Robert I. Sutton

Harvard Business Review

James Allen

Chris Zook

Paul F. Nunes

How do the most resilient companies survive—and even thrive—during a slowdown? If you read nothing else on surviving a tough economy and coming back stronger, read these 15 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help your company persevere through economic challenges and continue to grow while your competitors stumble. This book will inspire you to: Harness your resources to pull through a pandemic Learn the right lessons from previous recessions Minimize pain while cutting costs and managing risk Foster a healthy culture during anxious times Make smart moves to protect your own job Seize the opportunity to innovate and reinvent your business This collection of articles includes "Seize Advantage in a Downturn" by David Rhodes and Daniel Stelter; "How to Survive a Recession and Thrive Afterward: A Research Roundup" by Walter Frick; "How to Bounce Back from Adversity" by Joshua D. Margolis and Paul G. Stoltz; "Rohm and Haas's Former CEO on Pulling off a Sweet Deal in a Down Market" by Raj Gupta; "How to Be a Good Boss in a Bad Economy" by Robert I. Sutton; "Layoffs That Don't Break Your Company" by Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta; "Getting Reorgs Right" by Stephen Heidari-Robinson and Suzanne Heywood; "Reigniting Growth" by Chris Zook and James Allen; "Reinvent Your Business Model Before It's Too Late" by Paul Nunes and Tim Breene; "How to Protect Your Job in a Recession" by Janet Banks and Diane Coutu; "Learning from the Future" by J. Peter Scoblic; "5 Ways to Stimulate Cash Flow in a Downturn" by Eddie Yoon and Christopher Lochhead; "The Case for M&A in a Downturn" by Brian Salsberg; "Include Your Employees in Cost-Cutting Decisions" by Patrick Daoust and Paul Simon; and "Preparing Your Business for a Post-Pandemic World" by Carsten Lund Pedersen and Thomas Ritter. HBR's 10 Must Reads paperback series is the definitive collection of books for new and experienced leaders alike. Leaders looking for the inspiration that big ideas provide, both to accelerate their own growth and that of their companies, should look no further. HBR's 10 Must Reads series focuses on the core topics that every ambitious manager needs to know: leadership, strategy, change, managing people, and managing yourself. Harvard Business Review has sorted through hundreds of articles and selected only the most essential reading on each topic. Each title includes timeless advice that will be relevant regardless of an ever‐changing business environment.

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing in a Downturn, Expanded Edition (with bonus article "Preparing Your Business for a Post-Pandemic World" by Carsten Lund Pedersen and Thomas Ritter)

Larry Downes

In recent years a new—disquieting—form of disruptive innovation has emerged, one that beats incumbents on both price and quality right from the start and quickly sweeps through every customer segment. This kind of “big bang” disruption can devastate entire product lines virtually overnight. Look at the effect that free navigation apps, preloaded on smartphones, had on the market for devices made by TomTom, Garmin, and Magellan. Big-bang disruptions often come out of the blue from people who aren’t your traditional competitors. Frequently, they’re developed by inventors who are just doing low-cost experiments with existing technologies to see what new products they can dream up. Once launched, these innovations don’t adhere to conventional strategic paths or normal patterns of market adoption. That makes them incredibly hard to combat. Though technology- and information-intensive firms are most vulnerable to big bangs, mature industries face this threat, too. Credit cards, automobiles, and education, for instance, are all experiencing early warning signs. But in every industry, big-bang disruption will be keeping executives in a cold sweat for a long time to come. This article, which originally appeared in Harvard Business Review, offers some strategic principles to help businesses survive big bangs.

Big-Bang Disruption

Tim Breene

Recently, some bestselling management books have focused on providing a recipe for greatness, while others have sought to unlock the secrets of long-term success. But a detailed analysis at the intersection of the two, one that explains how some companies manage to achieve repeated peaks of business performance, has been missing--until now. Accenture’s Paul Nunes and Tim Breene have found that what matters is not just climbing your current S-curve, which is what you do to reach the top of a single successful business. Instead, they emphasize the equal importance of the moves you must make on the way to your next business; that is, making the jump to your future S-curve. Jumping the S-Curve reveals crucial insights for making such transitions, including: Why traditional strategic planning won't allow you to find the "big-enough" market insights that are critical to superior performance Why your top team must be refreshed before performance starts to wane Why you need much more talent than you think, especially "serious talent" that will find you worthy of their time Filled with original practical advice, Jumping the S-Curve demystifies how companies can thrive with one successful business after another, through both good times and bad.

Paul F. Nunes

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