HBR used to be great until the early 2000s but since then, everything essential about management has been said. Today it's more about endless rehashes and wisdom snippets for pseudo elitist wantrepreneurs with short attention span
Does a collection of what you think constitutes "the essentials" exist anywhere, or must one go digging through the archives of HBR for the 80 years prior to the early 2000s timeframe to find these gems?
They used to sell ~ten color-coded The HBR Guide to ABC (with the old logo). From what I see there is now an endless array of these but I'm not sure whether those are reprints or completely new books. They're also avail. as PDF on some special sites.
I've always found HBR to be one of those things that wantrepreneurs and MBAs read. I used to read it until I realized that the articles were completely useless and non-relatable in a real startup environment.
There is theory and practice. Some of the theory applies well to their target market: Fortune 500 companies and consulting firms.
I would not try to apply HBR to a startup. Spending your time on implementing a full-fledged flexible maternity policy, sustainability team, or employee resource groups when you are a two person startup that isn’t profitable is a terrible investment of time. Those become critical (and will cost you key hires) after the company has matured.
I’d also argue they should be on the roadmap - don’t build your team or culture in a way that those programs become bandaids or are incompatible with those ideas. Or you will end up with lawsuits and
The MVP of a diversity program is don’t be racist, sexist, or an asshole. The MVP of a sustainability program is don’t waste resources. The MVP of a flexible maternity policy is unlimited PTO or a flexible work arrangement.
A startup founder reading HBR articles to figure out more on those topics is a waste of time for a new startup. Just like a Fortune 500 CEO watching how to start a startup might find some ideas, but it’s not the best investment of time.
It becomes more relevant and useful when you move into their target market.
In the corporate world, it’s sort of like the WSJ or Economist or (insert trade magazine / news source here) in the sense that you know the executives are reading it, so if you want to know what data they are making their decisions off of it is a good resource.
You can see it change some of the practices and thoughts, and move the Overton window on certain ideas (e.g. remote work or flexible work).
Like anything, situations are situational, and any guidance should be tailored to your organization. Whether your executives do this is important to watch, because if they don’t you will quickly be cycling through the latest fad of management. If they don’t adjust at all, the company will become stagnant or fall behind. So HBR is a good resource to get ideas on what to do, and then move from there.
McKinsey is similar in this sense - they have such influence in the C-suite and boards of most companies, that you better watch out when they get on the war path to sell something. This is a bit more dangerous than HBR, because executives can point to them if an initiative fails and say to the board and shareholders “it’s a best practice, it’s what the people we spent millions of dollars to advise us told us to do, and you approved the millions of dollars of spend - are you saying you approved that waste of money?” So things from McKinsey are more likely to have an operational impact. And people at McKinsey get and recycle some of their ideas from HBR or HBS.
All told, I think HBR can help diagnose problems, ID potential issues with a strategy or HR program (e.g. what are the benefits and negatives of remote work, and how do I approach that with my team?), and serves as a useful reference. Not every article applies, but the one or two that do could save 1000’s of dollars or literally years of going down the wrong path.
The one thing that I think case studies do is turn people neurotic - you must be perfect at all times, or like the case study if you make that one mistake you will be sidelined and your career will fizzle. In reality, your career is not a ton of big moments to screw up like they highlight in the case. You may get a few of those (that increase in frequency as you move up with responsibility) but what I have found more important is showing up every day and putting in consistent results so that when you do screw up, it will not be the pattern. I think COVID made people more willing to accept little things and there has been an emphasis on failing well, being resilient, and using it to inform the organization so the mistake is not made in the future.
For most people on this forum, very little that you do will be a career ender or blacklist you from industry. There are countless industries you can move to (everyone is competing on technology), and so making a big mistake isn’t really that bad (as long as you learn from it). Just don’t be reckless and disregard the really bad consequences.
