Radu Haraga

Senior finance professional with more than 15 years of diversified P&L management, financial analysis, cost reduction and reporting system experience in the commercial finance and accounting. Besides multi-country team management, demonstrated capabilities to analyze and support sales growth, profit margins improvement, as well as sustainable cost reductions. Top notch business and professional qualifications - top 40 MBA (Hons.), FCCA, CIA, CIMA and others.

“Emotional Intelligence – Mindfulness”, a HBR Press Handbook Reviewed by Doitinvest.com

Mindfulness lessons from doitinvest.com

The HBR’s Emotional Intelligence series reached an apex with its “Mindfulness” handbook. Despite its reputation, mindfulness does not come natural. We are all mindful of certain things – it comes with our human nature. However, you can never be enough mindful – mindfulness is a skill that can and should be learned.

The Harvard Business Review Press has come with a new concentrated series dedicated to our human side in organizations. “Emotional Intelligence – Mindfulness” takes a look at the wealth of articles published on HBR.org on an ever-escaping topic – how can we humans become more sensitive and efficient in the same time?

Maria Gonzalez defines very nicely mindfulness as “being present and aware, moment by moment, regardless of circumstances.” Such a steady awareness state-of-mind is difficult to reach and distinguishes the owners from the pack.

Mindful people exhibit:

• Superior data analytical skills (mindful people see details not apparent to others),

• inner peace with their limitations,

• better balance between work and life activities 

• …and quite a few other features.Read More »“Emotional Intelligence – Mindfulness”, a HBR Press Handbook Reviewed by Doitinvest.com

„Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World” by Marco Iansiti and Kharim R. Lakhani, a Book Review

Competing in the Age of AI – book essentials from doitinvest.com

AI is making its way into the business world. Even more, machine learning became a discussion topic in most of the he companies boards. It is not anymore about the promises of automating business processes and eliminating redundancies – the new priorities focus on not being left behind as a company, in over-crowded markets.

In their 2020 book “Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World”, the Harvard faculty professors Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani turn the AI paradigm around. To paraphrase Kennedy, Iansiti and Lakhani invites you to reflect NOT on what AI can do for your company, but what YOU can do to leverage it. In other words, their starting point looks at how AI centric organizations operate and what the non-centric on AI counterparts should observe.  This is really interesting, since in most strategy books the authors draw a picture on how we can evolve towards AI  -i.e. starting from a current, pre-industrial computing status. @Competing in the Age of AI“ attempts to go around this and starts high – what would you do if you want to leapfrog ahead and go head to head with the best-in-class AI organizations?

According to the authors, AI processes have several advantages which should be leveraged:

* Are vastly more scalable than traditional processes, especially in the service industries,Read More »„Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World” by Marco Iansiti and Kharim R. Lakhani, a Book Review

„HBR Emotional Intelligence Series – Influence + Persuasion“ – a HBR Press Book Review

Influence + Persuasion book cover

We all wish to expand our influence and convince other easier. However, few of us are really good at the game. „Influence + Persuasion“ synthesizes some of the best thinking on the topic. From Roberto Cialdini to Nancy Duarte, the authors selected by HBR Press go beyond their original thinking.   The articles from „Influence + Persuasion“  are actually upgraded and synthetic pieces of thinking published originally on hbr.org. 

Whilst the history gives us plenty of examples of influential persons, in most cases we were not direct witnesses of their skills. So basically we are more or less constant beginners in the field of influence. This creates a sort of a a vicious circle: whilst to get better at influencing one must practice it, in reality one has limited chances of doing so. Even the opportunities come relatively rarely – and as a consequence one must use them in a thrifty manner, keeping in mind the maximum effectiveness principle.

One of the mantras in the book is „connect, compare and contrast“. Persuasion is a direct contact sport and the one attempting it must appeal directly to the potential followers. Read More »„HBR Emotional Intelligence Series – Influence + Persuasion“ – a HBR Press Book Review

“Think for Yourself – Restoring Common Sense in the Age of Experts and Artificial Intelligence“ by Vikram Manshamarani – A HBR Press Book Review

Think for yourself, use properly the props of experts and artificial intelligence! But wait a minute, isn’t an expert AI supposed to help us take better decisions? As another famous HBR Press title states, “Prediction Machines” should augment our processes and help us get better products.
Well, not so quickly. In his new book, Vikram Mansharamani takes a closer look at how we abandon ourselves to the AI systems. And for good reasons – both the above mentioned titles issue a stark warning with regards to the current state of machine learning. We are in an age of great machine learning developments. And the name of this age is still infancy, therefore users beware – things have a long way to go before they get better.
Here both “Prediction Machines” and “Think for Yourself” converge on the antidote to th orchestrated jumping in. Users who led augment the AI with their own experience – after all, the human brain is likely the most advanced processing mainframe on Earth. It does not matter really how many lines of code or how many programmers worked on it – take a break, take a deep breath and think: “What is this AI product output trying to sell me?”.
As usually in our HBR books reviews on doitinvest.com, I would like to expand on a chapter I liked very much. For me, this was “Unintended blowback” – with some interesting medical cases and their impact on our lives. (This links well with the personal experiences of most friends and acquaintances). Medical science is well advanced on its way, but still has miles to go. For example rare diseases – there are too few doctors specialized in them and too few research was spent on it. As a consequence, most diagnostics for rare diseases are delivered on a qualifying manner – i.e. with a disclaimer at the end. The issues start app waring when doctors over or under interpret the diagnostics of such a rare disease. It is a bit like over or under-reacting to a serious circumstance. Read More »“Think for Yourself – Restoring Common Sense in the Age of Experts and Artificial Intelligence“ by Vikram Manshamarani – A HBR Press Book Review

„The Art of Being Indispensable at Work“ by Bruce Tulgan – A HBR Press Book Review

Art of being invaluable at work – doitinvest.com book summary

In today‘s fiercely competitive work environments, shining in the job is critical. To stay ahead in the game, we must go better – or out. The Covid-19 crisis has exacerbated the internal competition between employees for fewer career opportunities – in almost every organization. Thus, „The Art of Being Indispensable at Work“ could not come at a better time.
Bruce Tulgan is a leading global consultant – mostly in modern management and organizational issues. He comes with a wealth of practical experience – and this becomes quickly transparent in the book. His company‘s name says a lot: Rainmaker Thinking Inc. I also must admit that his online presence is quite extensive – as well as his credentials.
So, is „The Art of Being Indispensable at Work“ worth reading?
First of all, this book is definitely a different animal in the Harvard Business Review Press zoo. Most of the other HBR press books focus on strategic and well researched topics, bringing heavy academic weaponry to the field of debates. Bruce Tulgan comes from a different angle – which makes the book really easy to read: he starts low and aims high. „The Art of Being Indispensable at Work“ manages to convey really with simple (but powerful) concepts very practical messages. It basically means that the book is easy to read and implement – from the very first page. Or at least this is how I found it…Read More »„The Art of Being Indispensable at Work“ by Bruce Tulgan – A HBR Press Book Review

“HBRs 10 Must Reads – On Communication” – A Book Review by Doitinvest.com

HBR Press book review by doitinvest.com

HBR‘s 10 Must Reads – On Communication

It’s been researched that communication is more body language than speaking itself, yet – even posturing is a part of communication. And as usually, Harvard Business Review covered during the years a lot of ground on the best communication practices. Some of their best articles were perused through, updated and combined in one of their best-selling titles – “HBRs 10 Must Reads – On Communication”.
Language is one of the mankind’s most important advancements. If nothing else, any leader in any organisation communicates continuously – with the customers, the employees, the suppliers or the governments. Being on the right side of the things tends to be difficult – and a solid communication can help fix potential issues or even motivate various stakeholders to do business with you. As we can often see in practice, simple methods and understanding how you are perceived can make a world of differences.Read More »“HBRs 10 Must Reads – On Communication” – A Book Review by Doitinvest.com

“HBR’s 10 Must Reads – CEOs” – A Harvard Business Review Press Book Review

HBR Press Book ReviewAdmit it, you want to make it to the top job: CEO. This is arguably one of the most difficult tasks on Earth: competition is fierce, incumbents hang on hard, aspirers have a one in ten thousands chances to make it. Yet, the one element that distinguishes the normal aspirers to becoming CEOs to those who make it is green Yes, I talk about how to do the job: better, faster, less sweat. And the information is cheap to come by – there are a few books that will offer you the information you need. The difficulty consists in choosing the right book, reading it and applying it’s know how.

Harvard Business Reviews “CEO” title gives you just that. 

As with many other points, “CEO” was curated by HBR Press’s editors, who perused through hundreds of articles and extracted the most interesting and relevant ones. This collection of “best of CEO” articles makes no exception l. From titles such as “Your Strategy Needs a Strategy” to “Revisiting Your Core Business”, this articles collection will probably start to change the lenses through which you perceive the business world. As Harari mentions in “Homo Sapiens”, all modern methods economy is an abstract mind construct – yet, we are further ahead as a race more than we ever dreamed about. So why not take the race further and further? Read More »“HBR’s 10 Must Reads – CEOs” – A Harvard Business Review Press Book Review