Harvard Business Review. Interview with Harvard Business Review Editor-in-Chief Elena Evgrafova

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Published by arrangement with Harvard Business Review Press (USA) via Alexander Korzhenevski Agency (Russia)

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How to measure life?

Clayton Christensen

Before my release In The Innovator's Dilemma, I received a call from Andrew Grove, then chairman of Intel. He had read one of my early articles on disruptive technologies and wanted me to speak to his direct reports and present my research and its possible applicability to Intel. I gleefully flew to Silicon Valley and showed up at Grove's exactly at the appointed time - only to hear: “You know, something happened here. We have no more than ten minutes for you. Tell us what your disruptive technology model means to Intel." I replied that I could not - I needed all thirty minutes to explain the model in detail, because any specific considerations about Intel would only make sense in this case. After ten minutes of my explanation, Grove interrupted me: “So, I understand the model. Now just tell me what this means for Intel."

I kept insisting that I needed another ten minutes to explain the process of disruption using an example from a completely different industry, steel. I described how Nucor and other mini-smelters began by attacking the bottom end of the market, steel rebar, and then gradually moved up, knocking down prices and undermining the position of larger enterprises.

When I finished the story, Grove said, “OK, I get it. For Intel, that means…” and voiced the prospects for the company’s new strategy to move to the lower market for the launch of the Celeron processor.

Since then, I've thought about it a million times. If I tried to explain to Andy Grove how he should imagine the production and sale of microprocessors, I would simply be killed. But instead of telling him what he should think, I taught him how to think, and then he was able to make the right decision on his own.

This story had a very strong influence on me. When someone asks me what I think they should do, I rarely answer the question directly. Instead, I look at the issue through the lens of one of my models. I am describing how things happen in some other industry. After that, as a rule, they say to me: “Yes, yes, I understood everything,” and they themselves answer their own question better than I could answer.

My course at Harvard Business School is designed to help students understand what the theory of good governance is and what it is based on. To this skeleton, I attach various models or theories that help students understand all sorts of aspects of being a director of innovation and growth. In each session, we look at one company through the prism of these theories, using them to explain how the company got into this situation and try to understand what management actions should produce the desired result.

On the last day of class, I ask my students to look at themselves in the same way and answer three questions. First, how do you ensure that you enjoy your career? Secondly, how to make relationships with a life partner and family become a constant source of happiness? And, thirdly, what to do in order not to go to jail? The last question may sound funny, but it really isn't. Two of the 32 people in our Oxford group of Rhodes Scholars ended up behind bars. Jeff Skilling from Enron studied with me at HBS. They were good guys - but one day something made them go the wrong way.

Idea in a nutshell

Christensen teaches Harvard Business School students how to use management and innovation theories to build strong companies. But he also believes that these models can help people improve their lives. In this article, he explains his idea by exploring the questions everyone should ask themselves. How to be satisfied with your career? How to make family life become a constant source of happiness? And how to live life honestly? The answer to the first question follows from Frederick Herzberg's assertion that money is not the most powerful stimulus. The main thing is opportunities for learning, professional growth, making a contribution to a common cause and gaining recognition. That is why the job of a manager, if done well, can be the most noble of occupations; no other activity offers so many ways to find these opportunities. Management is not buying, selling and investing, as many people think. The principles of resource allocation can help a person achieve happiness in his personal life. If you illiterately manage the process of allocating resources in a company, the result will not be at all what the management strategy envisaged. The same is true in human life: if you don't have a clear vision of purpose, then you're more likely to waste time and energy on achieving the most visible and short-term signs of success rather than what's really important to you. And just as focusing too much on marginal cost can cause bad corporate decisions, it can also lead a person astray. The marginal cost of doing something “once” wrong can seem deceptively low. But you don't know where this path may lead you. You must clearly articulate your own principles and not risk your life and the lives of those close to you by violating these principles.

As students begin to discuss the answers to these questions, I expose them to my own life as an example, showing them how the theories in our course can be used to make life-changing decisions.

One of the theories that helps to answer the first question - about enjoying a career - belongs to Frederick Herzberg, who argues that the most powerful stimulus in our lives is not money; these are opportunities for learning, professional growth, helping others and recognizing achievements. I describe to students pictures from my past when I ran a company. I imagine one of my managers driving to work in the morning with a fairly high self-esteem. And then, ten hours later, she drives back home, feeling disappointed, unappreciated, unacknowledged, and humiliated. I imagine how her low self-esteem affects her communication with children. My inner eye then focuses on another day when the same employee drives home with higher self-esteem—feeling that she has learned a lot, that her accomplishments have been recognized, and that she has been instrumental in some initiative that benefits the company. It is easy to imagine that such a mood will positively affect her as a spouse and parent. Conclusion: management is the most noble of professions, if done correctly. No other activity offers more opportunities to help others grow and learn, to take responsibility and be recognized for their accomplishments, and to contribute to the team's success. More and more people who want to get an MBA degree come to study, thinking that a business career is about buying, selling and investing. Alas. Closing deals doesn't give you that deep sense of satisfaction that you get when you help other people become better people.

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Harvard Business Review - Russia is the Russian edition of the magazine of the same name, which has been published by Harvard Business School for more than 85 years and is rightfully considered one of the most professional and respected sources of knowledge on the theory and practice of management. In Russia, the magazine has been published since 2004 by the publishing house Sanoma Independent Media. The readers and authors of the magazine are top managers of Russian and international companies, business owners, entrepreneurs, professionals and experts in various business areas. Harvard Business Review articles cover the full range of issues that business owners and executives deal with on a daily basis. The content of each issue helps them keep abreast of the most advanced technologies and tools used in key areas of management. Each issue contains issues of leadership and personal effectiveness, strategic management and business development, personnel management, motivation, corporate strategy, marketing, branding and many others.

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The authors of the publication articles Harvard Business Review are representatives of the largest Western companies and world-renowned specialists in the field of management, professors from the world's leading business schools, experts and consultants.

80% of published materials are translations of original articles, 20% are prepared by Russian and European business experts.

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Journal Harvard Business Review published since 1922 by the Harvard Business School. It has been published in our country since 2004. The Russian version is based on the best materials of the original version HBR. The publication contains a lot of practical advice and recommendations designed to help company leaders in their daily work.

- Why publish a magazine about the rules of doing big business where business exists contrary to the rules?

First, even where a business exists contrary to the rules, it has to compete, which means that it is necessary to find ways to be more effective than a rival. And sometimes you have to compete not with home-grown companies, but with world champions. "Yandex" in Russia competes with Google, and "Vkontakte" is struggling with Facebook and has not yet lost ground. Secondly, the rules for managing a large business are essentially not very different from the rules for managing a medium-sized business - the scales are not the same, but the principles most often work identically. Thirdly, a large commodity business - in fact the engine of all the processes taking place in the country - is slowly entering world stock exchanges, and the value of a share depends on the quality of management. Rating agencies penalize companies with dense management downgrades, and this affects the value of assets. When our oligarchs begin to get poor before our eyes, they have to willy-nilly, through “I can’t” master modern management approaches. And fourthly, when you hear the statements of the top leaders of the country, you understand how poorly they understand the theory of management, why be surprised that the country is slowly and surely turning into an unmanageable structure. Just for the sake of enlightening this category of readers, it would be worth making a magazine. ** - Do you feel that the magazine influences the way things are done in Russia? That is, a conditional businessman, having read about the rules of negotiation, begins to follow them? **

We are making a magazine, as they say, for the avant-garde of Russian business - for the most civilized, the most advanced. There are few of them, their influence on the situation as a whole is still very small. As for special cases, yes, people say they use our articles - it's stupid not to use if these are tips from the best experts in the world. Another thing is that we do not give universal advice. We are making a magazine for smart people, and smart people do not need a scheme - do it once, do it twice - but an understanding of what the drivers of certain processes are and how they work. And then people themselves look at how it can be used in a particular situation. **- What are the three main differences between the Russian edition and the world edition?**

The main difference is that about a third of our magazine is the materials that the Russian editors make, that's how much we are allowed by the terms of the contract. We have columns that are not in the English edition, for example, "A Conversation with a Scientist". Well, in the Russian edition, as you can see, the editor-in-chief is a woman, and in the American one - a man. Interestingly, in a family of a couple of dozen multilingual HBRs, only three chief editors are women, all in the BRIC countries of Russia, China and Brazil.

What do you want to do with the magazine, but for some reason it doesn't work? By what?

I would like more materials that are written on the basis of cases and studies of Russian companies. Unfortunately, such studies are few and often of questionable quality. This is very bad, but there's nothing we can do about it right now. **- Why is the magazine so expensive? Is it some kind of filter that cuts off an unnecessary consumer?**

On the one hand, this is a tradition of HBR: in developed countries, almost 70% of the magazine's income comes from the sale of circulation and individual articles, and only 30% from advertising. In developing countries, advertising accounts for more than half of the income, the Russian edition is no exception, we still cannot even equalize the income from advertising sales and circulation, despite our best efforts. On the other hand, we make a magazine for business intellectuals, they can afford to buy a magazine at such a price. In the end, the magazine's business model is quite stable, we easily weathered the crisis, and not only continued to make a profit, but also exceeded the plan. So while we are not sure that this model needs to be changed. Although, when I see in some stores the price of 1200 rubles per room, it seems to me that this is too much. But this is a retail solution. **- Do you feel the crisis of the print media, which is talked about so much? Falling ad revenue? Do you believe in the subscription institution, or is it completely dead for Russia?**

We are still feeling the consequences of the economic crisis, and not some special crisis of the print media. Many companies still have not restored pre-crisis advertising budgets and have not returned subscriptions for employees. Strange as it may seem, the effects of the earthquake in Japan were quite tangible for us, when car and audio-video equipment suppliers significantly cut advertising budgets. As far as the so-called media crisis is concerned, in my opinion it will hit general publications more quickly. I think there is a crisis in the overproduction of general interest magazines and newspapers, which were often launched not because the founders had a special concept or knew how to make up for a lack of information, but simply because there were underutilized advertising budgets in the market. If you look at the press showcase, you will see many publications for one person, without a unique advantage. Readers will not pay for such content, and advertising budgets are shrinking, it's true.

How is the content that goes to the magazine and on the site divided? Where do advertisers want to be placed?

We open audiences on the site with just one or two articles and we also make some materials specifically for the site. Advertising revenue from the website is now very modest for all publications, we are not under illusions here. But other amazing processes are taking place - for example, our subscription to the electronic version of the magazine is growing at a tremendous pace, in the near future we will start selling via iPad. This is interesting and, perhaps, new opportunities will open up here. ** - And yet, is media a product (users are interested in content) or already a service (users are more interested in the process of receiving - you can read on your phone, you can listen in the car)? If this is content, then how long will it still be sold when, it would seem, any information can be found for free? If this is a service, what problems have not yet been solved: technical or economic (what model to monetize: by subscription, by (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemium)?** **

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemium)** is a service model where it offers basic services for free, and enhanced, premium services for a fee.

I am only interested in those media, the essence of which is unique content. If you are used to reading books, you have time for 2-3 newspapers and a magazine. Let's say I have enough energy and time for 5 editions, and even then I am not able to read them in a row - I look through Vedomosti, Novaya Gazeta, buy each issue of Afisha (it is clear why), from time to time I read the Rules Life" in Esquire magazine and subscribed to New Yorker. I also check Snob, but I don't always have time to read it, although they do a great job of promoting the material on the website, I usually click on their mailing list. But this is all unique content, and I am ready to pay for it. I get the usual news on the radio while I'm driving to work, I won't pay for it, just like for the next interview with the next star or for advice on how to lose weight for the beach season. **- Do you agree that there is so much information that a normal person is almost ready to pay money not for information, but for the service of its selection, classification? Do search engines cope with this? Or maybe the Facebook blogosphere/friends have become such editors? Can a priori one magazine please the entire audience?**

There is no more information, sometimes there is no news at all - look what the information portals bring out as the five most important events of the day! Follow this for a few days! You will see that nothing significant happens for weeks. But if you have a newspaper, you must fill its pages with news, even if you have to suck it out of your finger. Therefore, many media are filled not with information, but with information garbage. And people want to protect themselves from it. For example, I don’t need someone to select information for me on the Internet, I can somehow cope with this. Facebook friends, of course, help a lot to navigate. On Twitter, you can customize the feed so that it filters everything in the best possible way. As for monthly magazines, I don’t think they should please everyone, the magazine should focus on its audience (it’s another matter that then there won’t be large circulations, especially with such a state of infrastructure as in Russia) and create content specifically for them. Our Harvard academics say we have entered an age of over-specialization.

Do you want to go to the regions? Do you consider HBR to be a Garden Ring magazine?

70% of our subscribers live outside of Moscow. A few years ago, the ratio of Moscow and the regions was 50 to 50, in recent years the share of regional readers has been growing. By the way, perhaps this is due to the fact that Moscow is one of the most unfavorable regions for doing business.

Will HBR Russia introduce paid access to individual articles, and not to the entire library? What do you plan to receive from closed articles and what do you get?

We do not sell articles separately - mainly because of technical difficulties: it takes a lot of effort to make it all work as it should, and the return, according to our feelings, will still be miserable, as long as there are more important things to do. From time to time we selectively open old articles on the site, but we do this solely to attract people. And yes, we are very interested in a person to come and buy a subscription.

In what ways are you trying to reach the consumer? Master classes, lectures, meetings with authors? Who comes to these events?

We are very passionate about creating platforms for communication - for example, during the crisis, we launched themed business breakfasts together with Accenture, their feature was that we created platforms for communication. And we have learned to do so that people are drawn into the discussion and it turns out very interesting. These are breakfasts for a narrow circle of rather high-ranking participants who really have valuable information. We are also very active in working with students - competitions and so on. We nurture potential readers.

How can a reader of Theory and Practice become the hero of your magazine?

Call and talk about how he coped with an inhumanly difficult business task, or how some out of the ordinary event influenced his leadership style. Let's say in the January issue we had an article about a top executive from Microsoft who changed his gender and turned from Michael to Megan. According to his colleagues and subordinates, his management style has changed for the better. But of course, it's exotic. If the stories are more mundane - a person went through prison, survived a car accident, etc. True, we must remember that only a leader of a very high rank can become the hero of our magazine.