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The financial crisis of 2008 and the Great Recession caused a crisis of public confidence in business and American-style capitalism, with its focus on maximizing shareholder value. Corporate leaders understood that reform was needed and that they needed to commit themselves to the dual goal of producing benefits for society and their firms’ bottom lines—to creating “shared value.” But the specific actions they could take to bring about this change were less clear. This ebook offers some of the freshest thinking today on practical measures that businesses can implement to create shared value. Originally published in an online forum hosted by Harvard Business Review, it offers valuable advice about how CEOs, other senior executives, and boards of directors can work together to engage stakeholders in new ways, change their companies’ values, build healthier relationships with investors, revamp incentive systems to create long-term value, and develop stronger succession plans.The authors of this collection of short articles include current or former CEOs, such as Howard Schultz of Starbucks and Dominic Barton of McKinsey & Company, and an array of prominent academics and other thought leaders, including Roger Martin of the University of Toronto, Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford, and Alfred Rappaport of Northwestern.Its editors are Raymond Gilmartin, the former CEO of Merck and, until recently, an adjunct professor at Harvard Business School, and Steve Prokesch, a senior editor at Harvard Business Review who previously worked at the New York Times and BusinessWeek magazine. In their introduction, they offer five specific recommendations on how CEOs can restore public faith in capitalism.HBR Singles provide brief yet potent business ideas, in digital form, for today's thinking professional.

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A short history of piracy and capitalismWhen capitalism spread along the trade routes toward the Indies…when radio opened an era of mass communication . . . when the Internet became part of the global economy…pirates were there. And although most people see pirates as solitary anarchists out to destroy capitalism, it turns out the opposite is true. They are the ones who forge the path.In The Pirate Organization, Rodolphe Durand and Jean-Philippe Vergne argue that piracy drives capitalism’s evolution and foreshadows the direction of the economy. Through a rigorous yet engaging analysis of the history and golden ages of piracy, the authors show how pirates form complex and sophisticated organizations that change the course of capitalism. Surprisingly, pirate organizations also behave in predictable ways: challenging widespread norms; controlling resources, communication, and transportation; maintaining trade relationships with other communities; and formulating strategies favoring speed and surprise. We could learn a lot from them—if only we paid more attention.Durand and Vergne recommend that rather than trying to stamp out piracy, savvy entrepreneurs and organizations should keep a sharp eye on the pirate space to stay successful as the game changes—and it always does.First published in French to great critical acclaim and commercial success as L’Organisation Pirate: Essai sur l’évolution du capitalisme, this book shows that piracy is not random. It’s predictable, it cannot be separated from capitalism, and it likely will be the source of capitalism’s continuing evolution.Pirates, surprisingly, also behave in predictable ways: challenging widespread norms; controlling resources, communication, and transportation; maintaining trade relationships with other communities; and formulating strategies favoring speed and surprise.And we can learn from them.Durand and Vergne recommend that rather than trying to stamp out piracy, savvy companies should keep a sharp eye on the pirate space. Only then can they detect how capitalism’s rules of engagement are changing—and then revise their business practices to remain successful in the new game.

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Find the right innovation modelInnovation is a much-used buzzword these days, but when it comes to creating and implementing a new idea, many companies miss the mark—plans backfire, consumer preferences shift, or tried-and-true practices fail to work in a new context. So is innovation just a low-odds crapshoot?In The Architecture of Innovation, Harvard Business School professor Josh Lerner—one of the foremost experts on how innovation works—says innovation can be understood and managed. The key to success? Incentives.Fortunately, new research has shed light on the role incentives can play in promoting new ideas, but these findings have been absent from innovation literature—until now. By using the principles of organizational economics, Lerner explains how companies can set the right incentives and time horizons for investments and create a robust innovation infrastructure in the process.Drawing from years of experience studying and advising companies, venture capital firms, and an assortment of governments around the globe, Lerner looks to corporate labs and start-ups, and argues that the best elements of both can be found in hybrid models for innovation. While doing so, he uses a wide range of industry-rich examples to show how these models work and how you can put them into practice in your own organization.Practical and thought-provoking, The Architecture of Innovation is the missing blueprint for any company looking to strengthen its innovation competence.

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Who do you want your customers to become? According to MIT innovation expert and thought leader Michael Schrage, if you aren’t asking this question, your strategic marketing and innovation efforts will fail. In this latest HBR Single, Schrage provides a powerful new lens for getting more value out of innovation investment. He argues that asking customers to do something different doesn’t go far enough—serious marketers and innovators must ask them to become something different instead. Even more, you must invest in their capabilities and competencies to help them become better customers. Schrage’s primary insight is that innovation is an investment in your client, not just a transaction with them. To truly innovate today, designing new products or features or services won’t get you there. Only by designing new customers—thinking of their future state, being the conduit to their evolution—will you transform your business. Schrage explains how the above question (what he calls “The Ask”) will incite you and your team to imagine and design ideal customer outcomes as the way to drive your business’s future. The Single is organized around six key insights and includes practical exercises to help you apply the question to your current situation. Schrage also includes examples from well-known companies—Google, Facebook, Disney, Starbucks, Apple, IKEA, Dyson, Ryanair, and others—to illustrate just what is possible when you apply “The Ask.” Marketing executives, brand managers, strategic innovators, and entrepreneurs alike should understand how successful innovation rebrands the client and not the product. A requisite question for its time, Who Do You Want Your Customers To Become will liberate you and your team from ‘innovation myopia’—and turn your innovation efforts on their head. HBR Singles provide brief yet potent business ideas, in digital form, for today's thinking professional.

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Clayton Christensen’s definitive works on innovation—offered together for the first timeWill you fall victim to disruptive innovation—or become a disruptor yourself? Tip the odds in your favor with the bestselling books that have made Christensen one of the world’s foremost authorities on innovation. You’ll also get his award-winning HBR article, full of inspiration for finding meaning and happiness in your life using the principles of business.The 4-volume collection includes:The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to FailIn one of the most influential business books of our time, Christensen introduced the world to the concept of disruptive innovation, showing how even the most outstanding companies can do everything right—yet still lose market leadership. Don’t repeat their mistakes.The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful GrowthCiting in-depth research and theories tested in hundreds of companies across many industries, Christensen and co-author Michael Raynor provide the tools organizations need to become disruptors themselves.The Innovator's DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive InnovatorsChristensen and coauthors Jeffrey Dyer and Hal Gregersen identify behaviors of the world’s best innovators—from leaders at Amazon and Apple to those at Google, Skype, and the Virgin Group—to show how you and your team can unlock the code to generating and executing more innovative ideas.“How Will You Measure Your Life?” (HBR article)At Harvard Business School, Clayton Christensen teaches aspiring MBAs how to apply management and innovation theories to build stronger companies. But he also believes that these models can help people lead better lives. In this award-winning Harvard Business Review article, he explains how, exploring questions everyone needs to ask: How can I be happy in my career? How can I be sure that my relationship with my family is an enduring source of happiness? And how can I live my life with integrity?

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Get these bestsellers together: one of the most influential business books of all time—with a bonus HBR article that will inspire you to find meaning and happiness in your life by applying the principles of businessThe Innovator’s DilemmaHis work is cited by the world’s best known thought leaders, from Steve Jobs to Malcolm Gladwell. In his bestselling book, The Innovator’s Dilemma, innovation expert Clayton M. Christensen introduced the world to the revolutionary principles of disruptive innovation–new rules for doing business in a rapidly changing environment. This business classic shows how even the most outstanding companies can do everything right—yet still lose market leadership. Every thoughtful business person–no matter your level or industry—should read this book to avoid a similar fate.Offering both the successes and failures of leading companies as a guide, The Innovator’s Dilemma reveals how you can simultaneously do what’s right for the near-term health of your established business, while focusing enough resources on the disruptive technologies that ultimately could lead to its downfall. Ignore the innovator’s dilemma at your peril.“How Will You Measure Your Life?” (BONUS HBR article)At Harvard Business School, Clayton Christensen teaches aspiring MBAs how to apply management and innovation theories to build stronger companies. But he also believes that these models can help people lead better lives. In the award-winning Harvard Business Review article, “How Will You Measure Your Life?,” he explains how, exploring questions everyone needs to ask: How can I be happy in my career? How can I be sure that my relationship with my family is an enduring source of happiness? And how can I live my life with integrity?For the first time, get this article together with the bestselling book that established Clayton Christensen as one of the world’s most influential management thinkers.

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Although much as been written about how to make better decisions, a decision by itself changes nothing. The big problem facing managers and their organizations today is one of implementation–how to get things done in a timely and effective way. Problems of implementation are really issues of how to influence behavior, change the course of events, overcome resistance, and get people to do things they would not otherwise do. In a word, power. Managing With Power provides an in-depth look at the role of power and influence in organizations. Pfeffer shows convincingly that its effective use is an essential component of strong leadership. With vivid examples, he makes a compelling case for the necessity of power in mobilizing the political support and resources to get things done in any organization. He provides an intriguing look at the personal attributes—such as flexibility, stamina, and a high tolerance for conflict—and the structural factors—such as control of resources, access to information, and formal authority—that can help managers advance organizational goals and achieve individual success.

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What’s your entrepreneurial profile?Do you have what it takes to build a great business?In this book, three prominent business leaders and entrepreneurs—now venture capitalists and CEO advisers—share the qualities that surface again and again in those who successfully achieve their goals. The common traits? Heart, smarts, guts, and luck.After interviewing and researching hundreds of business-builders across the globe, the authors found that every one of them—from young founder to seasoned CEO—holds a combination of these four attributes. Indeed each of us tends to be biased toward one of these traits in our decision-making, and figuring out which trait drives you will lead to greater self-awareness and likelihood of success in starting and growing a business.So are you:• Heart-dominant, like renowned chef Alice Waters or Starbucks’s Howard Schultz?• Smarts-dominant, like Jeff Bezos of Amazon or legendary investor Warren Buffett?• Guts-dominant, like Nelson Mandela or Virgin’s Richard Branson?• Or are you most defined by the luck trait, like Tony Hsieh of Zappos (and a surprisingly high proportion of other successful entrepreneurs)?Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck includes the first Entrepreneurial Aptitude Test (E.A.T), a simple tool to help determine your specific profile.Though no single archetype for entrepreneurial success exists, this book will help you understand which traits to “dial up” or “dial down” to realize your full potential, and when these traits are most and least helpful (or even detrimental) during critical points of a company lifecycle. Not only will you know how to build a better business faster, you’ll also take your natural leadership style to the next level.

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There’s a bewildering array of management tools out there. And they all promise to help you excel at the toughest parts of your job: defining your organization’s strategic direction, managing customers and costs, and boosting workforce performance.But just 30 percent of these tools deliver as intended. Why? As Jeremy Hope and Steve Player reveal in Beyond Performance Management, while many tools are sound in theory, they’re misused by most organizations. For example, executives buy and implement a tool without first asking, “What problem are we trying to solve?” And they use tools to command and control frontline teams, not empower them—a serious and costly mistake.In this eminently useful, clear-eyed book, the authors critically review dozens of well-known management tools—from mission statements, balanced scorecards, and rolling forecasts to key performance indicators, Six Sigma, and performance appraisals. They explain how to select the right tools for your organization, how to implement them correctly, and how to extract maximum value from each.Brimming with rigorous analysis and solid advice, Beyond Performance Management helps you swiftly gauge the value of each management tool, as well as navigate the increasingly crowded field of offerings—so the tools you select deliver fully on their promise.

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No More Headaches, Hypertension, or HeartburnIf your work involves projects, then this book is for you. It will show every company owner and project manager—at businesses large and small—how to run projects differently. You’ll benefit if you’ve ever:• been over budget on a project• exceeded a timeline on a project• worked on a project that completely stalled as you neared the finish line• lost money on a sure-thing project and had no idea why• noticed that scope and feature creep held you back• watched a project take three times as long as planned• felt too embarrassed to perform a review of your successes and failures• wondered whether your project actually made any moneyBy the time you finish the book, you’ll be ready to implement Project Management for Profit in your own company—and be prepared to keep your projects on track and on budget.

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