HBR, The Economist and other such Rags

I was clearing up old office files last week when I chanced upon one which I had titled "Interesting Articles". Inside were photocopied articles from the 1990's with the first being from an old issue of HBR. If you do not know what that stands for - do not worry - it is an acronym for Harvard Business Review. A must read publication for any executive worth his salt!

Skimming through the articles (and the handwritten notes in the margins) brought back memories of my early career and the hoops I had to jump through to fit in. I saw articles that harked from the pre-internet era, when my employers used to subscribe to magazines. My desk used to be adorned by HBR, The Economist, and Fortune, with a few company brochures thrown in for good measure. It made me look and feel learned and important. Someone to be taken seriously! (A Finance guy needs to be taken seriously).

As a member of the Indian Institute of Chartered Accountants I used to get "The Chartered Accountant" as well. That particular publication used to be relegated to the dustbin immediately, along with spam mail and other bills. One earned no kudos for being seen with an issue of that journal on one’s desk. Being an Indian publication it held nothing of interest for any of the Western Expatriate Managers.

Anyway, I used to find most of them as desiccated as the Empty Quarter and as interesting as watching paint dry.

In the days before the Internet explosion "brownnosers" were required to photocopy "interesting" articles and circulate them to bosses and colleagues. At the same time one was not expected to be seen reading them at one's desk - thereby creating quite a conundrum for me at least. I would rather die than have these as bedside reading. So I used to pick up magazines at random, glance through them for some arcane article and photocopy it. I would then proceed within 5 minutes to highlight the most technical paragraphs with comments and annotations like - "can we do this?"; "very useful"; or "interesting take on conventional doctrine" and then forward for circulation, with my regards.

If my initials were mentioned in any such circulation by a colleague, I would be required to read it and I would then avenge myself by taking the most obscure and dry article I could find and circulate it with a comment like - AVG (initials of that colleague) what do you think? or AVG should try and implement. Then it would be his turn to read the article, understand its implications and then refute its applicability. I used to get quite a buzz if my boss happened to like an article that I had circulated (unread) and forward it onwards and upwards. It was free credit and made my day (I know - quite sad!!).  

Of course I was not at liberty (at that time) to state my real views on this practice, and like many other such games, I continued to play ball till it died a natural death.

Talking about magazine articles, one time we had a CEO whose abiding passion was IT and Computer Technology. He used to diligently go through every PC magazine available. In those days the Corporate IT Manager used to sit next to me, in an open plan office, and his passion for the subject was obviously much less. The CEO used to make it a habit first thing in the morning, to walk across and discuss the complexities and possible applications of what he had read the previous night. I think that used to be the highlight of his otherwise arduous day!

Clearly he expected the IT Manager to have read the same and be more informed, if not equally enraptured, entranced and excited. I would shamelessly turn my chair around to listen in and once in a while add my two bits to the gobbledygook. It used to be fun seeing the IT Manager squirm and try desperately to deflect questions without appearing a complete ignoramus. When this became too much, I started to give him a heads-up whenever I saw the CEO walking over - he could then scoot away to the pantry or the toilet. This changed once he had a EUREKA moment and learned the trick of sequestering the magazines 'before' they hit the CEO's desk.

Glancing through some of those old articles I realized how dated they read and how incorrect even experts could get (e.g. one article listed twenty companies to invest in over the next 10 years of which three went bankrupt and were liquidated years ago).

I remembered how proudly I used to drop names of Fortune 500 Companies and their CEO’s, how adept I was at remembering Revenues and Compensation - and I just laugh at my immaturity. With what passion I used to discuss and debate their strategies, approach and successes. How confidently I used to be able to predict the future of Corporations and their share prices based on past performance - till the year 2008 when all predictions, the Sages as well as mine, were blown into the wind.    

So now when I see someone reading business magazines I just give a rueful smile to myself. Pre-internet the pace of change was slow - now the world and the environment are changing at an increasing pace. Most of what they are reading will be irrelevant, if not forgotten tomorrow. Add to that the fact that we remember little of what we read, due to the sheer deluge of information, and I feel even more that it justifies the case to read only for pleasure.

But it is not that easy - is it?

 

For Yuppies and career minded people, peer pressure will dictate what and when they read. If you genuinely love to read about the latest developments in "Key Performance Indicators of Supply Chain Retail" or get a buzz out of perusing "Promotional Mix of Insurance Products" go ahead - make your day. If your bread is buttered by reading about the "Art of Irrestible Emails" or in understanding 'The perils of Being a Social Media Holdout", then gorge on. If your livelihood depends on your familiarity with such works of art, then my sympathies (and understanding) are with you. But if not, then it would be quite a shame to persist would it not? It is akin to having a miracle pill that one can take to negate "all" the ill effects of gastronomic overindulgence - and still insisting on eating boiled vegetables and salads!

 

Anyway I will stick to feasting on the erudition of the Stephen King's and the Isaac Asimov's, the Ayn Rand's and the Peter Hamiltons!