Management Problem Solving

In Better, Simpler Strategy, Harvard Business School professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee provides executives with a simple tool to cut through technological complexity and market uncertainties. The Value Stick, based on proven economic mechanics, is an extraordinarily powerful tool that helps executives decide where to focus their attention and how to deepen their firm's competitive advantage.

Have you or your colleagues ever worked hard on something, only to find out you were focusing on the wrong problem entirely? Most people have. In a survey, 85 percent of companies said they often struggle to solve the right problems. The consequences are severe: Leaders fight the wrong strategic battles. Teams spend their energy on low-impact work. Startups build products that nobody wants. Organizations implement “solutions” that somehow make things worse, not better. Everywhere you look, the waste is staggering.

If you read (or listen to) nothing else on inspiring and executing innovation, listen to these ten articles. We've combed through hundreds of articles in the Harvard Business Review archive and selected the most important ones to help you innovate effectively.

Decisions equal success - nothing happens until one is made. Businesses make millions of decisions every day. But once in a great while a leader makes a truly game-changing decision that shifts not only the strategy of a single company but how everyone does business. These big decisions are counterintuitive - they go against the conventional wisdom. In hindsight, taking a different direction may seem easy, but these bet-the-company moves involve drama, doubt, and high tension.

In his book Driving Eureka!, best-selling business author Doug Hall presents the System Driven Innovation scientific method for enabling innovation by everyone, everywhere, every day. It’s the essential resource you need to enable yourself - and your team - to innovate, succeed, and do amazing things that matter, on a daily basis.

Best-selling author Denis Waitley, in conversation with Dan Strutzel, offers timeless and timely advice on how to apply his philosophy to the digital age and attain personal and professional excellence today.

Value stream mapping - an essential but underused methodology - is a proven approach to help you visualize and resolve disconnects, redundancies, and gaps in your value delivery system. More than a tool to eliminate operational waste, value stream mapping is a highly effective means to transform leadership thinking, define strategy and priorities, and create customer-centric work flow. Business performance improvement experts Karen Martin and Mike Osterling present a practical way to deeply understand how work gets done - in any environment - and how to design improved work systems.

From the best-selling authors who taught the world how to have Crucial Conversations comes the new edition of Influencer, a thought-provoking book that combines the remarkable insights of behavioral scientists and business leaders with the astonishing stories of high-powered influencers from all walks of life. You'll be taught each and every step of the influence process - including robust strategies for making change inevitable in your personal life, your business, and your world.

Not all heroes wear capes. You might not think of yourself as a hero, but every time you create value for others, you're benefiting people and making life easier or better for them in some way. The question is, "Who do you want to be a hero to?" By identifying the key audience you want to create value for, you focus yourself on the most crucial people in your life, helping them to grow their capabilities - and growing your own as well.

Filled with illuminating case studies and brilliant in-depth analysis, this invaluable book provides a multitude of insights that will help you weather market upheavals, adapt to disruptions, and optimize your resources to your best advantage.

Numbers make or break you. Ask any bankrupt business or successful startup and they’ll both agree, numbers don’t lie. Unfortunately, most teams focus on too many numbers or the wrong numbers or maybe no numbers at all! Author Lee Benson knows numbers. He grew his business from 3 employees to 500 with 15 consecutive years of 20 percent compounded average annual growth. Friends and families asked for his secret. He told them it came down to Your Most Important Number.

Unleashing your humble alpha is the key factor to unlocking profound leadership, unshakable confidence, clarity of purpose, and the quality of life you dream of. It’s a natural power created by you when in alignment that supercharges your ability to take massive charge in business and life so you can stop grappling for power, failing to motivate staff, or struggling in your relationships. It’s the momentum you’ve been searching for.

The language of business. In order to understand how your business is performing right now and to evaluate, assess, and devise new strategies to boost future performance, you need information. Financial statements are a critical source of the information you need. In direct and simple terms, Richard A. Lambert, Miller-Sherrerd Professor of Accounting at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, demystifies financial statements and concepts and shows you how you can apply this information to make better business decisions for long-term profit.

A renowned leadership consultant offers an “a powerful and timely resource for leaders at every level” (Marshal Goldsmith, author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There), drawing on decades of her in-the-field research and consulting As an executive coach, Dr. Katie Best has helped...

Data analytics offer an incredible opportunity to predict the future, engage with new technological advancements, and gain valuable insights about your business. But unless you're staying on top of the cutting edge of analytics, your company is wasting that potential-and your competitors will be gaining speed while you fall behind. These articles by experts and consultants will help you understand today's essential thinking about what data analytics are capable of and how to adopt their use in your organization.

Have you ever come up with an idea for a new product or service, but didn't take any action because you thought it would be too risky? Or at work, have you had what you thought could be a big idea for your company - perhaps changing the way you develop or distribute a product, provide customer service, or hire and train your employees? If you have, but you haven't known how to take the next step, you need to understand what the authors call the innovator's method.

Murphy's Law tells us that if something can go wrong, it will. Nonsense! says Al Casey, who maintains: If things can go right, they should. But you've got to make them go right, he adds, by hard work, focusing on key problems, and believing in the people around you. One of the most successful - and original - American businessmen of our time, Al Casey is a no-nonsense turnaround specialist who loves nothing more than the big challenges, whether in the private or the public sector.

The hardest part of leadership is mastering the inevitable high-risk, high-stakes challenges you will face. Whether you're making a split-second decision when your business is knocked sideways or you're finding the best strategy to navigate business-critical long-term circumstances, how can you be in peak form in those most crucial moments? Leadership coaching legends David Noble and Carol Kauffman show you how with their innovative new framework—MOVE—which equips you with the tactics you need to slow down high-stakes situations before they speed you up.

Few businesses can afford to shut down for an extended period of time, regardless of the cause. If the past few years have taught us anything, it's that disaster can strike in any shape, at any time. Be prepared with the time-tested strategies in Business Continuity Management: Building an Effective Incident Management Plan and protect your employees while ensuring your company survives the unimaginable.

This is a book about common sense—what it is, how to make it, and how to put it into practice across all contexts of leadership and life. It's also a book of stories from my leadership journey across continents, cultures, and contexts (e.g., combat, business, and government). In this book, you’ll learn what I learned and what many other common-sense leaders across the ages have learned before us.