My Favorite Harvard Business Review ArticlesBy 

Ralph Soule

 on April 6, 2009Comments (0)

I subscribe to Harvard Business Review (no, I don't have time to read all the articles). I have found some articles particularly useful and insightful, recommending them to protégés repeatedly, thus this list. The articles are available from the HBR Web site   for about $7 each. I find it particularly useful to recommend these articles to protégés who do not have as much time to read as I do or cannot read as fast. I have organized the articles on this list along five broad themes. 

1. Learning organizations2. Leadership-specific skills3. Challenges of being a chief executive officer4. Decision making5. Organizational insight

The link to my Amazon listmainia version of this is here.  (I will do a future post on the really cool tool I used to create the link, Tiny url). I have given very short descriptions of the articles in the list below. Longer descriptions are provided on the amazon.com version of the list.

Theme 1: Learning organizations

"Leading the Knowledge-Based Organization" 

This is a collection of three articles, all of which are linked below: "The Smart-Talk Trap," "Fair Process: Managing in the Knowledge Economy," and "Putting Your Company's Whole Brain to Work."

"The Smart-Talk Trap" by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton

This article provides antidotes to "smart talk," the tendency to spout criticisms and complexities that can stop action in its tracks.

"Fair Process: Managing in the Knowledge Economy" by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne

Build trust to create a climate in which employees volunteer their creativity and expertise.

"Putting Your Company's Whole Brain to Work" by Dorothy Leonard and Susaan Straus

Coming up with creative ideas and solutions requires working with people who think differently than you do.

"Building a Learning Organization" by David A. Garvin

The authors list critical issues for effective implementation of organizational learning.

Theme 2: Leadership-specific skills

"Leadership That Gets Results" by Daniel Goleman

The best leaders are skilled at several styles of leadership and have the flexibility to switch between styles as circumstances dictate.

"What Makes a Leader?" by Daniel Goleman

"Emotional intelligence" may be the key attribute that distinguishes outstanding performers from those who are merely adequate.

"Managing Oneself" by Peter F. Drucker 

Cultivate a deep understanding of yourself: strengths/weaknesses, how you learn, how you work with others, what your values are, and where you can make the greatest contribution.

"Managing Your Boss" by John J. Gabarro and John P. Kotter 

Consciously work with your superior to obtain the best possible results for you, your boss, and the company.

"How to Play to Your Strengths" by Laura Morgan Roberts, Gretchen Spreitzer, Jane Dutton, Robert Quinn, Emily Heaphy, and Brianna Barker

Foster excellence by identifying and harnessing your unique strengths to improve your performance.

Theme 3: Challenges of being a chief executive officer

"What Makes an Effective Executive" by Peter F. Drucker 

Ask, "What needs to be done?" and "What is right for the enterprise?" Develop action plans. Take responsibility for decisions and for communicating. Focus on opportunities, rather than problems. Run productive meetings. Think/say "we," rather than "I." Listen first, speak last.

"Seven Surprises for New CEOs" by Michael E. Porter, Jay W. Lorsch, and Nitin Nohria 

You have more power than anybody else in the corporation, but you need to use it with extreme caution.

"Leadership: Sad Facts and Silver Linings" by Thomas J. Peters 

The leader's job is not to defend a rigid timetable against reality, but to promote and protect the organization's values.

"The Ways Chief Executive Officers Lead" by Charles M. Farkas and Suzy Wetlaufer 

Five approaches to organizational leadership offer a framework for understanding how CEOs manage to give structure and meaning to their infinite jobs, learning to lead as they go.

"What Leaders Really Do" by John P. Kotter 

Management and leadership are different but complementary, and, in a changing world, one cannot function without the other.

"In Praise of the Incomplete Leader" by Deborah Ancona, Thomas W. Malone, Wanda J. Orlikowski, Peter M. Senge 

The executive's job is no longer to command and control, but to cultivate and coordinate the actions of others at all levels of the organization through the interrelated capabilities of sense-making, relating, visioning, and inventing.

Theme 4: Decision making

"The Hidden Traps in Decision Making" by John Hammond, Ralph Keeney, and Howard Raiffa

There are well-documented psychological traps and pitfalls that distort reasoning ability or cater to biases, but techniques exist to overcome each, and the best defense is always awareness.

"Why Good Leaders Make Bad Decisions" by Andrew Campbell, Jo Whitehead, and Sydney Finkelstein 

Decisions are made largely through unconscious processes of pattern recognition and emotional tagging; there are systematic ways to recognize bias safeguards to avoid flawed decisions.

"Decisions Without Blinders" by Max Bazerman and Dolly Chugh 

"Bounded awareness" causes people to ignore critical information when making decisions. Learning to expand your awareness before you make an important choice will save you from asking, "How did I miss that?" after the fact.

Theme 5: Organizational insight

"How Industries Change" by Anita M. McGahan 

Industries evolve along four distinct trajectories: radical, progressive, creative, and intermediating.

"Unlearning the Organization" by Michael E. McGill and John W. Slocum 

Few organizations truly learn from experience; this article suggests how to do it.

Of course, this list is highly personal--as you would expect from any "best of" list. I have lots of other articles that I like, but did not think were as highly valuable as these to a large number of people. By all means, share your knowledge by contributing links to your favoriteHarvard Business Review articles. (Try to stick with the HBR theme, although, of course, there are many sources of good information on the Web).