Showing results by author "Harvard Business Review" in All Categories

It's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day demands of your current job and lose sight of the big picture, but with a typical career spanning fifty years or more, you do so at your own peril. It's up to you to chart your own course to professional success. We've combed through hundreds of articles in the Harvard Business Review archive and selected the 10 most important ones to help you develop yourself, make the right career moves, navigate inevitable detours and disruptions, and turn your professional dreams into reality.

You know you need to delegate some of your work so that you have time to focus on the things that require your expertise. But it's not easy to do.

As a manager in today's business world, you can't just tell your direct reports what to do: You need to help them make their own decisions, enable them to solve tough problems, and actively develop their skills on the job. Whether you have a star on your team who's eager to advance, an underperformer who's dragging the group down, or a steady contributor who feels bored and neglected, you need to coach them: Help shape their goals—and support their efforts to achieve them.

As the pace of technological change accelerates, the demand for new skills is increasing. And as technologies like AI take on new tasks and jobs, smart organizations aren't waiting for their new workforces to appear. They are investing in reskilling the workers. They're adopting a skills-based approach to hiring and developing talent. And they're leveraging digital learning tech to upskill their employees dynamically and efficiently. What new approaches should your organization be taking to build the workforce you need—now and tomorrow?

Management Tips 2: From Harvard Business Review puts the best management practices and insights, from top thinkers in the field, right at your fingertips. Listen to it any time you have a few minutes to spare, and you'll have a fresh, powerful idea you can immediately put into action. With this handy book as your guide, you'll stand the best chance of succeeding in your role as a manager. 

Negotiation-whether brokering a deal, mediating a dispute, or writing up a contract-is both a necessary and challenging aspect of business life. This guide helps managers to sharpen their skills and become more effective deal makers in any situation.

Empathy is credited as a factor in improved relationships and even better product development. But while it's easy to say "just put yourself in someone else's shoes", the reality is that understanding the motivations and emotions of others often proves elusive. This collection of articles from HBR includes "What Is Empathy?" by Daniel Goleman; "Why Compassion Is a Better Managerial Tactic Than Toughness" by Emma Seppala; and much more.

We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you use design thinking to produce breakthrough innovations and transform your organization. This book will inspire you to: understand the transformative potential of design thinking; proceed from idea to product at lightning speed; iterate with rapid customer feedback; fail small and win big; create new products people love; lead design thinking teams more effectively; and open new paths to innovation at your company.

Strategic initiatives are where the rubber meets the road when it comes to putting strategy into action, and leading a critical initiative may be the key to propelling your career forward. Yet managing a cross-functional team on a high-profile project can present a multitude of challenges and risks, causing even the most experienced manager to struggle.

Algorithms, machine learning, generative AI. With the latest advancements in technology, data is taking center stage in organizations. But without a clear plan for how you're storing, integrating, and gaining value from that information, your company will be at risk—and fall behind. If you read (or listen to) nothing else on setting a data strategy in your organization, listen to these ten articles. 

Serving on a board is like having a second full-time job. We've combed through hundreds of articles in the Harvard Business Review archive and selected the 10 most important ones to help you address classic challenges such as increasing diversity, ensuring a culture that reflects company values, and providing strategic oversight while also addressing emerging issues such as shareholder activism, cybersecurity, and ever-shifting regulations. 

You're ready to take the next step in your career. But securing the right role can take a lot of work—and a lot of time and energy. How do you move forward without getting overwhelmed by the process? The HBR Guide to Your Job Search is here to help. Whether you're new to the workforce or have a well-established career, this book contains practical advice for navigating your job hunt.

If you read (or listen to) nothing else on decision making, listen to these ten articles. We've combed through hundreds of articles in the Harvard Business Review archive and selected the most important ones to help you and your organization make better choices and avoid common traps.

Join forces with others inside and outside your organization to solve your toughest problems.

What happens when you're no longer setting goals and chasing dreams that work for you alone? When the career choices you make have ripple effects on your family? These are some of the questions you ask yourself as you struggle to balance managing your career with managing your family. In Managing Your Career, experts provide answers to the challenges you face as a working parent, from negotiating a flexible schedule to overcoming the parenthood penalty whether you're taking time off, treading water, or reentering the workforce.

Generative AI: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review will help you understand the potential of these new technologies, pick the right Gen AI projects, and reinvent your business for the new age of AI.

Supply and demand shocks. Labor shortages. International trade wars. As businesses and customers struggle to get the products they need from across the globe, manufacturers must reassess how they operate, from considering domestic suppliers to exploring new technologies. In Supply Chain: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review, articles by experts and researchers will help you understand the risks and identify solutions to these disruptions so that you can ensure a more resilient supply chain—without sacrificing competitive advantage.

Leadership isn't something you're born with or gifted as a reward for an abundance of charisma; true leadership stems from core skills that can be learned. Get more of the leadership ideas you want, from the authors you trust, with HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (Vol. 2). We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you maximize your own and your organization's performance.

Are your employees meeting their goals? Is their work improving over time? Understanding where your employees are succeeding—and falling short—is a pivotal part of ensuring you have the right talent to meet organizational objectives. In order to work with your people and effectively monitor their progress, you need a system in place. The HBR Guide to Performance Management provides a multi-step, cyclical process to help you keep track of your employees' work, identify where they need to improve, and ensure they're growing with the organization.

As a working mother you often draw the short straw. Bosses and coworkers assume that since you're focused on your family, you don't prioritize work, and they give crucial opportunities to those around you. Advice for Working Moms can help you alleviate this stress. Drawing on the wisdom of experts and parents alike, it will help you strike the right balance between family and work, all while navigating the long-standing bias against mothers and, more broadly, women in the workforce.