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Every time I read an article from HBR, I find myself wondering (a) how the content isn’t obvious to anyone with a working nervous system, and (b) what value its

Every time I read an article from HBR, I find myself wondering (a) how the content isn’t obvious to anyone with a working nervous system, and (b) what value its core readership can possibly bring to a company. But this one really takes the cake. My respect for the “academic” field of business has somehow managed to fall below rock-bottom.

lordnacho 4y ago
If you're a brand like HBR, you need people to mindlessly link to uncontroversial articles. Particularly from LinkedIn where this kind of thing lives. Nobody will pick a fight about this, but thousands of people will like it and re-post it.
- omginternets 4y ago
  This is a good articulation of the problem. It’s effectively business-class shovelware. But my concern is less about the people writing or publishing this drivel than about the people who consume every drop of it, hoping for some “insight” into “strategic thinking”. Before anyone accuses me of attacking a straw man, I have personally met dozens of such people. What pains me the most is that there is something out there that can give them what they want; a classic liberal-arts education would actually teach them to think with some rigor. But they’re stuck. They can’t think well enough to dig themselves out of this hole of mediocrity, and it’s an unsettling mix of tragic and repulsive. So in true HBR form, if you find yourself reading “thought leaders” or looking to improve your “strategic thinking”, please — for all our sakes - read a book. (NYT bestseller doesn’t count.)
  - dylan604 4y ago
    >than about the people who consume every drop of it but but but, how can you become a thought leader if you don't slurp up this kind of content to regurgitate on your own blog as if it was your original thought and then relentlessly post about it on $theSocials?
  - itronitron 4y ago
    While I mostly agree with you, I can offer a more optimistic view that you may choose to consider. Think about all the hobbies that people pursue in which there is some new gear they can read about and aspire to having that will take their pursuit of said hobby to the next level. There are entire magazines devoted to reviews of new gear. If HBR is such a magazine for managerial oriented people then at least it shows that some people are aspiring to improve their ability as managers, or at least the functioning of their organization.
    - omginternets 4y ago
      I see your point, but this is akin to witnessing someone go to a psychic for help. There is little cause for optimism when people seek help from vacuous people or publications.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jldugger 4y ago
> Every time I read an article from HBR, I find myself wondering (a) how the content isn’t obvious to anyone with a working nervous system (b) what value its core readership can possibly bring to a company. Pretend for a moment you are responsible for the quality of management at a large tech company. You think this article's guidance is obvious but what percentage of managers do you think already practice it? How do you make that number go up? Also: what makes this article so much worse than http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html?
- omginternets 4y ago
  >“What about PG” What about him? That’s drivel too. As to your actual point, it’s horrifying that people need to be told “don’t be distracting”, and that this passes for best-in-class analysis on the subject of business organizations. P.S. as a sibling comment points out, this drivel isn’t even meant to be helpful. It’s meant to be uncontroversial.
  - izacus 4y ago
    It's kind of incredible how naive you are, did you ever actually work at a larger organization? :)
    - omginternets 4y ago
      Naivety is being surprised by this, which I am not. What I’m experiencing is closer to despair (and maybe a hint of misanthropy).
  - civilized 4y ago
    It's for the bullet point class. The type of person who, if you can get their attention for 10 seconds and stuff 3 bullet points in their head, they will make a crude, flawed, but genuine movement in the direction you pointed. If this person were rare, the world wouldn't be nearly as saturated with slogans as it is. And to be honest, I think we are all this person from time to time, when we are stretched thin.
  - 4y ago
wpietri 4y ago
The content isn't obvious to them because they operate in a different context than you. Managerialist culture is founded on the notion that workers must be supervised and controlled. That the important thinking should be done by people in the managerial class. In that context, the experiences of non-managers is always secondary, because workers must be coerced via carrots and sticks to do things they are not smart/wise/good enough to see on their own. A great example here is the ubiquitous status meeting. Everybody troops into a conference room for an hour and takes turns saying things to the boss while everybody else's eyes glaze over. This lets the boss feel powerful and important, but it's a giant waste of time. The POSIWID conclusion is that organizational effectiveness is very much secondary to reinforcing the dominance hierarchy. For somebody adapted to that world, treating the time of minions as truly important -- by which I mean more important than the passing feelings of the powerful -- is radical. Even though that's something blatantly obvious to makers and others who do direct work.
- incone123 4y ago
  Almost every meeting I ever attended had an agenda and the others were on single, specific topics. So is that normal and hbr is inventing a problem, or am I very fortunate?
  - mattnewton 4y ago
    I think you are exceedingly fortunate to the point where you must know how to pick companies/roles better than average.
    - incone123 4y ago
      Well someone has to be the lucky outlier. And these meetings do have digressions plus heavy use of Any Other Business!
  - wpietri 4y ago
    In my experience that is wildly out of the norm, and you are very fortunate.
- 4y ago

lordnacho 4y ago

If you're a brand like HBR, you need people to mindlessly link to uncontroversial articles. Particularly from LinkedIn where this kind of thing lives. Nobody will pick a fight about this, but thousands of people will like it and re-post it.

omginternets 4y ago
This is a good articulation of the problem. It’s effectively business-class shovelware. But my concern is less about the people writing or publishing this drivel than about the people who consume every drop of it, hoping for some “insight” into “strategic thinking”. Before anyone accuses me of attacking a straw man, I have personally met dozens of such people. What pains me the most is that there is something out there that can give them what they want; a classic liberal-arts education would actually teach them to think with some rigor. But they’re stuck. They can’t think well enough to dig themselves out of this hole of mediocrity, and it’s an unsettling mix of tragic and repulsive. So in true HBR form, if you find yourself reading “thought leaders” or looking to improve your “strategic thinking”, please — for all our sakes - read a book. (NYT bestseller doesn’t count.)
- dylan604 4y ago
  >than about the people who consume every drop of it but but but, how can you become a thought leader if you don't slurp up this kind of content to regurgitate on your own blog as if it was your original thought and then relentlessly post about it on $theSocials?
- itronitron 4y ago
  While I mostly agree with you, I can offer a more optimistic view that you may choose to consider. Think about all the hobbies that people pursue in which there is some new gear they can read about and aspire to having that will take their pursuit of said hobby to the next level. There are entire magazines devoted to reviews of new gear. If HBR is such a magazine for managerial oriented people then at least it shows that some people are aspiring to improve their ability as managers, or at least the functioning of their organization.
  - omginternets 4y ago
    I see your point, but this is akin to witnessing someone go to a psychic for help. There is little cause for optimism when people seek help from vacuous people or publications.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

jldugger 4y ago

> Every time I read an article from HBR, I find myself wondering (a) how the content isn’t obvious to anyone with a working nervous system (b) what value its core readership can possibly bring to a company. Pretend for a moment you are responsible for the quality of management at a large tech company. You think this article's guidance is obvious but what percentage of managers do you think already practice it? How do you make that number go up? Also: what makes this article so much worse than http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html?

omginternets 4y ago
>“What about PG” What about him? That’s drivel too. As to your actual point, it’s horrifying that people need to be told “don’t be distracting”, and that this passes for best-in-class analysis on the subject of business organizations. P.S. as a sibling comment points out, this drivel isn’t even meant to be helpful. It’s meant to be uncontroversial.
- izacus 4y ago
  It's kind of incredible how naive you are, did you ever actually work at a larger organization? :)
  - omginternets 4y ago
    Naivety is being surprised by this, which I am not. What I’m experiencing is closer to despair (and maybe a hint of misanthropy).
- civilized 4y ago
  It's for the bullet point class. The type of person who, if you can get their attention for 10 seconds and stuff 3 bullet points in their head, they will make a crude, flawed, but genuine movement in the direction you pointed. If this person were rare, the world wouldn't be nearly as saturated with slogans as it is. And to be honest, I think we are all this person from time to time, when we are stretched thin.
- 4y ago

wpietri 4y ago

The content isn't obvious to them because they operate in a different context than you. Managerialist culture is founded on the notion that workers must be supervised and controlled. That the important thinking should be done by people in the managerial class. In that context, the experiences of non-managers is always secondary, because workers must be coerced via carrots and sticks to do things they are not smart/wise/good enough to see on their own. A great example here is the ubiquitous status meeting. Everybody troops into a conference room for an hour and takes turns saying things to the boss while everybody else's eyes glaze over. This lets the boss feel powerful and important, but it's a giant waste of time. The POSIWID conclusion is that organizational effectiveness is very much secondary to reinforcing the dominance hierarchy. For somebody adapted to that world, treating the time of minions as truly important -- by which I mean more important than the passing feelings of the powerful -- is radical. Even though that's something blatantly obvious to makers and others who do direct work.

incone123 4y ago
Almost every meeting I ever attended had an agenda and the others were on single, specific topics. So is that normal and hbr is inventing a problem, or am I very fortunate?
- mattnewton 4y ago
  I think you are exceedingly fortunate to the point where you must know how to pick companies/roles better than average.
  - incone123 4y ago
    Well someone has to be the lucky outlier. And these meetings do have digressions plus heavy use of Any Other Business!
- wpietri 4y ago
  In my experience that is wildly out of the norm, and you are very fortunate.
4y ago