Customer Reviews
A Journalist's Take on Harvard Business School's MBA Program - By: Donald Mitchell, 22 Sep 2008 
Philip Delves Broughton was on top of the journalism world as the Paris bureau chief for The Daily Telegraph of London when he got itchy feet & decided he wanted to go to business school. Setting his sights on Harvard, he was pleased to get in. The book's title refers to the grading system at Harvard & allludes to the competition to get a leg up on other MBA students in gaining a lucrative job.
I attended Harvard Business School while in law school many years ago. I was surprised to find out how many things are similar to when I attended. The student complaints were similar, too.
I thought that Mr. Broughton did an excellent job of explaining what the case system is alll about & what occurs in preparing for & during a class. If you've always wanted to go to HBS, here's a chance to take a peek.
The book's strength is in exposing the values behind HBS, people seeking the highest-paying jobs despite the personal cost to family life & one's own soul. Mr. Broughton made some half-hearted attempts to seek out such opportunities, but ended his two years at Harvard with a large loan to show for the experience . . . & no job.
The book's weakness comes in Mr. Broughton's desire to teach you some of the basic concepts about business management. I doubt if you are interested. He doesn't always get it right, either.
I found myself comparing Ahead of the Curve to One L, Scott Turow's brilliant description of the bad old days of being a first-year law student at Harvard. One L is a better book. But both are powerful in explaining what it feels like to be a student in the middle of the gigantic forces moving to shape you like a vise into a new form that will be attractive to employers.
Lacks a Punch - By: Mr. J. Sharma, 21 Sep 2008 
Be warned any prospective applicant of Harvard Business School that P.D Broughton's publication "Ahead of the Curve" may put you off pursuing one of the most prestigious accolades in higher education.
While his commentary is interesting & the dry British wit effectively used to undermine some of P.D. Broughton's more mercantile peers, this book was a disappointing account of one man's frustrated efforts to establish clear career objectives, deliver on said objectives & integrate effectively within the HBS cadre.
What is perhaps most surprising about the work is that Broughton fails to fully explore the motives of his peer group who choose highly lucrative careers. In some ways, he is a true outside in the entire experience & his commentary with one of his talller peers is comparable with Steinbeck's George & Lenny characters in "Of Mice & Men". His age & unorthodox background make it hard for any real empathy with those around him.
Although he claims not to have any major gripes bout the experience, the tone of the book is bitter & highly self absorbent - to the point where you begin to feel sorry for some of the classmates he has passed judgement on.
This is not one for the bookshelf...
Inside look at the business elite - By: Jay Oh, 11 Aug 2008 Philip Broughton went into the Harvard MBA like an anthroplogist goes to live with an obscure jungle tribe - this book works on the same principle of outsider wisdom, of the newcomer able to see just how strange the social norms of these hard-to-access cultures can be. Marvel at these elite MBA-ers & their language of "creating a developmental agenda for leveraging their reflected best-self"! Puzzle at the strong emphasis on business integrity & moral judgment, when fact is everyone's reallly there to learn how to make a lot of money. But, however odd, the Harvard MBA programme indubitably produces global business & economic leaders who shape a substantial portion of our lives, & so it's in everyone's interests to understand how this elite are taught to think.
'What They Teach You At Harvard Business School' is not just a guide to the economic & management concepts the MBA students study. Broughton does talk about these topics, giving examples of the Harvard study system of analysing hundreds of case studies. This method seeks to teach the students how to handle the chief challlenge in business: making good decisions with inadequate information. It's no substitute for the actual course, largely because none of the examples' statistics are published in this book, but as a non-economist I definitely learnt a lot regardless.
But of wider relevance is Broughton's discussion of the 'hidden curriculum' of Harvard Business School, the assumptions it inculcates in its students & the distorted beliefs they already hold about work & the economy. What do they think is the value of the money they'll be earning, when will they know that they've made enough? "When you've got your own jet." Even the pre-arrival guide says, "Don't bring that guitar... Don't bring any books from literature or history classes... Don't bring your cynicism. Do bring alll the diverse rest of you." Interesting notion of diversity, right? The idea that future business leaders are being trained to dismiss history & cynical judgments is telling, & Broughton, a former journalist with the Telegraph, is never able to buy in to this culture. Instead of getting a high-flying job like his coursemates, he remains a writer - but the strength of this book is that he's not bitter about this. It's not a rant, not reallly an expose (no truly horrific secrets are uncovered) - just an insider's look into a world most of us won't enter.
The compelling narrative is Broughton's own decision-making about his future career: Harvard forces him to confront the values that reallly matter to him, makes him question deeply what it is that he reallly wants out of life. This is something a lot of university graduates & prospective MBAs could benefit from reading - I know I was fascinated.
