HBR Guide to Your Job Search
by Harvard Business Review
Part of the HBR Guide series
Land the job of your dreams.
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.
You'll learn how to:
• Structure your search strategically
• Translate your strengths into a strong personal story
• Activate your network to find opportunities
• Write a résumé that gets callbacks
• Craft answers to common interview questions
• Set yourself up for success in your new role
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Being a Great Boss
by Harvard Business Review
Part of the HBR Guide series
Are you a good boss-or a great one?
Good bosses can handle the day-to-day work of running a team. Great bosses go beyond that, finding ways to help employees become better versions of themselves as people and professionals. But, as a manager, how do you reach that next level?
The HBR Guide to Being a Great Boss contains practical tips and advice to help you become a more well-rounded leader, one who sparks creativity, engagement, collaboration, and growth in your team. You'll learn how to:
• Magnify your people's strengths
• Create a welcoming, inclusive culture
• Communicate effectively-and regularly-with your team
• Challenge your people to grow beyond their current limits
• Recognize and reward good work
• Establish yourself as a trustworthy leader and colleague
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Office Politics
Part of the HBR Guide series
Don't let destructive drama sideline your career.
Every organization has its share of political drama: Personalities clash. Agendas compete. Turf wars erupt. But you need to work productively with your colleagues-even difficult ones-for the good of your organization and your career. How can you do that without compromising your personal values? By acknowledging that power dynamics and unwritten rules exist-and navigating them constructively.
The HBR Guide to Office Politics will help you succeed at work without being a power grabber or a corporate climber. Instead you'll cultivate a political strategy that's authentic to you. You'll learn how to:
Gain influence without losing your integrity
Contend with backstabbers and bullies
Work through tough conversations
Manage tensions when resources are scarce
Get your share of choice assignments
Accept that not all conflict is bad
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, from a source you trust. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Better Mental Health at Work
by Harvard Business Review
Part of the HBR Guide series
Build a mentally healthy workplace.
Mental health is just as important as physical health. Yet being honest about depression, anxiety, and other psychological conditions at work can feel risky, and hasn't always been welcome. How can you ensure that you and your colleagues feel as though mental health is supported at the office?
“The HBR Guide to Better Mental Health at Work” contains practical tips and advice to help you bring mental health out of the shadows and into everyday conversations. You'll learn how to:
• Build habits to support your mental health
• Stay productive even when you're not feeling like yourself
• Talk about mental health with peers and managers
• Reach out to someone who might be struggling
• Consider the impact of intersectionality
• Offer the benefits people really need
• Fight the stigma and reduce shame
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Motivating People
Part of the HBR Guide series
Help your people reach their potential.
As a manager, it's your responsibility to ensure your team is motivated and performing at a high level. But recent data reveals abysmal engagement levels among workers around the globe. How do you fix the problem--before your most talented people walk out the door?
By understanding what drains your employees, you can increase their job satisfaction and push them toward achieving their goals. The HBR Guide to Motivating People provides practical tips and advice to help your team find meaning in their work, build on their strengths, and produce the best results for the organization.
You'll learn how to:
Pinpoint the root causes of lackluster performance
Tailor rewards and recognition to individuals
Connect routine work activities to a higher purpose
Support your employees' growth and development
Prevent burnout--especially in your top performers
Create a culture of engagement
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Your Professional Growth
Part of the HBR Guide series
Don't wait for someone else to manage your career.
The days of HR-sponsored development plans are over. Managing your career--and the skills you need to be successful--is your responsibility. If you're looking to push yourself to the next level, it can be hard to determine where to start.
The HBR Guide to Your Professional Growth will be your coach, transforming your abstract hopes and ideas into a concrete action plan. No matter where you are in your career, this guide will help you:
Assess your current skills--and acquire new ones
Elicit feedback you can use
Set meaningful--and achievable-goals
Make time for learning
Play to your strengths
Identify your next challenge
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, from a source you trust. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Setting Your Strategy
by Harvard Business Review
Part of the HBR Guide series
Set your company up for long-term success.
Every company needs a strategy. A focused strategy aligns decision making throughout the organization and helps establish a competitive edge in the marketplace. But with so many options to consider, how do you define a unique strategy that will ensure growth?
Whether you're starting a business from scratch or leading an existing company facing new threats, this book offers the direction you need. The HBR Guide to Setting Your Strategy provides practical tips and advice that break down the process of crafting strategy so you can identify the areas your company should build on to help it thrive long into the future.
You'll learn to:
• Understand what strategy is-and what it isn't
• Define where you'll play and how you'll win
• Conduct more-effective strategic discussions with your team
• Test your strategy before you implement it
• Communicate your strategy to key stakeholders
• Ensure your strategy is flexible and adaptable
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Better Business Writing
Part of the HBR Guide series
DON'T LET YOUR WRITING HOLD YOU BACK.
When you're fumbling for words and pressed for time, you might be tempted to dismiss good business writing as a luxury. But it's a skill you must cultivate to succeed: You'll lose time, money, and influence if your e-mails, proposals, and other important documents fail to win people over.
The HBR Guide to Better Business Writing, by writing expert Bryan A. Garner, gives you the tools you need to express your ideas clearly and persuasively so clients, colleagues, stakeholders, and partners will get behind them. This book will help you:
• Push past writer's block
• Grab-and keep-readers' attention
• Earn credibility with tough audiences
• Trim the fat from your writing
• Strike the right tone
• Brush up on grammar, punctuation, and usage
HBR Guide to Getting the Mentoring You Need
Part of the HBR Guide series
Find the right person to help supercharge your career.
Whether you're eyeing a specific leadership role, hoping to advance your skills, or simply looking to broaden your professional network, you need to find someone who can help. Wait for a senior manager to come looking for you-and you'll probably be waiting forever.
Instead, you need to find the mentoring that will help you achieve your goals. Managed correctly, mentoring is a powerful and efficient tool for moving up.
The HBR Guide to Getting the Mentoring You Need will help you get it right. You'll learn how to:
Find new ways to stand out in your organization
Set clear and realistic development goals
Identify and build relationships with influential sponsors
Give back and bring value to mentors and senior advisers
Evaluate your progress in reaching your professional goals
HBR Guide to Crafting Your Purpose
Part of the HBR Guide series
Stop searching for purpose. Build it.
We're living through a crisis of purpose. Surveys indicate that people are feeling less connected to the meaning of their work, asking, "How do I find my purpose?"
That's the wrong question. You don't find your purpose-you build it. The HBR Guide to Crafting Your Purpose debunks three common myths about purpose: that purpose is found that you have only one, and that it stays the same over time. Packed with stories, tips, and activities, this book teaches you how to cultivate more meaning in your life and work and endow everything you do with purpose.
You'll learn how to:
• Find the reason behind your work
• Identify what makes you feel happy and fulfilled
• Use job crafting to transform your role
• Build positive, fulfilling relationships
• Connect your work to service
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Remote Work
by Harvard Business Review
Part of the HBR Guide series
Get your best work done, no matter where you do it.
Video calls from your couch. Project reports in a coffee shop. Presentations at your kitchen table. Working remotely gives you more flexibility in how and where you do your job. But being part of a far-flung team can be challenging. How can you make remote work work for you?
The HBR Guide to Remote Work provides practical tips and advice to help you stay productive, avoid distractions, and collaborate with your team, despite the distance that separates you.
You'll learn to:
• Create a regular work-from-home routine
• Identify the right technology for your needs
• Run better virtual meetings
• Avoid burnout and video-call fatigue
• Manage remote employees
• Conduct difficult conversations when you can't meet in person
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Emotional Intelligence (HBR Guide Series)
Part of the HBR Guide series
Managing the human side of work
Research by Daniel Goleman, a psychologist and coauthor of Primal Leadership, has shown that emotional intelligence is a more powerful determinant of good leadership than technical competence, IQ, or vision.
Influencing those around us and supporting our own well-being requires us to be self-aware, know when and how to regulate our emotional reactions, and understand the emotional responses of those around us. No wonder emotional intelligence has become one of the crucial criteria in hiring and promotion.
But luckily it's not just an innate trait: Emotional intelligence is composed of skills that all of us can learn and improve on. In this guide, you'll learn how to:
• Determine your emotional intelligence strengths and weaknesses
• Understand and manage your emotional reactions
• Deal with difficult people
• Make smarter decisions
• Bounce back from tough times
• Help your team develop emotional intelligence
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Leading Through Change
by Harvard Business Review
Part of the HBR Guide series
Drive transformation.
Change is now constant. As a leader, you must serve as interpreter, project manager, cheerleader, and conduit. Plans evolve. Contexts shift. Progress happens in fits and starts. Through it all, you must push your team forward even when you encounter pushback. How can you ensure that your team has the information, the mindset, and the resources they need to be successful?
The HBR Guide to Leading Through Change provides the practical tips, research, stories, and advice you need to understand, communicate, and implement change effectively, no matter the size or scale of the challenge you're facing. You'll learn to:
• Improve your odds of success
• Communicate a shared vision
• Keep going, even amid lags and setbacks
• Deal with naysayers and roadblocks
• Build trust and resilience on your team
• Make a lasting impact
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Managing Flexible Work
by Harvard Business Review
Part of the HBR Guide series
Find a way to work that works for you and your team.
The 9-to-5 office routine no longer exists. Many employees have the option to work anywhere, any time. But how do you find the flexible arrangement that's right for you? And how do you manage a team when they're all working in different places and on different schedules?
The HBR Guide to Managing Flexible Work has the answers. Filled with tips, advice, and examples, this book helps individual contributors and managers alike assess the trade-offs that come with flexible work options, advocate for the arrangement that works for them, and remain productive and connected to team members at the same time.
You'll learn to:
• Identify key job responsibilities and when and where each one can be done
• Establish the best arrangements for yourself and your team
• Create the conditions for success
• Stay connected and visible, no matter when or where you work
• Win support for your projects and ideas
• Keep people engaged, both in person and virtually
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Managing Stress at Work
Part of the HBR Guide series
Are you suffering from work-related stress? Feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and short-tempered at work - and at home? Then you may have too much stress in your life. Stress is a serious problem that impacts not only your mental and physical health, but also your loved ones and your organization. So what can you do to address it? The HBR Guide to Managing Stress at Work will help you find a sustainable solution. It will help you reach the goal of getting on an even keel - and staying there.
You'll learn how to:
• Harness stress so it spurs, not hinders, productivity
• Create realistic and manageable routines
• Aim for progress, not perfection
• Make the case for a flexible schedule
• Ease the physical tension of spending too much time at your computer
• Renew yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally.
HBR Guide to Retaining Your Best People
by Harvard Business Review
Part of the HBR Guide series
Stop your top talent from walking out the door.
Employees have a sea of options when it comes to where and how they work, and if they're not getting what they want, they'll move on. If the threat of having your top performers working for the competition isn't bad enough, high turnover can inflict serious financial and emotional costs on your company.
The HBR Guide to Retaining Your Best People offers concrete advice and tactics to keep valuable employees engaged and loyal to your organization. You'll discover how to meet their intrinsic needs, create opportunities for career development, and build a workplace where they want to excel.
You'll learn how to:
• Uncover the real reasons employees quit
• Discover the elements of work your people value most
• Ensure your team feels seen, heard, and appreciated
• Keep your employees learning and growing
• Adjust how your people work in order to offer flexibility and avoid burnout
• Identify where your retention strategies fall short-and fix them
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Performance Management
Part of the HBR Guide series
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 new 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.
You'll learn to:
Set clear employee goals that align with company objectives
Monitor progress and check in regularly
Close performance gaps
Understand when to use performance analytics
Create opportunities for growth, tailored to the individual
Overcome and avoid burnout on your team
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide for Women at Work
Part of the HBR Guide series
How to lean in at work.
Women regularly face unfair challenges in the workplace--from being passed over for promotion to being ignored in conversation. Unconscious bias and negative assumptions are working against them. As a woman, how can you break through these barriers and get what you want from your career?
The HBR Guide for Women at Work will help you identify and overcome the factors that are holding you back. It provides practical tips and advice so you can face gender stereotypes head-on, make yourself visible when opportunities arise, and demonstrate your leadership skills.
You'll learn to:
Speak up in meetings in a way that ensures your ideas will be heard
Wield influence by building the right relationships
Advocate for yourself--and for what you want
Align yourself with mentors and sponsors to support your growth
Show passion without being perceived as "too emotional"
Create your unique vision as a leader
HBR Guide to Changing Your Career
Part of the HBR Guide series
Your next act starts now.
You're ready for something new, but it's hard to start over. Just the idea of trading the security you have now for the unknown or throwing away the education and time you've invested in your current career can plunge you into a swirl of indecision and anxiety. But mixing things up every few years is an increasingly normal and cyclical part of a healthy work life -- a way to gain new skills and stretch your existing ones by applying them to different contexts.
Whether you know what you want to do next or you're still evaluating options, the HBR Guide to Changing Your Career will help you:
• Imagine other professional selves
• Identify the skills you need -- and those you already possess that will transfer to another industry
• Assess the financial implications of the change you're considering
• Try out new roles without endangering your current job
• Explain a seemingly winding career path
• Pitch yourself into a new role.
HBR Guide to Building Your Business Case
Part of the HBR Guide series
Get your idea off the ground.
You've got a great idea that will increase revenue or boost productivity-but how do you get the buy-in you need to make it happen? By building a business case that clearly shows your idea's value. That's not always easy: Maybe you're not sure what kind of data your stakeholders will trust. Or perhaps you're intimidated by number crunching.
The HBR Guide to Building Your Business Case, written by project management expert Raymond Sheen, gives you the guidance and tools you need to make a strong case. You'll learn how to:
Spell out the business need for your idea
Align your case with strategic goals
Build the right team to shape and test your idea
Calculate the return on investment
Analyze risks and opportunities
Present your case to stakeholders
HBR Guide to Project Management
Part of the HBR Guide series
MEET YOUR GOALS-ON TIME AND ON BUDGET.
How do you rein in the scope of your project when you've got a group of demanding stakeholders breathing down your neck? And map out a schedule everyone can stick to? And motivate team members who have competing demands on their time and attention?
Whether you're managing your first project or just tired of improvising, this guide will give you the tools and confidence you need to define smart goals, meet them, and capture lessons learned so future projects go even more smoothly.
The HBR Guide to Project Management will help you:
Build a strong, focused team
Break major objectives into manageable tasks
Create a schedule that keeps all the moving parts under control
Monitor progress toward your goals
Manage stakeholders' expectations
Wrap up your project and gauge its success
HBR Guide to Executing Your Strategy
by Harvard Business Review
Part of the HBR Guide series
Put your strategy into action.
Even the best competitive strategies mean nothing if they aren't executed well. Yet many organizations struggle when they move from defining a strategy to actually applying it. Somehow, all the careful planning falls apart, initiatives fail, and leaders are left wondering how to pick up the pieces.
The HBR Guide to Executing Your Strategy is here to help. This book offers leaders and managers tips and advice for sharing the strategy with your employees, making the shift toward the right objectives, and seeing your strategy come to fruition.
You'll learn how to:
• Understand the "why" behind your strategy
• Identify the capabilities you have-and the ones you need
• Communicate objectives and priorities effectively to your team
• Prioritize strategic projects and let go of outdated ones
• Encourage cross-silo collaboration toward organizational goals
• Adjust course when necessary
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Unlocking Creativity
by Harvard Business Review
Part of the HBR Guide series
Anyone can think more creatively and unlock innovation.
Creativity is the key to innovation, but too many projects and teams are organized in ways that stifle new ideas. You need to ensure that creativity can thrive-and that you are part of the process.
Fortunately, anyone can use method-driven approaches to teach and learn creativity. The HBR Guide to Unlocking Creativity will show you how to reach your creative potential, manage creative collaboration, and achieve groundbreaking results.
This guide will help you:
• Understand the neuroscience of creativity
• Run better brainstorming sessions-in person or virtually
• Use design thinking to generate new solutions
• Model a mindset of curiosity and experimentation
• Balance creativity with productivity
• Bring breakthrough ideas to life
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter
Part of the HBR Guide series
Make every minute count.
Your calendar is full, and yet your meetings don't always seem to advance your work. Problems often arise with unrealistic or vague agendas, off-track conversations, tuned-out participants who don't know why they're there, and follow-up notes that no one reads-or acts on. Meetings can feel like a waste of time. But when you invest a little energy in preparing yourself and your participants, you'll stay focused, solve problems, gain consensus, and leave each meeting ready to take action.
With input from over 20 experts combined with useful checklists, sample agendas, and follow-up memos, the HBR Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter will teach you how to:
Set and communicate your meeting's purpose
Invite the right people
Prepare an achievable agenda
Moderate a lively conversation
Regain control of a wayward meeting
Ensure follow-through without babysitting or haranguing
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, from a source you trust. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business
Think Big, Buy Small, Own Your Own Company
Part of the HBR Guide series
Are you looking for an alternative to a career path at a big firm? Does founding your own start-up seem too risky? There is a radical third path open to you: You can buy a small business and run it as CEO. Purchasing a small company offers significant financial rewards-as well as personal and professional fulfillment. Leading a firm means you can be your own boss, put your executive skills to work, fashion a company environment that meets your own needs, and profit directly from your success.
But finding the right business to buy and closing the deal isn't always easy. In the HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business, Harvard Business School professors Richard Ruback and Royce Yudkoff help you:
Determine if this path is right for you
Raise capital for your acquisition
Find and evaluate the right prospects
Avoid the pitfalls that could derail your search
Understand why a "dull" business might be the best investment
Negotiate a potential deal with the seller
Avoid deals that fall through at the last minute
HBR Guide to Thinking Strategically (HBR Guide Series)
Part of the HBR Guide series
Bring strategy into your daily work.
It's your responsibility as a manager to ensure that your work -- and the work of your team -- aligns with the overarching objectives of your organization. But when you're faced with competing projects and limited time, it's difficult to keep strategy front of mind. How do you keep your eye on the long term amid a sea of short-term demands?
The HBR Guide to Thinking Strategically provides practical advice and tips to help you see the big-picture perspective in every aspect of your daily work, from making decisions to setting team priorities to attacking your own to-do list.
You'll learn how to:
• Understand your organization's strategy
• Align your team around key objectives
• Focus on the priorities that matter most
• Spot trends in your company and in your industry
• Consider future outcomes when making decisions
• Manage trade-offs
• Embrace a leadership mindset.
HBR Guide to Work-Life Balance
Part of the HBR Guide series
Stop running on empty.
Every day you juggle the many components that fill your life. Between work and family commitments, volunteer work, hobbies, and managing your physical and mental health, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and that you're letting someone down or neglecting some aspect of your life. But you can find ways to honor all of your commitments without collapsing.
The HBR Guide to Work-Life Balance will help you:
Evaluate and adjust your priorities
Manage expectations
Set and spend your time budget
Make plans--and backup plans
Understand how to make trade-offs
Prioritize self-care
Discover what works for you
HBR Guide to Managing Up and Across
Part of the HBR Guide series
ARE YOUR WORKING RELATIONSHIPS WORKING AGAINST YOU?
To achieve your goals and get ahead, you need to rally people behind you and your ideas. But how do you do that when you lack formal authority? Or when you have a boss who gets in your way? Or when you're juggling others' needs at the expense of your own?
By managing up, down, and across the organization. Your success depends on it, whether you're a young professional or an experienced leader.
The HBR Guide to Managing Up and Across will help you:
• Advance your agenda - and your career - with smarter networking
• Build relationships that bring targets and deadlines within reach
• Persuade decision makers to champion your initiatives
• Collaborate more effectively with colleagues
• Deal with new, challenging, or incompetent bosses
• Navigate office politics.
HBR Guide to Designing Your Retirement
by Harvard Business Review
Part of the HBR Guide series
Set yourself up for a successful transition.
Retirement is perhaps the greatest and most deeply personal career transition you'll ever make. Will you switch gears, slow down, or stop work entirely? Will you have the money, the good health, and the companionship you need to enjoy it?
The HBR Guide to Designing Your Retirement provides the practical tips, research, stories, and advice you need to take stock of your skills and interests and define retirement for yourself.
You'll learn how to:
• Assess your readiness to make the transition
• Craft a plan to slow your pace-or stop working altogether
• Experiment with possible future selves
• Find new ways to apply old skills
• Communicate your plan to key partners
• Bridge your old identity to your new one
• Stay connected
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Collaborative Teams
by Harvard Business Review
Part of the HBR Guide series
Break down the barriers to effective collaboration.
For cross-functional projects to work, you need to bring together diverse ideas and resources from across your organization. But, office politics, conflicting objectives, and lack of clear authority can get in the way.
The HBR Guide to Collaborative Teams provides practical tips and advice to help you collaborate more effectively. Whether you're leading your own direct reports or building a talented group from disparate parts of your organization, you'll discover how to align others' goals and skills so you can solve problems as a team and deliver great results.
You'll learn to:
• Develop a shared purpose
• Bust departmental silos
• Lead employees who don't report to you
• Overcome conflict and turf wars
• Prevent collaborative overload and fatigue
• Use the right tools for virtual information sharing
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to AI Basics for Managers
by Harvard Business Review
Part of the HBR Guide series
AI is ready for business. Are you ready for AI?
From financial modeling and product design to performance management and hiring decisions, AI and machine learning are becoming everyday tools for managers at businesses of all sizes. But AI systems come with benefits and downsides, and if you can't make sense of them, you're not going to make the right decisions.
Whether you need to get up to speed quickly or need a refresher, or you're working with an AI expert for the first time, the “HBR Guide to AI Basics for Managers” will give you the information and skills you need to succeed.
You'll learn how to:
• Understand key AI terms and concepts
• Recognize which of your projects would benefit from AI
• Work more effectively with your data team
• Hire the right AI vendors and consultants
• Deal with ethical risks before they arise
• Scale AI across your organization
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Navigating the Toxic Workplace
by Harvard Business Review
Part of the HBR Guide series
Is your workplace toxic?
Toxic workplaces take many forms. Whether you're dealing with a narcissistic boss, a backstabbing colleague, endless microaggressions, or a culture of overwork and burnout, it can feel impossible to know what to do. Should you address the issue directly, play office politics, go to HR, or just keep your head down?
The HBR Guide to Navigating the Toxic Workplace will help you set boundaries and change what you can while maintaining your mental health and self-respect through some of the toughest interpersonal challenges you'll face at work.
You'll learn how to:
• Recognize what's fixable
• Help bring problems to light
• Keep your performance up
• Protect your reputation and your career
• Prevent a toxic culture from infecting your team
• Rebuild trust and psychological safety
• Move on if you choose, without burning bridges
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Critical Thinking
by Harvard Business Review
Part of the HBR Guide series
Tackle complex situations with critical thinking.
You're facing a problem at work. There are many ways you can approach the situation, but each comes with its own pros and cons. How do you sort through all the information so that you know you're taking the right path?
The answer is in how you think. “The HBR Guide to Critical Thinking” will help you navigate your most challenging issues, from difficult problems to tough decisions to complex scenarios. By carefully observing the situation, gathering information, inviting other perspectives, and analyzing what's in front of you, you can move forward with confidence while building this crucial leadership skill.
You'll learn how to:
• Question your assumptions
• Keep an open mind to opposing viewpoints
• Sidestep cognitive biases
• Use data, when appropriate
• Grow comfortable with ambiguity
• Find innovative and creative solutions
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Beating Burnout
by Harvard Business Review
Part of the HBR Guide series
Burnout is rampant. Recognize the signs and make the right changes.
The always-on workplace and increasing pressures are leading to a high rate of burnout. Unmanaged, chronic work stress doesn't just lead to lower productivity and negative emotions-it can have dire personal and professional consequences. Are you and your team at risk?
The HBR Guide to Beating Burnout provides practical tips and advice to help you, your team, and your organization navigate the perils of burnout and rediscover healthy engagement at work. You'll learn how to:
• Understand the difference between normal stress and burnout
• Keep your passion for work from leading to burnout
• Avoid working from home burnout
• Protect your high performers from burnout
• Help prevent burnout on your team-even if you're burned out
• Bounce back and regain your productivity and effectiveness
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Smarter Networking
by Harvard Business Review
Part of the HBR Guide series
Make the connections that will help you succeed-and advance faster.
Networking doesn't stop once you've landed the job. Building a high-quality, diverse network is key to learning and growth, influencing others, and launching your ideas. But how do you move beyond small talk and cold emails to building a network that is strategic and effective, made up of authentic relationships?
The HBR Guide to Smarter Networking will give you the tools you need to connect confidently, get your initiatives off the ground, and move up in your career.
This guide will help you:
• Make great first impressions
• Connect better at conferences-in-person or virtual
• Reach out to find your next job
• Overcome obstacles to building your network
• Avoid networking burnout
• Keep your network healthy over the long haul
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Managing Strategic Initiatives
Part of the HBR Guide series
This big initiative could make or break this fiscal year-or your career.
Managing a successful strategic initiative may be the key to transforming your company-and propelling your career forward. Yet running 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.
The HBR Guide to Managing Strategic Initiatives provides practical tips and advice to help you manage all the stages of an initiative's life cycle, from buy-in to launch to scaling up.
You'll learn how to:
• Win-and keep-support for your new initiative.
• Move rapidly from approval to implementation.
• Assemble transformative, high-performing initiative teams.
• Maintain the confidence of sponsors and stakeholders.
• Stay on schedule and within budget.
• Avoid initiative overload by killing projects that aren't meeting business needs.
• Keep multiple initiatives in strategic alignment.
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, from a source you trust. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Finance Basics for Managers
Part of the HBR Guide series
DON'T LET YOUR FEAR OF FINANCE GET IN THE WAY OF YOUR SUCCESS
Can you prepare a breakeven analysis? Do you know the difference between an income statement and a balance sheet? Or understand why a business that's profitable can still go belly-up? Has your grasp of your company's numbers helped-or hurt-your career?
Whether you're new to finance or you just need a refresher, this go-to guide will give you the tools and confidence you need to master the fundamentals, as all good managers must.
The HBR Guide to Finance Basics for Managers will help you:
Learn the language of finance
Compare your firm's financials with rivals'
Shift your team's focus from revenues to profits
Assess your vulnerability to industry downturns
Use financial data to defend budget requests
Invest smartly through cost/benefit analysis
HBR Guide to Making Better Decisions
Part of the HBR Guide series
Learn how to make better; faster decisions.
You make decisions every day-from prioritizing your to-do list to choosing which long-term innovation projects to pursue. But most decisions don't have a clear-cut answer, and assessing the alternatives and the risks involved can be overwhelming.
You need a smarter approach to making the best choice possible. The HBR Guide to Making Better Decisions provides practical tips and advice to help you generate more-creative ideas, evaluate your alternatives fairly, and make the final call with confidence.
You'll learn how to:
• Overcome the cognitive biases that can skew your thinking
• Look at problems in new ways
• Manage the trade-offs between options
• Balance data with your own judgment
• React appropriately when you've made a bad choice
• Communicate your decision-and overcome any resistance
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, from a source you trust. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations
Part of the HBR Guide series
TAKE THE PAIN OUT OF PRESENTATIONS.
Terrified of speaking in front of a group? Or simply looking to polish your skills? No matter where you are on the spectrum, this guide will give you the confidence and the tools you need to get results.
Written by presentation expert Nancy Duarte, the HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations will help you:
Win over tough crowds
Organize a coherent narrative
Create powerful messages and visuals
Connect with and engage your audience
Show people why your ideas matter to them
Strike the right tone, in any situation
HBR Guide to Being More Productive
Part of the HBR Guide series
Every day begins with the same challenge: too many tasks on your to-do list and not enough time to accomplish them. Perhaps you tell yourself to just buckle down and get it all done-skip lunch, work a longer day. Maybe you throw your hands up, recognize you can't do it all, and just begin fighting the biggest fire or greasing the squeakiest wheel.
And yet you know how good it feels on those days when you're working at peak productivity, taking care of difficult and meaty projects while also knocking off the smaller tasks that have been hanging over your head forever. Those are the times when your day didn't run you-you ran your day. To have more of those days more often, you need to discover what works for you given your strengths, your preferences, and the things you must accomplish.
Whether you're an assistant or the CEO, whether you've been in the workforce for 40 years or are just starting out, this guide will help you be more productive. You'll discover different ways to:
Motivate yourself to work when you really don't want to
Take on less, but get more done
Preserve time for your most important work
Improve your focus
Make the most of small pockets of time between meetings
Set boundaries with colleagues-without alienating them
Take time off without tearing your hair out
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Delivering Effective Feedback
Part of the HBR Guide series
Take the stress out of giving feedback.
To help your employees meet their goals and fulfill their potential, you need to provide them with regular feedback. But the prospect of sharing potentially negative news can be overwhelming. How do you construct your message so that it's not only well received but also expressed in a way that encourages change?
Whether you're commending exemplary work or addressing problem behavior, the HBR Guide to Delivering Effective Feedback provides you with practical advice and tips to transform any performance discussion-from weekly check-ins to annual reviews-into an opportunity for growth and development. You'll learn to:
Establish trust with your direct reports
Assess their performance fairly
Emphasize improvement, even in criticism
React calmly to a defensive feedback recipient
Recognize and motivate star performers
Create individualized development plans
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, from a source you trust. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Coaching Employees
Part of the HBR Guide series
Help your employees help themselves.
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.
In the HBR Guide to Coaching Employees you'll learn how to:
Create realistic but inspiring plans for growth
Ask the right questions to engage your employees in the development process
Give them room to grapple with problems and discover solutions
Allow them to make the most of their expertise while compelling them to stretch and grow
Give them feedback they'll actually apply
Balance coaching with the rest of your workload
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, from a source you trust. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict
Part of the HBR Guide series
While some of us enjoy a lively debate with colleagues and others prefer to suppress our feelings over disagreements, we all struggle with conflict at work. Every day we navigate an office full of competing interests, clashing personalities, limited time and resources, and fragile egos. Sure, we share the same overarching goals as our colleagues, but we don't always agree on how to achieve them. We work differently. We rub each other the wrong way. We jockey for position.
How can you deal with conflict at work in a way that is both professional and productive-where it improves both your work and your relationships? You start by understanding whether you generally seek or avoid conflict, identifying the most frequent reasons for disagreement, and knowing what approaches work for what scenarios. Then, if you decide to address a particular conflict, you use that information to plan and conduct a productive conversation. The HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict will give you the advice you need to:
Understand the most common sources of conflict
Explore your options for addressing a disagreement
Recognize whether you-and your counterpart-typically seek or avoid conflict
Prepare for and engage in a difficult conversation
Manage your and your counterpart's emotions
Develop a resolution together
Know when to walk away
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.
HBR Guide to Data Analytics Basics for Managers
Part of the HBR Guide series
Don't let a fear of numbers hold you back.
Today's business environment brings with it an onslaught of data. Now more than ever, managers must know how to tease insight from data--to understand where the numbers come from, make sense of them, and use them to inform tough decisions. How do you get started?
Whether you're working with data experts or running your own tests, you'll find answers in the HBR Guide to Data Analytics Basics for Managers. This book describes three key steps in the data analysis process, so you can get the information you need, study the data, and communicate your findings to others.
You'll learn how to:
Identify the metrics you need to measure
Run experiments and A/B tests
Ask the right questions of your data experts
Understand statistical terms and concepts
Create effective charts and visualizations
Avoid common mistakes
HBR Guide to Getting the Right Work Done
Part of the HBR Guide series
IS YOUR WORKLOAD SLOWING YOU-AND YOUR CAREER-DOWN?
Your inbox is overflowing. You're paralyzed because you have too much to do but don't know where to start. Your to-do list never seems to get any shorter. You leave work exhausted but have little to show for it.
It's time to learn how to get the right work done.
In the HBR Guide to Getting the Right Work Done, you'll discover how to focus your time and energy where they will yield the greatest reward. Not only will you end each day knowing you made progress-your improved productivity will also set you apart from the pack.
Whether you're a new professional or an experienced one, this guide will help you:
Prioritize and stay focused
Work less but accomplish more
Stop bad habits and develop good ones
Break overwhelming projects into manageable pieces
Conquer e-mail overload
Write to-do lists that really work
HBR Guide to Leading Teams
Part of the HBR Guide series
Great teams don't just happen.
How often have you sat in team meetings complaining to yourself, "Why does it take forever for this group to make a simple decision? What are we even trying to achieve?" As a team leader, you have the power to improve things. It's up to you to get people to work well together and produce results.
Written by team expert Mary Shapiro, the HBR Guide to Leading Teams will help you avoid the pitfalls you've experienced in the past by focusing on the often-neglected people side of teams. With practical exercises, guidelines for structured team conversations, and step-by-step advice, this guide will help you:
Pick the right team members
Set clear, smart goals
Foster camaraderie and cooperation
Hold people accountable
Address and correct bad behavior
Keep your team focused and motivated
HBR Guide to Negotiating
Part of the HBR Guide series
Forget about the hard bargain.
Whether you're discussing the terms of a high-stakes deal, forming a key partnership, asking for a raise, or planning a family event, negotiating can be stressful. One person makes a demand, the other concedes a point. In the end, you settle on a subpar solution in the middle-if you come to any agreement at all.
But these discussions don't need to be win-or-lose situations. Written by negotiation expert Jeff Weiss, the HBR Guide to Negotiating provides a disciplined approach to finding a solution that works for everyone involved. Using a seven-part framework, this book delivers tips and advice to move you from a game of concessions and compromises to one of collaboration and creativity, resulting in better outcomes and better working relationships.
You'll learn how to:
Prepare for your conversation
Understand everyone's interests
Craft the right message
Work with multiple parties
Disarm aggressive negotiators
Choose the best solution
HBR Guide to Generative AI for Managers
Part of the HBR Guide series
Leverage gen AI to save time, innovate faster, and lead effectively.
You're probably aware that generative AI can output quality text and create stunning images in seconds. But smart managers are now using gen AI for high-level work-problem-solving, driving innovation, strategic thinking, and dozens of other applications. Managers who develop their generative AI capabilities will soon be leaping ahead of those who don't. Fortunately, you can start today and see immediate results.
The HBR Guide to Generative AI for Managers is packed with practical tips, prompts, and case studies to accelerate and improve countless aspects of your work. You'll learn how to:
• Run smart experiments
• Boost your productivity
• Determine the right collaboration mode: a Co-Pilot or a Co-Thinker
• Dialogue with AI for better decision-making
• Be aware of the risks and avoid traps
• Capitalize on your gen AI–enabled mindset
Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.