HBR Guide to Office Politics

Managing people is fraught with challenges - even if you're a seasoned manager. Here's how to handle them. If you listen to nothing else on managing people, you should at least hear these 10 articles.

The modern working world is a dangerous place, where game-playing, duplicity and sheer malevolence are rife. Do talent and hard work count for nothing? Is politics everything? In this fascinating exposé, Oliver James reveals the murky underside of modern office life. With cutting-edge research and eye-opening interviews, he highlights the nasty practices that propel people to the top and shows how industries and cultures are fostering this behaviour.

Are your working relationships working against you? To achieve your goals and get ahead, you need to rally people behind you and your ideas. But how do you do that when you lack formal authority, or when you have a boss who gets in your way, or when you're juggling others' needs at the expense of your own?

The path to your professional success starts with a critical look in the mirror. If you listen to nothing else on managing yourself, you should at least hear these 10 articles (plus the bonus article "How Will You Measure Your Life?" by Clayton M. Christensen). We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles to select the most important ones to help you maximize yourself.

In his defining work on emotional intelligence, best-selling author Daniel Goleman found that it is twice as important as other competencies in determining outstanding leadership. If you listen to nothing else on emotional intelligence, listen to these 10 articles by experts in the field. We've combed through hundreds of articles in the Harvard Business Review archive and selected the most important ones to help you boost your emotional skills - and your professional success.

Is your workload slowing you - and your career - down? Your inbox is overflowing. You're paralyzed because you have too much to do but don't know where to start. Your to-do list never seems to get any shorter. You leave work exhausted but have little to show for it. It's time to learn how to get the right work done.

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.

If you listen to nothing else on decision making, you should at least hear these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of articles in the Harvard Business Review archive and selected the most important ones to help you and your organization make better choices and avoid common traps.

What did Charles Darwin, middling schoolboy and underachieving second son, do to become one of the earliest and greatest naturalists the world has known? What were the similar choices made by Mozart and by Caesar Rodriguez, the U.S. Air Force's last ace fighter pilot? In Mastery, Robert Greene's fifth book, he mines the biographies of great historical figures for clues about gaining control over our own lives and destinies. Picking up where The 48 Laws of Power left off, Greene culls years of research and original interviews to blend historical anecdote and psychological insight, distilling the universal ingredients of the world's masters.

This audiobook is about luck, or more precisely, how we perceive and deal with luck in life and business. It is already a landmark work, and its title has entered our vocabulary. In its second edition, Fooled by Randomness is now a cornerstone for anyone interested in random outcomes.

Are you suffering from work-related stress? Feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and short tempered at work - and at home? Then you may have too much stress in your life. Stress is a serious problem that impacts not only your mental and physical health, but also your loved ones and your organization. So what can you do to address it? The HBR Guide to Managing Stress at Work will help you find a sustainable solution. It will help you reach the goal of getting on an even keel - and staying there.

Influence, the classic book on persuasion, explains the psychology of why people say yes - and how to apply these understandings. Dr. Robert Cialdini is the seminal expert in the rapidly expanding field of influence and persuasion. His 35 years of rigorous, evidence-based research, along with a three-year program of study on what moves people to change behavior, has resulted in this highly acclaimed book. You'll learn the six universal principles, how to use them to become a skilled persuader - and how to defend yourself against them.

When you're fumbling for words and pressed for time, you might be tempted to dismiss good business writing as a luxury. But it's a skill you must cultivate to succeed: You'll lose time, money, and influence if your emails, proposals, and other important documents fail to win people over.

Ray Dalio, one of the world's most successful investors and entrepreneurs, shares the unconventional principles that he's developed, refined, and used over the past 40 years to create unique results in both life and business - and which any person or organization can adopt to help achieve their goals.

Terrified of speaking in front of a group? Or simply looking to polish your skills? No matter where you are on the spectrum, this guide will give you the confidence and the tools you need to get results.