Harvard Business Review (October 1957 edition!): what today's manager needs to know

October 1957 was an interesting time!

In pulling together information for a recent blog entry, I looked up the October 1957 issue of Harvard Business Review.

Here's what the leading business managers of the day were reading:

Thinking Ahead
How serious is "creeping inflation?"

Search for a Managerial Philosophy
Exploration of trends on the USA that affect business values and managerial philosophy.

Marketing Costs and Mathematical Programming
An explanation of distribution cost analysis.

How to Choose and Use a Lawyer
The selection of corporate lawyers.

Can the Businessman Apply Christianity?
How Christian doctrine relates to business in the United States

Never Overestimate the Power of a Computer
Why computers are over-rated and will never really catch on.

Listening to People
A study reveals that people only remember about half of the information they hear.

New Dimensions in Top Executive Reading
What the Big Boys are reading.

Strategies for Diversification
Discussion of a method for evaluating profit potential in alternative product-market strategies.

Annual Report on Executive Compensation.
Survey reveals pay increase for 48% of top executives, but no details given of individual salaries!

From the Thoughtful Businessman
Letters to the editor, including ones on performance appraisal and how to identify promotable executives.

Looking Around
All you need to know about new marketing concepts!

How things change and how things stay the same!

The current edition of HBR includes articles entitled How To Measure Your Life, Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers, Misfit Entrepreneurs, Fire Your Marketing Manager and Hire a Community Manager, Can You Open Source Your Strategy, Commercials Make Us Like TV More, Strategic Humour, Why Succession Shouldn't Be A Horse Race and How French Innovators are Putting the "Social" Back In Social Networking.

I'll have to admit that the article in the current edition that most caught my eye is one entitled, "What 17th-Century Pirates Can Teach Us About Job Design"

Right, Scurvy Seadogs: Back to work, or the Cap'n will have you walking the plank!