| |  | Books : Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at Harvard Business School |  | | | | | | | | | |
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 650.07117444
EAN: 9781594201752
ISBN: 1594201757
Label: Penguin Press HC, The
Manufacturer: Penguin Press HC, The
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 304
Publication Date: July 31, 2008
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Sales Rank: 2107
Studio: Penguin Press HC, The
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Editorial Review:
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.
Customer Reviews Average Rating: 
Rating: - A fellow MBA who enjoyed this book
I've read most of the b-school books about student lifeand 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).
Rating:  - Recommended at a personal and professional level
Harvard Business School is a mystery for anyone outside of that exclusive and influential club, until now.Ahead of the Curve provides an intimate, detailed and comprehensive look inside an experience that influences businesses and government around the world.Philip Delves Broughton achieves a unique balance of personal diary, travel log review, and business book in this book one that makes it highly recommended.Ahead of the Curve can be read from each of these perspectives with the reader gaining ... Read More
Rating: - it's about life, stupid.
As the father of a recent HBS graduate, I was drawn into the book to understand more about the inside workings of Harvard. As a graduate of a community college in New York, and the father of eight children, and owner of a 30 year successful technology business, I quickly realized that this book was about true success. The balance of family, love of work, and of course, making a living. The chapters replayed much of what my daughter talked about, but I could now truly understand the life and pressure of ... Read More
Rating: - Enjoyable read
I enjoyed reading Ahead Of The Curve, however I am at a loss as to how any student can spend the amount of time the author claims preparing for class (I have an MBA, though not from Harvard). Anyway, the anecdotes/descriptions/comments on in-class and out-of-class behaviors of fellow students/ professors and vistors is great. I could spot old classmates, and current colleagues, behaviors and attitudes (loved the 'sharking' term) throughout the book.
I passed it on to a colleague who is thinking ... Read More
Rating: - Multi-dimensional account
In his highly personal review of two years at Harvard Business School, Broughton always maintains a certain detachment and a sense of humor about the rather odd things that are happening around him. His endless interviews at Google and some of his classmates' obsession with total preparation for class are easy targets. Broughton was not the typical HBS student, a fact that he readily acknowledges. This would have been a different book if it had been written by a middle-class Pakistani who was at HBS to bring ... Read More
Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at Harvard Business School | | | |
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