Books published by Harvard Business Review Press

Meeting the new standard for leadership.Higher Ambition is required reading for every leader who refuses to compromise between people and performance. Choosing one or the other may have worked in the past, but it wont work now. As global competition stiffens and businesses face increased public scrutiny and renewed government regulation, leaders must win on all frontswith their people, their customers, their communities, and their shareholders. In short, they must deliver superior economic and social value. Brimming with powerful stories and thoughtful advice from CEOs themselves, Higher Ambition equips leaders with the practical insights they need to meet this new and higher standard. The authors, an international team of experts from leading business schools and consultancies, offer a unique view into the minds of some of the most successful and insightful leaders of our time: CEOs from vanguard companies around the world that have demonstrated the distinctive ability to do good while also doing well. These organizations are as diverse as Standard Chartered Bank, Infosys, Volvo, Cummins, IKEA, the Tata Group, and Campbells Soup. Readers will learn the principles and practices these pioneering leaders are using to: Build enduring enterprises that simultaneously solve for people and profits Forge winning strategies that leverage their companies unique cultural and human capabilities Dramatically raise the aspirations and ambitions of their people Energize and align their diverse global firms Relentlessly upgrade leadership capabilities throughout their organizationsDrawing on the author teams extensive research and in-depth interviews with successful leaders from around the globe, this provocative new book is poised to become a management classic in the tradition of In Search of Excellence and Built to Last.

The spread of capitalism worldwide has made people wealthier than ever before. But capitalisms future is far from assured. The global financial meltdown of 2008 nearly produced a great depression. Economies in Europe are still teetering. Income inequality, resource depletion, mass migrations from poor to rich countries, religious fundamentalismthese are just a few of the threats to continuing prosperity. How can capitalism be sustained? And who should spearhead the effort? Critics turn to government. In Capitalism at Risk, Harvard Business School professors Joseph Bower, Herman Leonard, and Lynn Paine argue that while governments must play a role, businesses should take the lead. For enterprising companieswhether large multinationals, established regional players, or small start-upsthe current threats to market capitalism present important opportunities.Capitalism at Risk draws on discussions with business leaders around the world to identify ten potential disruptors of the global market system. Presenting examples of companies already making a difference, the authors explain how business must serve both as innovator and activistdeveloping corporate strategies that effect change at the community, national, and international levels.Filled with rich insights, Capitalism at Risk presents a compelling and constructive vision for the future of market capitalism.

How to Resolve the Really Hard ProblemsEvery manager makes tough callsit comes with the job. And the hardest decisions are the gray areassituations where you and your team have worked hard to find an answer, youve done the best analysis you can, and you still dont know what to do. But you have to make a decision. You have to choose, commit, act, and live with the consequences and persuade others to follow your lead. Gray areas test your skills as a manager, your judgment, and even your humanity. How do you get these decisions right?In Managing in the Gray, Joseph Badaracco offers a powerful, practical, and even radical way to resolve these problems. Picking up where conventional tools of analysis leave off, this book provides tools for judgment in the form of five revealing questions. Asking yourself these five questions provides a simple yet profound way to broaden your thinking, sharpen your judgment, and develop a fresh perspective. What makes these questions so valuable is that they have truly stood the test of timetheyve guided countless men and women, across many centuries and cultures, to resolve the hardest questions of work, responsibility, and life.You can use the five-question framework on your own or with others on your team to help you cut through complexities, understand critical trade-offs, and develop workable solutions for even the grayest issues.

In 1999, Joseph Pine and James Gilmore offered this idea to readers as a new way to think about connecting with customers and securing their loyalty. As a result, their book The Experience Economy is now a classic, embraced by readers and companies worldwide and read in more than a dozen languages.And though the world has changed in many ways since then, the way to a customer's heart has not. In fact, the idea of staging experiences to leave a memorableand lucrativeimpression is now more relevant than ever. With an ongoing torrent of brands attacking consumers from all sides, how do you make yours stand out?Welcome to the new Experience Economy. With this fully updated edition of the book, Pine and Gilmore make an even stronger case that experience is the missing link between a company and its potential audience. It offers new rich examplesincluding the U.S. Army, Heineken Experience, Autostadt, Vinopolis, American Girl Place, and othersto show fresh approaches to scripting and staging compelling experiences, while staying true to the very real economic conditions of the day.

As you're well aware, your individual energy ebbs and flows--leading to high and low productivity cycles. Fail to manage your energy correctly, and you risk falling into traps including inertia, complacency, and frenzied, unfocused activity that only erodes the quality of your life.The same holds true for your entire organization. In Fully Charged, Heike Bruch and Bernd Vogel provide tools and strategies to help you manage your company's collective energy.First, diagnose your company's "e;energy state"e; using the Organizational Energy Matrix. By assessing the intensity (high or low) and the quality (positive or negative) of the energy in your enterprise, you discover which of four energy states your company is experiencing. Second, move your company out of dangerous states characterized by complacency, cynicism, aggression, withdrawal, and other perils. By applying practices mastered by companies as diverse as Airbus, Novartis, SAP, and Tata Steel, you can shift your firm into a state of high, positive energy--in which everyone is emotionally engaged, mentally alert, and working swiftly and productively toward critical goals.Practical and backed by extensive research, Fully Charged reveals how to continually refresh your company's energy--so it's always ready to tackle the next period of high demand.

A manager's job is getting harder to do. But the central question for all managers - the one that separates great managers from the rest- is how to get the most from your people. What do you do when your most talented people fall short of their potential, or worse, fall off their game for awhile? How do you inspire a solid contributor to even more stellar performance? How do you find that spark? And turn it into a burning flame?According to best-selling author and psychiatrist, Ned Hallowell, it's all in the brain. Creating that spark and inspiring someone to perform at their highest levels isn't rocket science; but it is brain science, and it has yet to be codified into a simple and reliable process that all managers can use.Drawing from his expertise helping people reach their full potential and synthesizing the latest research on happiness, brain science, and performance, Hallowell does exactly that -- he offers a five step process that leads to peak performance. Based on the latest findings in the fast-moving field of high performance research and rooted in the work of Martin Seligman, Dan Gilbert, Marcus Buckingham, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, John Ratey, and many other experts in psychology and neuroscience, this book gives managers a simple and coherent framework for getting the best out of people:(1) Selection - how to put people in the right job, and give them the responsbilities that literally make their brains "e;light up;"e;(2) Connection - how to overcome the powerful forces that disconnect us interpersonally in today's workplace, and how to restore the positive connections that fuel superior performance;(3) Play - why play is essential to peak performance, and how managers can get it right;(4) Progress - when the pressure is on, how to challenge the right person at the right time;(5) Recognition - why reward systems always decrease peak performance, and how managers can finally get this rightThe value of the five steps is that each step builds on another. For instance, there's no point in challenging an employee to go beyond their personal best if you haven't bothered to ensure first that you've got them in the right job. And there's no way to successfully get someone to think more creatively if you haven't first established the personal connection with her so that she knows her wild ideas will be taken seriously. And there's no point in demanding more, if you haven't first given employees a chance to engage their imagination and play around with the things that "e;light up their brains."e;Especially in times of mental overload and stress, when invoking people to suck it up or work even harder isn't an effective management tool, managers need a new game plan, like the one in this book, for helping their people perform at their best.

Offers managers and professionals the fundamental information they need to stay competitive in a fast-moving world.

Think of the toughest problems in your organization or community. What if they'd already been solved and you didn't even know it? In The Power of Positive Deviance, the authors present a counterintuitive new approach to problem-solving. Their advice? Leverage positive deviants--the few individuals in a group who find unique ways to look at, and overcome, seemingly insoluble difficulties. By seeing solutions where others don't, positive deviants spread and sustain needed change.With vivid, firsthand stories of how positive deviance has alleviated some of the world's toughest problems (malnutrition in Vietnam, staph infections in hospitals), the authors illuminate its core practices, including: Mobilizing communities to discover "e;invisible"e; solutions in their midst Using innovative designs to "e;act"e; your way into a new way of thinking instead of thinking your way into a new way of acting Confounding the organizational "e;immune response"e; seeking to sustain the status quoInspiring and insightful, The Power of Positive Deviance unveils a potent new way to tackle the thorniest challenges in your own company and community.

Business model innovation is the key to unlocking transformational growthbut few executives know how to apply it to their businesses. In Seizing the White Space, Mark Johnson gives them the playbook.Leaving the rhetoric to others, Johnson lays out an eminently practical framework that identifies the four fundamental building blocks that make business models work. In a series of in-depth case studies, he goes on to vividly illustrate how companies are using innovative business models to seize their white space and achieve transformational growth by fulfilling unmet customer needs in their current markets; serving entirely new customers and creating new markets; and responding to tectonic shifts in market demand, government policy, and technologies that affect entire industries. He then lays out a structured process for designing a new model and developing it into a profitable and thriving enterprise, while investigating the vexing and sometimes paradoxical managerial challenges that have commonly thwarted so many companies in their unguided forays into the unknown.Business model innovators have reshaped entire sectorsincluding retail, aviation, and mediaand redistributed billions of dollars of value. With road-tested frameworks, analytics, and diagnostics, this book gives executives everything they need to reshape their businesses and achieve transformative growth.

Who drives transformation in society? How do they do it?In this compelling book, strategy guru Roger L. Martin and Skoll Foundation President and CEO Sally R. Osberg describe how social entrepreneurs target systems that exist in a stable but unjust equilibrium and transform them into entirely new, superior, and sustainable equilibria. All of these leaders--call them disrupters, visionaries, or changemakers--develop, build, and scale their solutions in ways that bring about the truly revolutionary change that makes the world a fairer and better place.The book begins with a probing and useful theory of social entrepreneurship, moving through history to illuminate what it is, how it works, and the nature of its role in modern society. The authors then set out a framework for understanding how successful social entrepreneuars actually go about producing transformative change. There are four key stages: understanding the world; envisioning a new future; building a model for change; and scaling the solution. With both depth and nuance, Martin and Osberg offer rich examples and personal stories and share lessons and tools invaluable to anyone who aspires to drive positive change, whatever the context.Getting Beyond Better sets forth a bold new framework, demonstrating how and why meaningful change actually happens in the world and providing concrete lessons and a practical model for businesses, policymakers, civil society organizations, and individuals who seek to transform our world for good.

Imagine, if you can, the world of business - without corporate strategy. Remarkably, fifty years ago that's the way it was. Businesses made plans, certainly, but without understanding the underlying dynamics of competition, costs, and customers. It was like trying to design a large-scale engineering project without knowing the laws of physics. But in the 1960s, four mavericks and their posses instigated a profound shift in thinking that turbocharged business as never before, with implications far beyond what even they imagined. In The Lords of Strategy, renowned business journalist and editor Walter Kiechel tells, for the first time, the story of the four men who invented corporate strategy as we know it and set in motion the modern, multibillion-dollar consulting industry:Bruce Henderson, founder of Boston Consulting GroupBill Bain, creator of Bain & CompanyFred Gluck, longtime Managing Director of McKinsey & CompanyMichael Porter, Harvard Business School professorProviding a window into how to think about strategy today, Kiechel tells their story with novelistic flair. At times inspiring, at times nearly terrifying, this book is a revealing account of how these iconoclasts and the organizations they led revolutionized the way we think about business, changed the very soul of the corporation, and transformed the way we work.

You've got a good idea. You know it could make a crucial difference for you, your organization, your community. You present it to the group, but get confounding questions, inane comments, and verbal bullets in return. Before you know what's happened, your idea is dead, shot down. You're furious. Everyone has lost: Those who would have benefited from your proposal. You. Your company. Perhaps even the country.It doesn't have to be this way, maintain John Kotter and Lorne Whitehead. In Buy-In, they reveal how to win the support your idea needs to deliver valuable results. The key? Understand the generic attack strategies that naysayers and obfuscators deploy time and time again. Then engage these adversaries with tactics tailored to each strategy. By "e;inviting in the lions"e; to critique your idea--and being prepared for them--you'll capture busy people's attention, help them grasp your proposal's value, and secure their commitment to implementing the solution.The book presents a fresh and amusing fictional narrative showing attack strategies in action. It then provides several specific counterstrategies for each basic category the authors have defined--including: Death-by-delay: Your enemies push discussion of your idea so far into the future it's forgotten. Confusion: They present so much data that confidence in your proposal dies. Fearmongering: Critics catalyze irrational anxieties about your idea. Character assassination: They slam your reputation and credibility.Smart, practical, and filled with useful advice, Buy-In equips you to anticipate and combat attacks--so your good idea makes it through to make a positive change.

Explains how to create a crucial capability for unlocking disruption's transformational power. This book provides a set of tools and approaches to innovation that have been honed through fieldwork with innovative companies like Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Pepsi, Intel, Motorola, SAP, and Cisco Systems.

In a world of stiffening competition, business strategy is more crucial than ever. Yet most organizations struggle in this area--not with formulating strategy but with executing it, or putting their strategy into action. Owing to execution failures, companies realize just a fraction of the financial performance promised in their strategic plans.It doesn't have to be that way, maintain Robert Kaplan and David Norton in The Execution Premium. Building on their breakthrough works on strategy-focused organizations, the authors describe a multistage system that enables you to gain measurable benefits from your carefully formulated business strategy. This book shows you how to:Develop an effective strategy--with tools such as SWOT analysis, vision formulation, and strategic change agendasPlan execution of the strategy--through portfolios of strategic initiatives linked to strategy maps and Balanced ScorecardsPut your strategy into action--by integrating operational tools such as process dashboards, rolling forecasts, and activity-based costingTest and update your strategy--using carefully designed management meetings to review operational and strategic dataDrawing on extensive research and detailed case studies from a broad array of industries, The Execution Premium presents a systematic and proven framework for achieving the financial results promised by your strategy.

For the past two decades, Michael Porter's work has towered over the field of competitive strategy. On Competition, Updated and Expanded Edition brings together more than a dozen of Porter's landmark articles from the Harvard Business Review. Five are new to this edition, including the 2008 update to his classic "e;The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy,"e; as well as new work on health care, philanthropy, corporate social responsibility, and CEO leadership. This collection captures Porter's unique ability to bridge theory and practice. Each of the articles has not only shaped thinking, but also redefined the work of practitioners in its respective field. In an insightful new introduction, Porter relates each article to the whole of his thinking about competition and value creation, and traces how that thinking has deepened over time.This collection is organized by topic, allowing the reader easy access to the wide range of Porter's work. Parts I and II present the frameworks for which Porter is best known--frameworks that address how companies, as well as nations and regions, gain and sustain competitive advantage. Part III shows how strategic thinking can address society's most pressing challenges, from environmental sustainability to improving health-care delivery. Part IV explores how both nonprofits and corporations can create value for society more effectively by applying strategy principles to philanthropy. Part V explores the link between strategy and leadership.

We live in a time of relentless change. The only thing that?s certain is that new challenges and opportunities will emerge that are virtually unimaginable today. How can we know which skills will be required to succeed?In Five Minds for the Future, bestselling author Howard Gardner shows how we will each need to master "e;five minds"e; that the fast-paced future will demand: The disciplined mind, to learn at least one profession, as well as the major thinking (science, math, history, etc.) behind it The synthesizing mind, to organize the massive amounts of information and communicate effectively to others The creating mind, to revel in unasked questions - and uncover new phenomena and insightful apt answers The respectful mind, to appreciate the differences between human beings - and understand and work with all persons The ethical mind, to fulfill one's responsibilities as both a worker and a citizenWithout these "e;minds,"e; we risk being overwhelmed by information, unable to succeed in the workplace, and incapable of the judgment needed to thrive both personally and professionally.Complete with a substantial new introduction, Five Minds for the Future provides valuable tools for those looking ahead to the next generation of leaders - and for all of us striving to excel in a complex world.Howard Gardnercited by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the one hundred most influential public intellectuals in the world, and a MacArthur Fellowship recipientis the Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.