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Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at Harvard Business School | 
 уголеми | Автор: Philip Delves Broughton
Издател: Penguin Press HC, The
Категория: Book
Цена: $25.95
Купи Нов: $6.99
Спестявате: $18.96 (73%)
Нов (47) Използван (14) от $6.98
Оценка:  30 ревюта
Позиция по продажби: 4736
Медия: Hardcover
Страници: 304
Брой Продукти: 1
Транспортно тегло (lbs): 1.2
Размери (in): 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 1594201757
Номер по клас. на Деви: 650.07117444
EAN: 9781594201752
Дата на публикуване: Юли 31, 2008
Наличност: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
As One L did for Harvard Law School, Ahead of the Curve does for Harvard Business School providing an incisive student s-eye view that pulls the veil away from this vaunted institution and probes the methods it uses to make its students into the elite of the business world
In the century since its founding, Harvard Business School has become the single most influential institution in global business. Twenty percent of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are HBS graduates, as are many of our savviest entrepreneurs (e.g., Michael Bloomberg) and canniest felons (e.g., Jeffrey Skilling). The top investment banks and brokerage houses routinely send their brightest young stars to HBS to groom them for future power. To these people and many others, a Harvard MBA is a golden ticket to the Olympian heights of American business.
In 2004, Philip Delves Broughton abandoned a post as Paris bureau chief of the London Daily Telegraph to join nine hundred other would-be tycoons on HBS s plush campus. Over the next two years, he and his classmates would be inundated with the best and the rest of American business culture that HBS epitomizes. The core of the school s curriculum is the case an analysis of a real business situation from which the students must, with a professor s guidance, tease lessons. Delves Broughton studied more than five hundred cases and recounts the most revelatory ones here. He also learns the surprising pleasures of accounting, the allure of beta, the ingenious chicanery of leveraging, and innumerable other hidden workings of the business world, all of which he limns with a wry clarity reminiscent of Liar s Poker. He also exposes the less savory trappings of b-school culture, from the booze luge to the pandemic obsession with PowerPoint to the specter of depression that stalks too many overburdened students. With acute and often uproarious candor, he assesses the school s success at teaching the traits it extols as most important in business leadership, decisiveness, ethical behavior, work/life balance.
Published during the one hundredth anniversary of Harvard Business School, Ahead of the Curve offers a richly detailed and revealing you-are-there account of the institution that has, for good or ill, made American business what it is today.
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| Клиентски ревюта: Чети 25 още ревюта...
Eye opener Ноември 19, 2008
David A. Peer (Minneapolis, USA)
While the author drips the customary cynicism of a journalist, the insights were revealing. The real challenge is just getting into HBS. Once there, it's all gravy. I also found his perspective on how this effort impacted his family interesting.
Dissident Dispatches from America's Iconic Capitalist Boot camp Октомври 26, 2008
Kevin Quinley (Fairfax, VA)
0 от 1 намериха ревюто за полезно
Ex-journalist turned MBA jock Philip Delves Broughton aims for the business stars as he gains acceptance to Harvard Business School in this first-person account. As a French correspondent for the London Daily Telegraph, Broughton has an eclectic and "liberal artsy" background which differs from many of the hard core business and "quant" types who are his classmates.
Broughton offers genuine insights on this Berlitz-like total immersion into graduate business study, striving and struggling to maintain personal balance with his wife, two young kids and his ambivalence over the myopic chase for a big-bucks job.
"Ahead of the Curve" is an interesting read, and Broughton never does seem to completely drink the Kool-Aid that intoxicates so many of these Masters of the Financial Universe. The boom will be interesting to those who:
* Have a notion to try to shoot for HBS
* Those who are interested in an MBA program and want some insights on what it is like
* Those interested in an inside look at the most famous boot camp of graduate business education
In the end, Broughton - even armed with a Harvard MBA - struggles to find a job, just the right job. He has a wry sense of humor, perspective and does not let the Harvard Business School experience go to his head. As a writer, he is "ahead of the curve:" and I would recommend this book for one perspective on HBS and the demands, perils and rewards of an MBA education.
 ahead of the curve but behind the 8-ball Октомври 25, 2008
Dr Cathy Goodwin (Seattle, WA USA)
3 от 3 намериха ревюто за полезно
I had to give the book 5 stars because I couldn't put it down and because it was so thought-provoking.
I can't help comparing is book to Robert Reid's earlier book, Year One. Reid describes professors and fellow students more vividly than Broughton does. But Broughton seems to be describing an HBS that has changed since Reid's day. Reid didn't refer to expensive (and apparently useless) group trips, tasteless pranks and parties and psychological tests. HBS seems to have more students with military background as well as a higher number of twenty-somethings.
Of course, a big difference is that Reid actually understood and enjoyed business careers. As a career consultant, I was intrigued by Broughton's lack of direction and even more appalled by HBS's apparent lack of career and interview coaching.
For instance, Reid's book, Year One, described a female student who wanted to work for a small firm -- the kind that didn't recruit at HBS. She did her research, initiated an interview process, and found a job. Why didn't Broughton do that? And why didn't he study marketing, which would be closer to his journalism background, instead of finance? In fact, HBS was all wrong for him. He could have chosen Wharton, which has a big entrepreneurial center, or Northwestern, the marketing giant.
I hate expressions like "alignment of goals and values," but the book inadvertently presents a clear case of incongruence. In one disturbing paragraph (p 117), Broughton writes that, "business can never escape the fact that it is the practice of potentially thieving, treacherous, lying human beings." But what element of society is exempt from being practiced by people have might steal and lie? Michael Nifong prosecuted innocent Duke students -- causing enormous financial and personal loss -- to further his own career. He is not unique Doctors are seduced by pharmaceutical companies. A specialist at my college reunion said, "I have to perform a certain exam on pre-surgical patients. Often I find they don't need the surgery and I say so. So surgeons don't send me referrals." As for government...are our fearless leaders really free of greed?
At least we have consumer protection laws. We have far fewer protections in any other sector. More important, if Broughton despises business, he will have trouble finding success there.
Harvard does seem to waste a lot of the students' tuition money. I was especially horrified to discover that HBS endorses the Myers-Briggs test. Broughton devotes a lot of speculation to a value system that explains why so many Fortune 500 companies use Myers-Briggs. The real problem is that the test has no scientific value. Might as well use astrology. I recommend The Cult of Personality, by Annie Murphy Paul, published just before Broughton entered Harvard.
I won't comment on the "be your best self" exercise. In Year One they just built towers out of paper and cardboard.
Apart from describing what one learns at HBS, Broughton ultimately shows that if you're a maverick a prestigious MBA won't mold you into a corporate success story. That's a lesson I've learned myself, all too well.
So That's What I Missed At Harvard Октомври 15, 2008
KD Niwot (Niwot, CO)
I thoroughly enjoyed this account of the Harvard MBA experience. I definitely recommend this book to any student considering their career options whether in business or any other field since the author's reflections are worth considering no matter what field one is considering.
The book is also a fun read for anyone with an MBA from a school other than Harvard - especially if you have ever been curious about how your MBA program compares to a school like Harvard.
A fellow MBA who enjoyed this book Септември 29, 2008
Jenna (NYC)
1 от 2 намериха ревюто за полезно
I've read most of the b-school books about student life and I truly enjoyed this one. It was an intelligent take on the experience. The b-school content - and the fever around recruiting/careers - is perfectly captured.
For many of us (and possibly you, the reader), this is an authentic perspective, albeit a somewhat conservative one. I'd also recommend Snapshots from Hell (also about Harvard) and The Blushing MBA (woman's view, based on Harvard or some top-tiered school).
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