Books published by Harvard Business Review Press

Helps managers identify, manage, and prevent potential crises. Containing tips and tools on how to prepare an emergency list and how to utilize pre-crisis resources, this book shows managers how to shepherd their team from crisis to success.

Aims to issue a challenge to HR professionals: define the value you create and institute measures for your performance, or face the inevitable outsourcing of your function. This book provides hands-on tools that show HR professionals how they can operate in all four areas simultaneously.

The international best seller Human Resource Champions helped set the HR agenda for the 1990s and enabled HR professionals to become strategic partners in their organizations. But earning a seat at the executive table was only the beginning. Today's HR leaders must also bring substantial value to that table. Drawing on their 16-year study of over 29,000 HR professionals and line managers, leading HR experts Dave Ulrich and Wayne Brockbank propose The HR Value Proposition. The authors argue that HR value creation requires a deep understanding of external business realities and how key stakeholders both inside and outside the company define value. Ulrich and Brockbank provide practical tools and worksheets for leveraging this knowledge to create HR practices, build organizational capabilities, design HR strategy, and marshal resources that create value for customers, investors, executives, and employees. Written by the field's premier trailblazers, this book charts the path HR professionals must take to help lead their organizations into the future. Ulrich is a professor at the University of Michigan School of Business and the author of 12 books and more than 100 articles on the subject of human resources. Brockbank is a clinical professor of business at the University of Michigan School of Business, the author of award-winning papers on HR strategy, and an adviser to top global organizations.

Firms with superior IT governance have more than 25% higher profits than firms with poor governance given the same strategic objectives. These top performers have custom designed IT governance for their strategies. Just as corporate governance aims to ensure quality decisions about all corporate assets, IT governance links IT decisions with company objectives and monitors performance and accountability. Based on a study of 250 enterprises worldwide, IT Governance shows how to design and implement a system of decision rights that will transform IT from an expense to a profitable investment.

More than a decade ago, Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton introduced the Balanced Scorecard, a revolutionary performance measurement system that allowed organizations to quantify intangible assets such as people, information, and customer relationships. Then, in The Strategy-Focused Organization, Kaplan and Norton showed how organizations achieved breakthrough performance with a management system that put the Balanced Scorecard into action.Now, using their ongoing research with hundreds of Balanced Scorecard adopters across the globe, the authors have created a powerful new tool--the "e;strategy map"e;--that enables companies to describe the links between intangible assets and value creation with a clarity and precision never before possible. Kaplan and Norton argue that the most critical aspect of strategy--implementing it in a way that ensures sustained value creation--depends on managing four key internal processes: operations, customer relationships, innovation, and regulatory and social processes. The authors show how companies can use strategy maps to link those processes to desired outcomes; evaluate, measure, and improve the processes most critical to success; and target investments in human, informational, and organizational capital. Providing a visual "e;aha!"e; for executives everywhere who can't figure out why their strategy isn't working, Strategy Maps is a blueprint any organization can follow to align processes, people, and information technology for superior performance.

Argues that boards are being pressed to perform unrealistic duties given their traditional structure, processes, and membership. This book proposes a strategic redesign of boards - making them attuned to their oversight, decision-making, and advisory roles - to enable directors to meet twenty-first century challenges.

Most of us think of leaders as courageous risk takers, orchestrators of major events. In a word: heroes. Although such figures are inspiring, Joseph Badaracco argues that their larger-than-life accomplishments are not what makes the world work. What does, he says, is the sum of millions of small yet consequential decisions that individuals working far from the limelight make every day. Badaracco calls them "e;quiet leaders"e;--people who choose responsible, behind-the-scenes action over public heroism to resolve tough leadership challenges. Quiet leaders don't fit the stereotype of the bold and gutsy leader, and they don't want to. What they want is to do the "e;right thing"e;--for their organizations, their coworkers, and themselves--but inconspicuously and without casualties. Drawing from extensive research, Badaracco presents eight practical yet counter-intuitive guidelines for situations in which right and wrong seem like moving targets. Compelling stories illustrate how these "e;nonheroes"e; succeed by managing their political capital, buying themselves time, bending the rules, and more. From the executive suite to the office cubicle--Leading Quietly shows how patient, everyday efforts can add up to a better company and a better world.

Explains what strategy is, how to put together a strategic plan, what tools and resources are necessary to execute it, and how to measure results.

The traditional annual budgeting process--characterized by fixed targets and performance incentives--is time consuming, overcentralized, and outdated. Worse, it often causes dysfunctional and unethical managerial behavior. Based on an intensive, international study into pioneering companies, Beyond Budgeting offers an alternative, coherent management model that overcomes the limitations of traditional budgeting. Focused around achieving sustained improvement relative to competitors, it provides a guiding framework for managing in the twenty-first century.

Based on a ten-year examination of control systems in over 50 U.S. businesses, this book broadens the definition of control and establishes a critical bridge between the disciplines of strategy and accounting and control. In addition to the more traditional diagnostic control systems, Simons identifies three new control systems that allow strategic change: belief systems that communicate core values and provide inspiration and direction, boundary systems that frame the strategic domain and define the limits of freedom, and interactive systems that provide flexibility in adapting to competitive environments and encourage organizational learning. These four control systems, according to Simons, will provide managers with the basic levers for pursuing strategic objectives.