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5.0 out of 5 stars
Among the best in a breakthrough series of paperbacks, December 16, 2004
This review is from: Harvard Business Review on Breakthrough Leadership (Paperback)
This is one in a series of several dozen volumes which comprise the "Harvard Business Review Paperback Series." Each offers direct, convenient, and inexpensive access to the best thinking on the given subject in articles originally published by the Harvard Business Review. Presumably two of the criteria for determining which articles to include are (a) frequency of reprint requests and (b) significance of the article in relation to the author(s)'s subsequent work. I strongly recommend all of the volumes in the series. The individual titles are listed at this Web site: www.hbsp.harvard.edu. The authors of various articles are among the world's most highly regarded experts on the given subject. All of the volumes have been carefully edited. An Executive Summary introduces each selection. Supplementary commentaries are also provided in most of the volumes, as is an "About the Contributors" section which usually includes suggestions of other sources which some readers may wish to explore.
In this volume, we are provided with eight previously published articles which, from a variety of perspectives, examine an especially important business subject: How to achieve breakthrough leadership. In the first, Harris Collingwood shares leaders' remembrances of moments and others who have shaped them. The core concepts in the next article, "Primal Leadership: The Hidden Driver of Great Performance," were later developed in several books co-authored by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee. Collingwood then reappears as co-moderator with Julia Kirby of a roundtable discussion during which six experts (e.g. Frances Hesselbein who is chairman of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation and Frederick Smith who is chairman and CEO of FedEx. For me, one of the most thought-provoking articles is the one in which Richard S. Tedlow explains why and how "a handful of simple principles" followed by seven "titans of industry" (i.e. Carnegie, Eastman, Ford, Noyce, Revson, Walton, and Watson, Sr.) can also be applied by others to achieve breakthrough results. The material in the remaining five articles is also worthy careful consideration. Of course, the value of each article will largely be determined by its reader's own interests and (especially) needs.
I have read and reviewed almost all of the volumes which comprise the "Harvard Business Review Paperback Series." This is one of the best but the same benefits are offered by all of the others: Cutting-edge ideas which can have the greatest impact for about 30% of the cost, were the articles ordered separately as reprints. Better yet, they are grouped by common business topic but their authors approach that topic from significantly different perspectives. Most executives should own and then read all of the volumes in this series. Once having done so, my guess is that they will frequently return to specific articles for guidance whenever an unexpected problem or opportunity appears. hence the importance of highlighting key passages. Hence the importance of the Executive Summary for each article in each volume. And hence the importance of having direct and convenient access.
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