Recommending Books for Purchase (Bulletin 41 - August 2019): HBR

Get five years of the latest, most significant thinking from the pages of Harvard Business Review in one library set. Every year, HBR editors examine the ideas, insights, and best practices from the past twelve months to select the articles that have provoked the most conversation, the most inspiration, and the most change. From how companies can proactively evolve their business models to stay ahead of the digital revolution to understanding why your strategy execution isn't working--and how to fix it--the articles in these volumes will help you manage your daily challenges and meet the changing competitive landscape head-on. Books in the HBR 10 Must Reads series offer essential reading from Harvard Business Review on topics critical to the success of every manager. Each book is packed with advice and inspiration from leading experts such as Clayton Christensen, Michael Porter, Herminia Ibarra, Daniel Goleman, Marcus Buckingham, Roger Martin, Adam Grant, Thomas Davenport, and Patty McCord. Company examples range from Unilever, Deloitte, and DHL to Facebook, Netflix, Google, and Uber. "5 Years of Must Reads: 2019 Edition" brings the most current and important business conversations of the past few years to your fingertips.

What does it take to create the career you want? It's no secret that the world of work has changed, and we're shifting toward an ever more entrepreneurial, self-reliant, work-from-wherever-you-are economy. That can be a liberating force, and many professionals dream of becoming independent, whether by starting their own businesses, becoming consultants or freelancers, or developing a sideline. But there's a major obstacle professionals face when they contemplate taking the leap: how to actually make money doing what they love. You may have incredible talent and novel ideas, but figuring out how to get started, building your reputation in a new realm, developing multiple revenue streams, and bringing in a steady flow of new clients can be a daunting prospect. Dorie Clark, a successful entrepreneur and author, has done it all. And in Entrepreneurial You she provides a blueprint for professional independence, with insights and advice on building your brand, monetizing your expertise, and extending your reach and impact online. In short, engaging chapters she outlines the necessary elements and concrete tactics for entrepreneurial success. She shares the stories of entrepreneurs of all kinds--from consultants and coaches to podcasters, bloggers, and online marketers--who have generated six- and seven-figure incomes. This book will be your hands-on guide to building a portfolio of revenue streams, both traditional and online, so that you can liberate yourself financially and shape your own career destiny.

The one primer you need to develop your entrepreneurial skills. Whether you're imagining your new business to be the next big thing in Silicon Valley, a pivotal B2B provider, or an anchor in your local community, the HBR Entrepreneur's Handbook is your essential resource for getting your company off the ground. Starting an independent new business is rife with both opportunity and risk. And as an entrepreneur, you're the one in charge: your actions can make or break your business. You need to know the tried-and-true fundamentals--from writing a business plan to getting your first loan. You also need to know the latest thinking on how to create an irresistible pitch deck, mitigate risk through experimentation, and develop unique opportunities through business model innovation. The HBR Entrepreneur's Handbook addresses these challenges and more with practical advice and wisdom from Harvard Business Review's archive. Keep this comprehensive guide with you throughout your startup's life--and increase your business's odds for success. In the HBR Entrepreneur's Handbook you'll find: Step-by-step guidance through the entrepreneurial process Concise explanations of the latest research and thinking on entrepreneurship from Harvard Business Review contributors such as Marc Andreessen and Reid Hoffman Time-honed best practices Stories of real companies, from Airbnb to eBay You'll learn: Which skills and characteristics make for the best entrepreneurs How to gauge potential opportunities The basics of business models and competitive strategy How to test your assumptions--before you build a whole business How to select the right legal structure for your company How to navigate funding options, from venture capital and angel investors to accelerators and crowdfunding How to develop sales and marketing programs for your venture What entrepreneurial leaders must do to build culture and set direction as the business keeps growing

Develop the mindset and presence to successfully manage others for the first time. If you read nothing else on becoming a new manager, read these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you transition from being an outstanding individual contributor to becoming a great manager of others. This book will inspire you to: Develop your emotional intelligence Influence your colleagues through the science of persuasion Assess your team and enhance its performance Network effectively to achieve business goals and for personal advancement Navigate relationships with employees, bosses, and peers Get support from above View the big picture in your decision making Balance your team's work and personal life in a high-intensity workplace This collection of articles includes "Becoming the Boss," by Linda A. Hill; "Leading the Team You Inherit," by Michael D. Watkins; "Saving Your Rookie Managers from Themselves," by Carol A. Walker; "Managing the High-Intensity Workplace," by Erin Reid and Lakshmi Ramarajan; "Harnessing the Science of Persuasion," Robert B. Cialdini; "What Makes a Leader?" by Daniel Goleman; "The Authenticity Paradox," by Herminia Ibarra; "Managing Your Boss," by John J. Gabarro and John P. Kotter; "How Leaders Create and Use Networks," by Herminia Ibarra and Mark Lee Hunter; "Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey?" by William Oncken, Jr., and Donald L. Wass; and BONUS ARTICLE: "How Managers Become Leaders," by Michael D. Watkins.

How to be human at work. HBR's Emotional Intelligence Series features smart, essential reading on the human side of professional life from the pages of Harvard Business Review. Each book in the series offers proven research showing how our emotions impact our work lives, practical advice for managing difficult people and situations, and inspiring essays on what it means to tend to our emotional well-being at work. Uplifting and practical, these books describe the social skills that are critical for ambitious professionals to master. The specially priced six-volume set includes, Mindfulness, Resilience, Influence and Persuasion, Authentic Leadership, Happiness, and Empathy.

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.

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

Learn from the Best Great leaders of innovation know that creativity is not enough. They succeed not only on the basis of their ideas, but because they have the vision, reputation, and networks to win the backing needed to commercialize them. It turns out that this quality--called "innovation capital"--is measurably more important for innovation than just being creative. The authors have spent decades studying how people get great ideas (the subject of The Innovator's DNA) and how people test and develop those ideas (explored in The Innovator's Method). Now they share what they've learned from a multipronged research program designed to determine how people compete for, and obtain, resources to launch new ideas: How you can build a personal reputation for innovation What techniques you can use to amplify your innovation capital How you can garner attention for your ideas and projects and persuade audiences to support them What it means to provide visionary leadership and how you can achieve it Featuring interviews with the superstars of innovation--individuals like Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Elon Musk (Tesla), Marc Benioff (Salesforce), Indra Nooyi (PepsiCo), and Shantanu Narayen (Adobe)--this book will help you position yourself and your ideas to compete for attention and resources so that you can launch innovations with impact.

The best entrepreneurs balance brilliant business ideas with a rigorous commitment to serving their customers' needs. If you read nothing else on entrepreneurship and startups, read these 10 articles by experts in the field. We've combed through hundreds of articles in the Harvard Business Review archive and selected the most important ones to help you build your company for enduring success. Leading experts and practitioners such as Clayton Christensen, Marc Andreessen, and Reid Hoffman provide the insights and advice that will inspire you to: Understand what makes entrepreneurial leaders tick Know what matters in a great business plan Adopt lean startup practices such as business model experimentation Be prepared for the race for scale in Silicon Valley Better understand the world of venture capital--and know what you'll get along with VC funding Take an alternative approach to entrepreneurship: buy an existing business and run it as CEO This collection of articles includes "Hiring an Entrepreneurial Leader," by Timothy Butler; "How to Write a Great Business Plan," by William A. Sahlman; "Why the Lean Start-Up Changes Everything," by Steve Blank; "The President of SRI Ventures on Bringing Siri to Life," by Norman Winarsky; "In Search of the Next Big Thing," an interview with Marc Andreessen by Adi Ignatius; "Six Myths About Venture Capitalists," by Diane Mulcahy; "Chobani's Founder on Growing a Start-Up Without Outside Investors," by Hamdi Ulukaya; "Network Effects Aren't Enough," by Andrei Hagiu and Simon Rothman; "Blitzscaling," an interview with Reid Hoffman by Tim Sullivan; "Buying Your Way into Entrepreneurship," by Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff; and "The Founder's Dilemma," by Noam Wasserman.

Learn to be a better negotiator--and achieve the outcomes you want. If you read nothing else on how to negotiate successfully, read these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you avoid common mistakes, find hidden opportunities, and win the best deals possible. This book will inspire you to: Control the negotiation before you enter the room Persuade others to do what you want--for their own reasons Manage emotions on both sides of the table Understand the rules of negotiating across cultures Set the stage for a healthy relationship long after the ink has dried Identify what you can live with and when to walk away This collection of articles includes: "Six Habits of Merely Effective Negotiators" by James K. Sebenius; "Control the Negotiation Before It Begins" by Deepak Malhotra; "Emotion and the Art of Negotiation" by Alison Wood Brooks; "Breakthrough Bargaining" by Deborah M. Kolb and Judith Williams; "15 Rules for Negotiating a Job Offer" by Deepak Malhotra; "Getting to Si, Ja, Oui, Hai, and Da" by Erin Meyer; "Negotiating Without a Net: A Conversation with the NYPD's Dominick J. Misino" by Diane L. Coutu; "Deal Making 2.0: A Guide to Complex Negotiations" by David A. Lax and James K. Sebenius; "How to Make the Other Side Play Fair" by Max H. Bazerman and Daniel Kahneman; "Getting Past Yes: Negotiating as if Implementation Mattered" by Danny Ertel; "When to Walk Away from a Deal" by Geoffrey Cullinan, Jean-Marc Le Roux, and Rolf-Magnus Weddigen.

How HR can lead. If you read nothing else on reinventing human resources, read these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones on how HR leaders can partner with the C-suite, drive change throughout the organization, and develop the workforce of the future. This book will inspire you to: Overhaul performance management practices to jump-start motivation and engagement Use agile processes to transform how you hire, develop, and manage people Establish diversity programs that increase innovation and competitiveness as well as inclusion Use people analytics to bring unprecedented insight to hiring and talent management Prepare your company for the double waves of artificial intelligence and an older workforce Close the gap between HR and strategy This collection of articles includes: "People Before Strategy: A New Role for the CHRO," by Ram Charan, Dominic Barton, and Dennis Carey; "How Netflix Reinvented HR," by Patty McCord; "HR Goes Agile," by Peter Cappelli and Anna Tavis; "Reinventing Performance Management," by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall; "Better People Analytics," by Paul Leonardi and Noshir Contractor; "21st-Century Talent Spotting," by Claudio Fernandez-Araoz; "Tours of Duty: The New Employer-Employee Contract," by Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha, and Chris Yeh; "Creating the Best Workplace on Earth," by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones; "Why Diversity Programs Fail," by Frank Dobbins and Alexandra Kalev; "When No One Retires," by Paul Irving; and "Collaborative Intelligence: Humans and AI Are Joining Forces," by H. James Wilson and Paul R. Daugherty.