks of the mid-century.
The most striking revelation for readers is the surprising and enduring relevance of the oldest pieces. One might expect articles from the 1920s or 1930s to be historical curiosities, yet the underlying truths regarding human behavior, ethical leadership, and the psychological contract between employer and employee remain profoundly applicable today. For instance, early discussions on worker motivation or executive compensation reveal that many "modern" problems are merely recycled iterations of perennial management puzzles.
This timeless quality, which is the realization that the human element in business has barely changed, is the collection's true distinguishing feature, offering both a powerful historical anchor and a humbling perspective on management's recurring challenges.
July 9, 2024
Key Takeaways from 'Managing Oneself' by Peter F. Drucker
1. What are my strengths?
The only way to discover your strengths is through feedback analysis. Write down the expected outcome after making a decision or taking action and compare it with the actual outcome after 9-12 months. After several years of practicing this technique, you may be able to identify your strengths. Next steps include concentrating on these strengths, improving upon them, and identifying any mental or personality blocks (e.g., bad habits or manners) that hinder your growth.
2. How do I perform?
"Just as people achieve results by doing what they are good at, they also achieve results by working in ways that they perform best." It is a matter of personality, which, through effort, can be modified or improved but not completely changed. Understanding your learning style is equally important. Determine whether you learn best by listening, reading, writing, or talking. Similarly, know if you perform better in a team or alone. If you work best in a team, identify whether you thrive in a subordinate position or a decision-making role.
3. What are my values?
Aligning your values with organizational values is important for performance. Incompatibility leads to frustration and non-performance. Drucker suggests the 'Mirror Test,' asking yourself, "What kind of person do I want to see in the mirror in the morning?"
4. Managing Relations
Organizations and individuals do not work in isolation; they function within an environment. Therefore, it is crucial to understand and manage relationships within this environment, especially with the people in it. It is essential for bosses to know the strengths, values, and working styles of their subordinates and colleagues, and vice versa. Achieving this requires effort and communication. Modern organizations are built and succeed on trust, not force.
5. Planning an Alternate Career
In today's age of knowledge workers, individuals often outlive organizations and become bored after doing the same work for about 20 years. Hence, it is important to develop an alternate career. There are three ways to achieve this:
• Second Career: Starting a new career after leaving the first one.
• Parallel Career: Developing and nurturing a side hustle and transitioning to it when the time is right.
• Social Venture: Developing and growing a social venture that brings inner happiness and success. This generally succeeds when one begins early, alongside their first career.
September 20, 2025
(Mostly) iconic Harvard Business Review articles in one volume!
"HBR at 100" is a compilation of memorable articles from the Harvard Business Review that served to be very influential in business and management. Contained within are works from famous business players such as Peter F. Drucker, W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, Michael E. Porter, and many others. The articles span from the 20th century all the way until the early 2020's and they offer insights on how businesses can thrive and achieve constant improvement for the benefit of society at large.
Technological advancements are discussed, and so are internal advancements in employment and human resources. Many of the articles focus on how the structure of the organization overall can have a profound impact on its own employees, which can then reflect outside the organization towards new and existing customers. Topics on artificial intelligence and data science are also explored, challenging the way we view leadership goals going forward into the future. Even articles that bring up the fragile topic of business ethics are here which create questions on how the transition from old fashioned to modern ethical business standards can be done.
Despite the majority of the articles being fascinating to read, there were a handful that just caused me to roll my eyes while reading them. Shoehorned inside the book are articles that bring up politics into the picture which feel very out of place in the collection. These articles in particular are not very fun to read as they feel biased without enough justification; mostly these ones feel heavily opinionated due to the lack of sources for the supposed facts. They were published during the late 2010's to the early 2020's which would explain their political angles.
Aside from those politically-driven articles which should have been published in a different compilation (perhaps a future book called "HBR's Political Collection"), the remaining articles are destined to be business classics to help future leaders and managers learn how to apply the strengths within the articles to their work. A solid compilation that deserves to be read by anybody interested in business.
"HBR at 100" is a compilation of memorable articles from the Harvard Business Review that served to be very influential in business and management. Contained within are works from famous business players such as Peter F. Drucker, W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, Michael E. Porter, and many others. The articles span from the 20th century all the way until the early 2020's and they offer insights on how businesses can thrive and achieve constant improvement for the benefit of society at large.
Technological advancements are discussed, and so are internal advancements in employment and human resources. Many of the articles focus on how the structure of the organization overall can have a profound impact on its own employees, which can then reflect outside the organization towards new and existing customers. Topics on artificial intelligence and data science are also explored, challenging the way we view leadership goals going forward into the future. Even articles that bring up the fragile topic of business ethics are here which create questions on how the transition from old fashioned to modern ethical business standards can be done.
Despite the majority of the articles being fascinating to read, there were a handful that just caused me to roll my eyes while reading them. Shoehorned inside the book are articles that bring up politics into the picture which feel very out of place in the collection. These articles in particular are not very fun to read as they feel biased without enough justification; mostly these ones feel heavily opinionated due to the lack of sources for the supposed facts. They were published during the late 2010's to the early 2020's which would explain their political angles.
Aside from those politically-driven articles which should have been published in a different compilation (perhaps a future book called "HBR's Political Collection"), the remaining articles are destined to be business classics to help future leaders and managers learn how to apply the strengths within the articles to their work. A solid compilation that deserves to be read by anybody interested in business.
November 12, 2023
A good read, with a broad range of insights across multiple business types and disciplines. Well worth a read for every business person (entrepreneurs and employees alike).
HOWEVER, there are some incredibly irritating layout choices throughout the book. Particularly, there are inserted sidebar-type content pieces that completely disrupt the flow in seemingly random ways and make it difficult to read the core content. You are often forced to flick forward and back to finish the core point and then read the sidebar. Those additional pieces are often useful, but the way they have included it sure is annoying. For a more pleasant experience, stick to the original publication and/or the website.
HOWEVER, there are some incredibly irritating layout choices throughout the book. Particularly, there are inserted sidebar-type content pieces that completely disrupt the flow in seemingly random ways and make it difficult to read the core content. You are often forced to flick forward and back to finish the core point and then read the sidebar. Those additional pieces are often useful, but the way they have included it sure is annoying. For a more pleasant experience, stick to the original publication and/or the website.
December 22, 2023
Surprisingly good read despite having articles from the start of the past century. Spoiler alert, most concepts are timeless, and they add articles to support the current context and narrow the gap.
The ones I enjoyed the most:
- First two articles about self awareness, and emotional intelligence to become a better leader
- the iconic article about who gets the monkey
- Porter’s, Clayton’s and Kotter’s articles about market strategy and innovation
Otherwise skimmed most of them as they are books I’ve already read based on these ideas.
Worth the cherry picking of articles.
Happy read!
The ones I enjoyed the most:
- First two articles about self awareness, and emotional intelligence to become a better leader
- the iconic article about who gets the monkey
- Porter’s, Clayton’s and Kotter’s articles about market strategy and innovation
Otherwise skimmed most of them as they are books I’ve already read based on these ideas.
Worth the cherry picking of articles.
Happy read!
March 9, 2024
Most of the ideas here are timeless. One might have encountered them already in other books, but the articles serve as good refresher for topics like Porter's Five Forces and Cialdini's science of persuasion. What stood out for me were the chapters on blue ocean strategy, the power of small wins, design thinking, and marketing myopia. The power of small wins, in particular, has taught me to be more mindful of making progress--no matter how small--as it can give your day a boost.
August 6, 2022
The HBR at 100 is a collection of articles that have been considered the most influential from Harvard Business Review's first century. That is a lot of articles, and there are disclaimers because obviously what would be published within the last century isn't necessarily current with the times we live in today. The collection that was opted for this book are articles that as a reader you can apply today, from the vast array of topics there are articles about management, AI, marketing, and so much more that can inspire someone today to become a better leader.
August 10, 2022
This is a collection of articles that you heard about one way or the other already but reading the original thoughts as they were put 30, 50, 70 years ago is eyeopening. I liked especially that sometimes I had to go back to see if the date was really right because an article written in 1929 sounded just like something from this year.
March 28, 2024
I guess that if you enjoy reading popularized management and business research you will enjoy this collection. There were some good articles, but many dealt with self-evident themes. With some, it was clear that they were written by generalists as opposed to subject matter experts. As a heads-up, more than 50 % of content is about leadership / interaction at the workplace etc.
July 20, 2025
Including some of the greatest HBR articles, this collection consists of Tom ideas and concepts that readers have read in Harvard Business Review’s pages. Like Blue Ocean, Psychological Safety, Disruptive Innovation, Design Thinking, etc. Even if you’ve read some of the texts, it’s no less than a time well spent
August 27, 2023
Insightful read although some theories might not be as applicable in the current days. But still interesting to understand the reasonings and decisions behind the development of successful processes / companies
May 19, 2024
This book gives you an overview of the evolution of management, marketing and strategy. It reinforces known concepts and introduces new ways of thinking and functioning. In my opinion the articles are very well curated and it is a great read.
July 30, 2024
A collection of some of the most influential HBR articles all in one place. Some classics and gems including Peter Drucker’s Managing Oneself, Goleman’s What Makes a Leader and others. Would recommend it to anyone whether management or not
June 22, 2025
Challenging to read these without accompanying the book with a course at HBS, to bring these more to life and participate in class discussions. Even then, I’ve almost always learned more from guest speakers.
August 17, 2022
Phenomenal aggregation of articles and very relevant to today's leaders - highly recommend!
November 27, 2022
Tightly curated and reflective of our times (racial equity, climate change) while also featuring timeless classics (self-management).
March 6, 2023
Great collection of articles to celebrate a century of Harvard Business Reviews (HBR). Really enjoyed reading the articles with different - and still very important - topics.
March 8, 2023
Excellent collection of famous HBR articles. It is also a nice collectible item for your bookshelf. 😊
June 28, 2023
Somewhat useful collection of HBR articles on leadership and business over the years.
February 29, 2024
Timely book and good variety of business topics. Highly recommend.
March 24, 2025
Read the articles that seemed pertinent. I’ll have to circle back to this collection of articles when I actually have a manager position.
June 20, 2025
Contains some classics that I’ve heard referenced on numerous occasions, but hadn’t had the chance to read firsthand until now. An interesting collection with some timeless ideas.
October 2, 2025
I come back to this book all the time
November 8, 2025
Mostly waste of your time. I marked to remember maybe 5 pages in total.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews