Better than HBR?
Harvard Business Review may be seen as the gold-standard for leading edge management thinking. But I am increasingly impressed by the quality of other journals. McKinsey Quarterly, of course, has long produced solid content based on work with major clients, or else on serious research from their Global Institute, and other big consulting firms do some of the same. Now, seems to me, Sloan Management Review is also putting out important, well-informed articles reflecting rigorous work, and strategy+business from Booz & Co does the same.
Meanwhile, HBR offers more and more articles featuring glib slogans or ‘X ways to do Y’ and other styles of thin journalism. Some are downright dangerous! There are still some great exceptions of course, but I wonder if their crown is slipping.
Anyone got other favourite sources?
More on sustainability and strategy
Two solid pieces on strategy implications from sustainability. The Business of Sustainability report from BCG reviews the impact the issue is having on companies and how it is affecting their strategic management. Most now see it as far more than just the latest fad and potentially a big factor in their future success – or failure. Sloan Mgmt Review summarises this report, 5 mini-cases on Nike, Rio Tinto, GE, Better Place and Wal-Mart, and articles on implications for competitive conditions and for talent-management.
More items on strategy in the crisis
Amongst the continuing stream of articles on this, some good ones [I've left out some bad or downright dangerous ones] include: Read more
Testing assumptions
An interview with Dan Ariely in Sloan Mgmt Review points up the need to test assumptions – critical, of course, and can’t fault Dan’s case. But doing as he asks on serious strategic decisions is not so easy. Read more
Sustainability and strategy
Good to see a serious management journal – MIT’s Sloan Management Review – regularly featuring items on this issue. John Sterman’s ‘Sober optimist’s guide to sustainability‘ and an interview with Rebecca Henderson are both good. Read more
Analysis-based strategy
In Sloan Mgt Review Thomas Davenport of Babson College and Jeanne Harris of Accenture’s Institute For High Performance Business in What People Want Next (and How to Predict It) show how firms like Amazon.com use unprecedented data and sophisticated technology to inform decisions as never before. Great to see so much being written now about powerful strategic management being driven by data and analysis, not just gut and emotion [has anyone done more to devalue and undermine competent, professional strategic management than Henry Mitzberg I wonder?].
Great use of business intelligence is important and good to see. I would just add though, as I think I’ve noted before, that powerful organizations go beyond predicting what people want – they look for what they could be persuaded to want, then go about developing it and doing the persuading.
Make use of customer complaints
Neat article on this in Sloan Management Review Read more