Harvard Business Review

Education invests over a decade into teaching youth about life and their speciality, but the need to learn does not stop with graduation. In some ways, it’s just starting. The wise learn how to learn in their organization and community. This allows them to adapt and advance over time. This collection of essays, written by business leaders and compiled by the Harvard Business Review, initiates and inspires learners in their quest to benefit from those further on in their professional show more paths.

The trouble with these guides is that they skim the surface on every relevant topic. Just when the reader’s palette is whet, the essay ends, and the next essay begins. Such is the case with this short guide, too. Perhaps a good goal is to identify a couple of topics to do a “deep dive” into as a follow up. Because of this book’s brevity and non-technical prose, I found it helpful to listen to it as an audiobook. It provides inspiration and motivation to make the most out of mentoring opportunities.

The most important message of this book is preparing readers to be effective mentees. Effective mentees manage their mentors so that they can get the most out of the relationship while not burdening the mentor too much. Further, effective mentees use their already existing skillsets to help the mentors achieve their goals. This “greasing of the wheel” can aid in personal advancement and gaining mentors. Little nuggets of advice like this fill this book.

Professionals in their early careers – regardless of field – will benefit most from this book. It will help them look at themselves first and then look at the opportunities around them. Also, established mentors, though presumably having a deeper mastery, can benefit from understanding the practice of mentoring, too. The art of mentoring is deceptively profound and complex, yet it maintains a prime position for professional advancement. Healthy mentoring, whether formal or informal, bequeaths practical wisdom to its adherents. With a focus on business, this short guide will orient readers in the right direction to benefit from the mentoring process. show less

As an IT professional, I do not reside in the intended audience of this book. It is geared towards business leaders, not software developers. It provides a high-level and non-technical overview of the field of cybersecurity. Through several authors, it makes the case that cybersecurity cannot be overlooked by all C-suite executives, even in non-technology-based companies. That case is underscored by the direct impact cybersecurity has on a business’ bottom line.

Having in-depth technical show more experience in the field, I can see this book covers the right issues when it comes to cybersecurity. It does so mindfully, without becoming too technical. As expected from the brand of Harvard Business Review, it addresses the appropriate audience, the business community. Even for a developer like myself, it is helpful to think through how other people at the meeting table view these issues.

The book crescendos with the most interesting topics at the end – artificial intelligence (AI) and data privacy. While this book only devoted one chapter to AI, this chapter underscored the point that investment in AI by all sorts of businesses is becoming necessary to position for the quickly approaching future. In forthcoming editions of this book, I would like to hear more on this topic – or perhaps a separate HBR book.

Several chapters address data privacy concerns among businesses. These are real and present challenges that companies face. Many prominent companies have had to cough out huge payouts from privacy lapses, and prudent leadership would seek to mitigate these risks well. The so-called “right to be left alone” and other ethical issues also are summarized in this book. This field is actively discussed, and HBR hits most of the highlights.

This book is well-tailored to those in business leadership – especially those in non-IT companies. Like it or not, IT continues to become part and parcel of almost every company, and as is made clear in this text, these issues cannot be relegated simply to IT leadership. Cybersecurity is a company-wide issue and requires a company-wide response. IT folks will benefit from understanding how the business views relevant issues and gain financially informed perspective on what issues matter to the business. Nonetheless, business leaders – who can no longer dismiss cybersecurity’s relevance – will benefit the most from this concise yet power-packed summary. show less

The Coronavirus pandemic provided a great challenge for modern business and introduced new challenges for us all to address. Post-pandemic, business is working through which novelties are good to keep and which to discard. Among these are remote work, artificial intelligence, ESG (environment, social, and governance), and social justice movements (like DEI). This book, compiled by Harvard Business Review (HBR), seeks to help business leaders make smarter decisions by understanding ways to show more make the most out of work’s changing landscape.

Like other HBR books from this series, this book is exceedingly short. It collects individual essays produced by thought leaders. So it’s a short conglomeration of short articles. That’s both a strength and a weakness. It offers busy business leaders an intellectual lens to understand the latest trends through expert analysis, but it does not provide an in-depth treatment on any.

The overall viewpoint is one of thoughtful progress. It does not fight historical trends, but instead critically analyzes them in order to push organizations ahead. While popular journalism and political leaders often engage in culture wars, this book avoids those passions in favor of an integrative, philosophical approach. Discussions engage in high-level overviews that hit on all the right key concepts. Each chapter ends in suggested takeaways to summarize its findings. However, it lacks in-depth investigation of one-or-more fundamental issues – a constraint of the entire series.

Organizational leaders provide the intended audience of HBR’s series. An audiobook format, which I used, is adequate to understand. This kind of writing that can be listened to and thought through to-and-from work, while doing dishes, or in the car bussing one’s children around. It’s very accessible and does not require advanced education to get the main point in a thorough but quick manner. HBR provides another focused work to provide leading thoughts to the managerial front lines. show less

A collection of short essays, on upcoming tech subjects. Written by a range of business consultants from the Big 4 houses, pitched at business consultants rather than hardcore techies.

An interesting read, even a year later on. They're keen on NFTs for example, although can't quite judge what they're for and obviously the Overpriced Ape Club is just some escaped hype. But really, we should be thinking about NFTs, what does the tech now permit, and does this make sense for another, real, show more market. Such as ticketing.

Read one a day, and give yourself a fresh idea to ponder on. Even NFTs. show less