Harvard Business Publishing

Now that The Black Swan is a best seller, everybody is talking (more or less) about what to do about these cataclysmic things that we can't specifically prepare for -- yet know are coming our way. This has been an issue for intelligence agencies for many years too, as well as for all governments and individuals. It's why insurance is such a big industry and I would guess it's one of the biggest segments of the world wide advice industry. Now we have a book that can actually help organizations become better prepared for all that’s coming by becoming ... resilient. Managing the Unexpected isn't just any book, either. Karl Weick is one of those thinkers who have tremendous influence with management academics yet is almost unknown to managers and executives themselves.This is a mystery not be dealt with here, but it is worth noting. Weick and his co-author Kathleen... Keep Reading »

How willing are you to read a blog by someone whose ideas you detest? No, not me, I hope, but let's say some rabid right- or left-winger? I was recently at a social function where some nutter was telling all who would listen that there is much evidence that our own government paid the 9/11 terrorists to do their acts. Of course, I couldn’t and wouldn’t listen to such trash, but in Republic.com 2.0 Cass Sunstein makes a very good point on this phenomena. If we just really listen and read those who are more or less like us (and we do, don’t we), our type of democracy may decay even further then it has already. Sunstein, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, is a real public intellectual. He has written more books than many people have read, and sometimes he repeats himself or brings out new... Keep Reading »

Did you ever study much history at school? Hours and hours were dedicated to the innumerable squabbles between England and France that went on for hundreds of years and accomplished little or nothing. Coupled with this went the almost complete absence of any mention of the great Chinese, Persian, and Indian Empires that were extant at the time and doing so many interesting and important things. Needless to say no one ever mentioned Africa or Japan. It's no wonder that the current obsession with India and China and the globalization of the world economy seems like such a bolt from the blue to many. Yet, there was a type of global economy, intercultural and long-distance, two thousand years ago between the roman empire, many central Asian middlemen, and China. Silk went West, Western ornaments went East, and everyone along the this enormous trade route prospered. There were many other types... Keep Reading »

Even though I read that fewer and fewer workers, especially my fellow Americans, take much vacation, I am writing to those who are sane enough to do so. Here are some recent books I have read that would do well read on a beach or just in a chair in a cool place. In any case here are some recent novels I have read, enjoyed, and learned from. Enjoy! The Pesthouse by Jim Crace is a harrowing novel about the United States after some apocalyptic event. It's nuanced and has much to say about what life would be like without much of our infrastructure and knowledge. Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra is a wonderful detective novel set in Mumbai. It's huge and sprawling, about everything contemporary India is all about, as seen through a sort of Godfather lens. The Emperor of Ocean Park and New England White, both by the... Keep Reading »

The very title of Jerome Groopman's new book, How Doctors Think, gave me pause. Do doctors think, given the crazy economic pressures they operate under these days? Do other professions think? Consultants? Managers? Does anyone really think anymore -- or do we all just react? Groopman is a thinker, a reflective actor. He does think about what he is doing, what his colleagues are doing and thinking, and what it all means. This book is a collection of short pieces, all of interest, based on real cases in which Dr. Groopman participated. This word, participate, is at the heart of what the good doctor is getting at. He focuses on what physicians actually do, and what they should do, when working with patients. What they should do most of all, he advocates, is listen to patients. Amid all the technologies, procedures, and processes doctors work with nowadays, that's almost revolutionary.... Keep Reading »

India, China. China, India. Has any subject ever in our lifetimes arisen so suddenly and with such force? It has become the subject of our time -- probably of our children's and grandchildren's times as well. It dominates not just economic discourse, but much political and social dialogue as well, since it has the power to change our whole society in unforeseen ways. But what is the subject? Two countries, accounting for over one-third of world's population, have, after centuries of colonialism and stagnation, been reintegrated into the global economy. With a bang. It's not that the two of them have emerged: They have reemerged. India and China were two very powerful global actors up until perhaps the beginning of the eighteenth century. With spectacular economic growth (especially in China), the two nations are the subject of a staggering amount of analysis: books, articles, reports from every possible source, countless... Keep Reading »

Management advice comes in many forms and flavors, much of it useless. This is because those so inclined to offer ideas to practicing managers are usually one of two types: consultants and writers who rarely know about the history of management thinking and just reheat the past nostrums, or academics who may actually have learned some things while working with actual managers but write to obtain tenure or professional advancement. This means writing in arcane and esoteric languages for little-read journals. How can a reflective manager actually learn anything new? Well, they can read Jeff Pfeffer for one thing. He is one of a small band of real scholars (Warren Bennis and some of my fellow bloggers are among this tribe) who write for the public, are very well aware of past research and ideas, and actually work with real firms and ideas. They produce, to use an old term... Keep Reading »

In management, words come and go. Quality is up, then it's down, then it rises again. Same with knowledge, teamwork, and many many other words and phrases. One word that is now enjoying some time in the sun is collaboration. We live in a world of rapid alliances, quick product development, and an ever-increasing drive to work better together. The sum of what is needed in such an environment is collaboration. And Charles Heckscher's The Collaborative Enterprise is a fine book devoted to the subject that is a real improvement on what's come before in this area. Heckscher is an academic who consults, one of a breed where the most useful management knowledge comes from. He has a wealth of experience working with some very large and complex organizations, as well as a mastery of all the varied theories that pertain to this subject. However he also has one other... Keep Reading »

A short while ago I attended a meeting of a social and discussion group I've been part of for 20 years or so. For this meeting we were asked to state what has most surprised each of us over our working lives. My answer, after some reflection, was Nobody Knows Anything. My group buddies all tended to agree in varying levels with me, and were surprised that this statement isn't more often stated. Well, here is Nassim Taleb writing The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, a surprise best seller saying more or less the same thing. I guess I should have rushed into print as soon as I had this thought. Both the author and I have the greatest respect for people who DO know things -- everyone from dentists to carpenters and even now and then a consultant. But many people in power, business, politics, and... Keep Reading »

This week I'm writing about "A Flat World, a Level Playing Field, a Small World After All, or None of the Above?" It's a review of Thomas L. Friedman's The World Is Flat, written by Edward Leamer, an economist at UCLA. It's published in the March 2007 issue of Journal of Economic Literature. One of the pleasures of writing this blog is to point out books and articles that can easily (very easily in this case) be missed by managers and executives. This review is a fine case in point. It is a long, witty, and devastating review on the conceptual mess that is Friedman's best-selling book. Leamer takes The World Is Flat as a book basically about economic development, and shows just why the world isn't flat, has never been flat, and isn't likely going to be flat in the future. Leamer's arguments are based on several themes. The... Keep Reading »