HBR

Innovation gets rediscovered as a growth enabler every half dozen years. Too often, grand declarations about innovation are followed by mediocre execution that produces anemic results, and innovation groups are quietly disbanded. Each managerial generation embarks on the same enthusiastic quest for the next new thing. And each faces the same challenges to protect existing critical revenue streams while supporting new concepts that may be crucial to future success.

Even for the most gifted individuals, the process of becoming a leader is an arduous, albeit rewarding, journey of continuous learning and self-development. The initial test along the path is so fundamental that we often overlook it: becoming a boss for the first time. That's a shame, because the trials involved in this rite of passage have serious consequences for both the individual and the organization. For a decade and a half, the author has studied people making major career transitions to management.

This audiobook was created based on Clayton Christensen's landmark book The Innovator's Dilemma. This was Mr. Christensen's synopsis of his book for the Harvard Business Review. The audio tracks listed here cover the key elements of Mr. Christensen's book. This audiobook emphasizes the Idea in Brief "Does my organization have the right resources, processes, values, and team to innovate?" Then it covers the right structure for your specific type of innovation.

In the aftermath of the Enron and WorldCom debacles, corporate boards have been shaken up and made over. Most of the changes are structural and don't go to the heart of a board's work: making the choices that shape a firm's future. Which decisions boards own and how those calls are made are largely hidden from the public. As a result, boards are often unable to learn from their counterparts at other companies. In this article, Michael Useem pulls back the curtain and provides an inside look.

Executives have developed tunnel vision in their pursuit of shareholder value, focusing on short-term performance at the expense of investing in long-term growth. It's time to broaden that perspective and begin shaping business strategies in light of the competitive landscape, not the shareholder list. In this article, Alfred Rappaport offers 10 basic principles to help executives create lasting shareholder value.

Sales departments tend to believe that marketers are out of touch with what's really going on in the marketplace. Marketing people, in turn, believe the sales force is myopic - too focused on individual customer experiences, insufficiently aware of the larger market, and blind to the future. In short, each group undervalues the other's contributions. Yet, few firms seem to make serious overtures toward analyzing and enhancing the relationship between these two critical functions.

Businesses hoping to survive over the long term will have to remake themselves into better competitors at least once along the way. These efforts have gone under many banners: total quality management, reengineering, rightsizing, restructuring, cultural change, and turnarounds, to name a few. In almost every case, the goal has been to cope with a new, more challenging market by changing the way business is conducted. In this article, John Kotter outlines the eight largest errors that can doom these efforts.

In the complex sport of American football, teams rely on thick playbooks. But when it comes to creating innovative growth businesses - which is at least as complicated as professional football - most companies have not developed detailed game plans. The authors believe that companies can penetrate that fog by developing growth strategies based on disruptive innovations, as defined by Clayton Christensen.

For generations, Procter & Gamble generated most of its growth by innovating from within - building global research facilities and hiring the best talent in the world. Back when companies were smaller and the world was less competitive, that model worked just fine. But in 2000, newly appointed CEO A.G. Lafley saw that P&G couldn't meet its growth objectives by spending greater and greater amounts on R&D for smaller and smaller payoffs. So he embraced a "connect and develop" model.

Change is the one constant in business, and we must adapt or face obsolescence. Yet certain challenges never go away. That's what makes this book "must hear." These are the 10 seminal articles by management's most influential experts, on topics of perennial concern to ambitious managers and leaders hungry for inspiration - and ready to run with big ideas to accelerate their own and their companies' success.

Business is big. Actually, it's often small and medium-sized too. But the point is that it matters - a lot. This book is designed to answer all those confusing questions that flit through your mind when you get to the business pages of the paper, and stop you from being embarrassed in job interviews.

Is your company spending too much time on strategy development - with too little to show for it? you listen to nothing else on strategy, you should at least hear these 10 articles.

The best leaders know how to communicate clearly and persuasively. How do you stack up? Leading experts such as Deborah Tannen, Jay Conger, and Nick Morgan provide the insights and advice you need.

A year's worth of management wisdom, all in one place. We've reviewed the ideas, insights, and best practices from the past year of Harvard Business Review to keep you up to date on the most cutting-edge, influential thinking driving business today.

Think you have a good memory? Think again. Memories are our most cherished possessions. We rely on them every day of our lives. They make us who we are. And yet the truth is they are far from being the accurate records of the past we like to think they are. True, we can all admit to having suffered occasional memory lapses, such as entering a room and immediately forgetting why or suddenly being unable to recall the name of someone we've met dozens of times. But what if we have the potential for more profound errors of memory?