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Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at Harvard Business School
by: Philip Delves Broughton

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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours 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
Studio: Penguin Press HC, The
Sales Rank: 2966

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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: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Eye opener
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.

Rating:

- Dissident Dispatches from America's Iconic Capitalist Boot camp
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 ... Read More

Rating:

- ahead of the curve but behind the 8-ball
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 ... Read More

Rating:

- So That's What I Missed At Harvard
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.

Rating:

- A fellow MBA who enjoyed this book
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).

Books : Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at Harvard Business School