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Thursday 29 October 2015

Harvard Business Review: Candid Arrogance or Just Plain Stupidity?

A few years back, I was in Hsinchu, Taiwan, (aka "Science City") lecturing on technology strategies to 35 vice presidents and senior executives of one of the world’s largest and most prestigious Taiwanese high tech corporations. As we began to dig deeper into the true definition of “strategy,” a member of the audience asked for my view of the Harvard Business Review.  He asked the question because we were discussing the difference between true strategy and what the business world usually passes off as strategy.

I immediately responded to the question by calling the Harvard Business Review a Trick-of-the-Month club.  I explained that one month, HBR will say that the key to a company's success is for it to totally focus on the customer.  Two months later, the HBR will say that the key to success is to totally ignore the customer to avoid always being stuck in the present.  In neither case does the HBR explain why the approach is sound, nor does the writer connect to any of HBR's other previous "nuggets of wisdom."   I shared that I’ve noticed that in most cases, these “nuggets” are nothing more than isolated and superficial observations that HBR’s contributors and writers base upon fragmented, anecdotal information.  HBR treats readers as nothing more than fat, dumb frogs willing to blindly jump from lily pad to lily pad, not caring that they have no ability to know which pad will be strong enough to support their hefty weight.

For More: http://www.financialpolicycouncil.org/FPCNEW/blogdetails.aspx?id=1104/Harvard-Business-Review:--Candid-Arrogance-or-Just-Plain-Stupidity

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