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Very much off-topic, but is HBR worth the subscription if I'd like to learn about management and in general about good business practices?

scott_w 7y ago
I’d say it’s worth every penny. You get access to a lot of research summaries and case studies for the money.
endymi0n 7y ago
There are some nice pieces in there occasionally, but if you ask me, nothing really replaces managing people on your own and A/B test all those things you hear and read about in practice. Your personality is unique to you and you'll find external advice fitting your personal style in a believable AND effective way less often than you might think. Even from the same sources, you'll find better and worse pieces for yourself, like for example I adopted the super easy question from Joel Spolsky's "Guerilla Guide to Hiring Engineers" because it's a super good predictor for me, while I found his brainteaser utterly useless after testing both a few times. Lots of pieces on HBR are rather abstract and handle topics in a meta way, which I did not find very usable. As for me, I'd give my former self this URL for starters and then tell them to dive right in and find out for yourself: https://www.defmacro.org/2014/10/03/engman.html https://www.defmacro.org/2014/10/03/engman.html Then again, that's the right advice for my own (very pragmatic) personality, so YMMV.
afarrell 7y ago
When you want to “learn from experience”, how much better do you do if you first have a theoretical framework that points out where to direct your attention?
- wenc 7y ago
  Surprisingly much better. Theory and practice, when done together, is much more powerful than either alone. Good practice books like "High Output Management", "Influence", "Hard Things about Hard Things" gives you a view of what other people at other (high-functioning) organizations do and exposes you to the norms in industry. They also give you mental models to think about things, and helps you to become aware of the problems you never knew existed. And it helps your normalize your expectations: you may think your company sucks, but reading widely and critically helps you realize even the very best companies deal with the same problems and don't really have significantly better solutions. Reading a good book is like having a conversation with and picking the brain of a really competent mentor, dead or alive, and of a calibre that not exist in your organization. Internal mentorship is sometimes oversold. Most organizations have managers that have merely adapted to their local ecosystem and don't really have any insight on management as a craft. Managers who learned purely through experience tend to be shaped by the company's culture and may do very well in their niche but lack imagination to go beyond because they have no theory to hang their thoughts on. Also, books are like travel -- you don't know what you don't know until you've seen for yourself what exists. You sometimes need to peek outside your organization to see what other cultures exist.
  - hartzell 7y ago
    Is your second recommendation "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" or "Influence: Science and Practice" (both have Robert B. Cialdini as authors)?
    - wenc 7y ago
      I believe they're the same book, the latter being a later edition. (I've only read the former though)
iamacyborg 7y ago
I'd buy some of their "10 Must Reads on X" books and see what you think about the quality of articles that way before commiting to a more expensive subscription. I read the 10 Must Reads on Communication book last week and 4 of the 10 articles were particularly good, the rest were quite milquetoast. I wrote some thoughts here: https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/hbr-10-reads-on-communication.html https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/hbr-10-reads-on-co...

scott_w 7y ago

I’d say it’s worth every penny. You get access to a lot of research summaries and case studies for the money.

endymi0n 7y ago

There are some nice pieces in there occasionally, but if you ask me, nothing really replaces managing people on your own and A/B test all those things you hear and read about in practice. Your personality is unique to you and you'll find external advice fitting your personal style in a believable AND effective way less often than you might think. Even from the same sources, you'll find better and worse pieces for yourself, like for example I adopted the super easy question from Joel Spolsky's "Guerilla Guide to Hiring Engineers" because it's a super good predictor for me, while I found his brainteaser utterly useless after testing both a few times. Lots of pieces on HBR are rather abstract and handle topics in a meta way, which I did not find very usable. As for me, I'd give my former self this URL for starters and then tell them to dive right in and find out for yourself: https://www.defmacro.org/2014/10/03/engman.html https://www.defmacro.org/2014/10/03/engman.html Then again, that's the right advice for my own (very pragmatic) personality, so YMMV.

afarrell 7y ago

When you want to “learn from experience”, how much better do you do if you first have a theoretical framework that points out where to direct your attention?

wenc 7y ago
Surprisingly much better. Theory and practice, when done together, is much more powerful than either alone. Good practice books like "High Output Management", "Influence", "Hard Things about Hard Things" gives you a view of what other people at other (high-functioning) organizations do and exposes you to the norms in industry. They also give you mental models to think about things, and helps you to become aware of the problems you never knew existed. And it helps your normalize your expectations: you may think your company sucks, but reading widely and critically helps you realize even the very best companies deal with the same problems and don't really have significantly better solutions. Reading a good book is like having a conversation with and picking the brain of a really competent mentor, dead or alive, and of a calibre that not exist in your organization. Internal mentorship is sometimes oversold. Most organizations have managers that have merely adapted to their local ecosystem and don't really have any insight on management as a craft. Managers who learned purely through experience tend to be shaped by the company's culture and may do very well in their niche but lack imagination to go beyond because they have no theory to hang their thoughts on. Also, books are like travel -- you don't know what you don't know until you've seen for yourself what exists. You sometimes need to peek outside your organization to see what other cultures exist.
- hartzell 7y ago
  Is your second recommendation "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" or "Influence: Science and Practice" (both have Robert B. Cialdini as authors)?
  - wenc 7y ago
    I believe they're the same book, the latter being a later edition. (I've only read the former though)

iamacyborg 7y ago

I'd buy some of their "10 Must Reads on X" books and see what you think about the quality of articles that way before commiting to a more expensive subscription. I read the 10 Must Reads on Communication book last week and 4 of the 10 articles were particularly good, the rest were quite milquetoast. I wrote some thoughts here: https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/hbr-10-reads-on-communication.html https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/reading/hbr-10-reads-on-co...