The Best of Harvard Business Review
20+ most popular Harvard Business Review articles, as voted by our community.
The best ideas in business and management to help people, organizations, and economies work better.
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How Successful Women Sustain Career Momentum
The authors, executive coaches for women leaders, wanted to understand why some women are able to sustain and maintain career momentum, despite the systemic, structural problems women — and especially…
40 Ideas to Shake Up Your Hiring Process
Many companies today are struggling to hire and retain talent, but more often than not the problem is self-inflicted: They’re simply not using a broad enough array of tools, sometimes because they…
Managing Your Emotions After Being Laid Off
It is easy to feel embarrassed, guilty, frustrated, or angry when you’ve suffered a job loss. But if you recognize that many layoffs aren’t the slightest bit personal, it can help you stay focused on…
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When to Give Verbal Feedback — and When to Do It in Writing
One of the many reasons why we dread (and avoid) giving feedback is that we believe it’s simply not going to work. While there are many reasons why feedback fails to deliver results, one that is…
«In order for feedback to land effectively, you need to consider what will work best for the context, audience, and goals of your specific situation. Spoken and written feedback are both necessary, and each has their time and place.»
Choose Courage Over Confidence
Self-doubt is a pervasive and often paralyzing concern, and research has repeatedly shown that it impacts women more than men. So what makes high-achieving women power through their self-doubt?…
«Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, I will try again tomorrow.»
Which Connections Really Help You Find a Job?
Experiments involving 20 million people generated a surprising finding: moderately weak connects — and not strong connections — are the most useful in finding a new job. To be more specific, the ties…
When Leaders Struggle with Collaboration
It’s not uncommon for talented leaders to find collaboration unnatural. After all, rugged individualism set them apart and propelled their careers. And for many, that same focus on distinguishing…
When a Tough Question Puts You on the Spot
Amidst the economic and global uncertainty that surrounds us, handling tough questions is an ongoing part of a leader’s job. In this piece, the author outlines strategies to answer difficult questions…
Harvard Business Review on Business
ChatGPT and How AI Disrupts Industries
ChatGPT, from OpenAI, shows the power of AI to take on tasks traditionally associated with “knowledge work.” But the future won’t just involve tasks shifting from humans to machines. When technology…
ChatGPT Is a Tipping Point for AI
We’re hitting a tipping point for artificial intelligence: With ChatGPT and other AI models that can communicate in plain English, write and revise text, and write code, the technology is suddenly…
«Until now, AI has primarily been aimed at problems where failure is expensive, not at tasks where occasional failure is cheap and acceptabl»
Harvard Business Review on Career
5 Ways to Acquire New Skills Without Going Back to School
Whether you want to change jobs or prepare for the next-level role, the most important thing to know about upskilling is that every employee needs to be doing it all the time. Jobs are changing as…
«With rapid changes in technology, including digitization and automation, the World Economic Forum projects that 50% of all jobs will require a change in skillsets by 2027.»
3 Tips to Avoid WFH Burnout
How to leave work at the door when you don’t leave the house.
«Employees who feel “on” all the time are at a higher risk of burnout when working from home than if they were going to the office as usual.»
Harvard Business Review on Change Management
Break Down Change Management into Small Steps
Three lessons from Infosys.
«we found that a persistent set of small, orchestrated changes is the best approach to drive large and lasting change at an organization.»
How IDEO Designers Persuade Companies to Accept Change
Every design project extends beyond the brief. No matter how straightforward and discrete a project seems at first, it will unfold in the context of a complicated, networked, and messily human organization.
Harvard Business Review on Company Culture
When Speaking Up, Timing Is Everything
Raising ideas or concerns to managers can raise your profile positively, but not if your busy manager doesn’t have the headspace for it. The authors present research suggesting that people who wait…
Harvard Business Review on CX
Why Now Is the Time for “Open Innovation”
Covid-19 has shown how companies can work together to solve problems.
The Most Important Metrics You’re Not Tracking (Yet)
Are you as customer-centric as you think?
Harvard Business Review on Decision Making
Your Brain Can Only Take So Much Focus
“Unfocus” enhances resilience, creativity, and decision making.
Emotions Aren’t the Enemy of Good Decision-Making
Too often, when we need to make a difficult decision, we rush through it to avoid sitting with uncomfortable emotions. But channelling those emotions — a process the author calls “emotional…
«But the exercise of emotional bookending helped him realize that there were other ways to get the business acumen that the company needs.»
Harvard Business Review on Design Thinking
Design Thinking Is Fundamentally Conservative and Preserves the Status Quo
The alternative is messier, but more democratic.
Design Thinking Comes of Age
The approach, once used primarily in product design, is now infusing corporate culture.
«There’s a shift under way in large organizations, one that puts design much closer to the center of the enterprise. But the shift isn’t about aesthetics. It’s about applying the principles of design to the way people work.»
Harvard Business Review on Digital Transformation
The Essential Components of Digital Transformation
It’s about so much more than your technology.
«What is needed is a shift in mindset, culture, and talent, including upskilling and reskilling your workforce so that they are future-ready»
Digitizing Isn’t the Same as Digital Transformation
Lessons from three companies that changed how they create value.
Harvard Business Review on Leadership
How Great Leaders Communicate
Transformational leaders are exceptional communicators. In this piece, the author outlines four communication strategies to help motivate and inspire your team: 1) Use short words to talk about hard…
What Great Remote Managers Do Differently
No one anticipated the massive shift to home-based remote work that happened in 2020 with the onset of the pandemic. A new study surveyed managers and employees alike for what worked and what didn’t…
Harvard Business Review on Mentoring
Mentoring During a Crisis
You have a unique opportunity to provide the kind of support that a boss, friend, or parent simply can’t.
Why Junior Employees Should Mentor Senior Employees
Reverse mentoring helps everyone grow where they need to.
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The Busier You Are, the More You Need Quiet Time
It’s essential for strategic thinking.
«Cultivating silence, as Hal Gregersen writes in a recent HBR article, “increase[s] your chances of encountering novel ideas and information and discerning weak signals.»
Want to Be More Productive? Try Doing Less.
A step-by-step guide to pare down your to-do list.
«When you stop doing the things that make you feel busy but aren’t getting you results, then you end up with more than enough time for what matters.»
The Making of an Expert
New research shows that outstanding performance is the product of years of deliberate practice and coaching, not of any innate talent or skill.
«All the superb performers he investigated had practiced intensively, had studied with devoted teachers, and had been supported enthusiastically by their families»
Productivity Skills to Help You Gain Time Back
Time is your most valuable resource. Spend it carefully.
«Most of us are incredibly careful about how we spend our money. But when it comes to our time, we hardly give it a second thought.»
How to Transition Between Work Time and Personal Time
Working from home makes it hard to keep them separate.
«prioritize your communication based on context. During the hours when you want to focus on the job, try to reduce your personal communication.»
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