Harvard Business Review’s Editor-in-Chief Adi Ignatius, On Bringing A Timeless Institution Into The Modern Age
An Interview With Mark Miller
“I wondered if in reaching out to me HBR might be looking for somebody with a metabolism more like mine — somebody who had experience working for a daily and a weekly and who liked the idea of figuring out what readers prefer now. What if I could be the one who bridges HBR’s timeless business context with our contemporary cultural context?”
Founded in 1922 as the official magazine of Harvard Business School, Harvard Business Review has long been known as the place where big ideas about leadership and management are trialed, tested, and canonized. But despite its iconic status — or perhaps because of it — somewhere along the way the vaunted publication had ceased evolving with the times, leaving it lagging in an increasingly high-speed era. When seasoned journalist Adi Ignatius took the helm in 2009, his call to action was clear: Bring the timeless institution into the modern age while ensuring it doesn’t lose touch with its illustrious past. We caught up with Ignatius between deadlines to talk about the importance of nurturing Harvard Business Review’s (HBR for short) deep, longstanding relationship with its readers, how the publication is combating the rise of short-termism, and why you’re not likely to see a wheelbarrow of cash on the cover… again.
Given your background in reporting and news, what initially drew you to the idea of working at Harvard Business Review?
It’s funny: When I was initially approached about applying for the job at Harvard Business Review, I actually said no.
Allow me to back up. Prior to that, my background was as a foreign correspondent. I had previously worked for the Wall Street Journal as the bureau chief in Moscow and Beijing. It was generally accepted at the time that iconoclasts in the reporting field got promoted to management jobs and then editorial jobs. But I had skipped a step; I was never in management. From bureau chief, I went on to become editor of TIME’s Asian edition. The work I was doing there with correspondents in and around the conflict in Afghanistan put me on the radar of TIME’s New York headquarters. Eventually, I ended up in New York as the number two editor at TIME.
When the opportunity at HBR was originally presented to me, I saw it as very foreign to my experience. In addition to being in the wrong city — Boston, not New York — HBR wrote about management, which, given my experience, I didn’t feel I knew very much about at all. So I turned it down.
About a week after I’d said no, I decided to go back and read a bunch of HBR magazines. I realized there was something odd missing in their reporting. HBR had been a hugely successful publication for more than 80 years, and it had this very loyal readership. But here we were, in 2008 in the midst of the recession, and HBR hadn’t written a word about the financial impact. I understood that HBR’s point of view was meant to be timeless, not by chance but by choice. HBR did not want to cover business in the same topical, timely way as Fortune, Forbes, or the Wall Street Journal. Still, in the middle of the worst recession that many of us will ever live through, there was nothing. Not even something like, “Well, here’s an article about how companies have historically emerged from dark periods.” That void didn’t feel quite right to me.
I wondered if in reaching out to me HBR might be looking for somebody with a metabolism more like mine — somebody who had experience working for a daily and a weekly and who liked the idea of figuring out what readers prefer now. What if I could be the one who bridges HBR’s timeless business context with our contemporary cultural context?
So, after originally saying no, I called back. And as it turned out, what I had to offer was exactly what David Wan, President and CEO of Harvard Business Publishing, was looking for. So I started with HBR in early 2009.
Prior to working at HBR, I had always respected that it was an iconic business publication. As the soon-to-be editor in chief, I found myself increasingly drawn to the opportunity to bring the publication’s past forward.
HBR was founded in 1922, so you were now the steward of a lot of history and tradition. How did you determine which elements you would carry forward?
One of the wonderful things about HBR is that it is a mission-driven publication. Its mission is clear and continuous over time. The mission is focused on “helping to improve the practice of management in an ever-changing world.” And that singular aim remains an enduring, guiding thought for all of us who work here. We are not just trying to get more readers for the sake of getting more readers. There is higher purpose to our work, and that is something HBR will always invest in. It’s a purpose that proceeded me, and it continues with me.
Before I arrived, HBR had already established a high degree of trust with its readers. The foundations of that long-term relationship had been established over many years. But enduring relationships can’t be taken for granted. They need to be nurtured. When I worked at TIME, we had about four million subscribers, which is a significant number of subscribers. But while a lot of people subscribed to TIME, the reality was some read it and some didn’t. The publication did not have a deep, meaningful relationship with its readers. Maybe in the 40s, 50s, or 60s the relationship with TIME readers was different, but it was not deep when I was there.
When I arrived at HBR in 2009, things were very different. The subscriber base was smaller at HBR, there was a circulation base of around 240,000, but engagement was much higher. There was this intense, almost fanboy appreciation from readers who saw themselves as lifelong learners. HBR readers were, and are, turned on by the ideas that we write about. They routinely apply the ideas in our pages to their personal and professional lives. When I started, it was heartening to realize the impact of the ideas HBR shared with its readers.
I came in with an agenda for progress, but not at the expense of the mission of the publication, and not at the expense of the strong relationship with existing readers. I had no interest in blowing up the iconic foundation upon which HBR was built.
The flip side of that question is, of course, how did you decide what needed to be left behind or evolved?
Even though reader engagement was high, I found HBR to be much more author-focused than audience-focused. The typical process for creating each magazine was to ‘edit from the inbox.’ In short, a bunch of articles were sent to HBR by academics based on their own interests, the best ones were selected by our team for editing, and whichever ones were ready in time to go to the printer made up the magazine. So, there really wasn’t a lot of deep thinking about the user experience so much as there was active consideration given to which author we were trying to please and whose piece was ready.
In actuality, the metric that seemed to guide most editors was whether they received a follow-up email from an author that said, “Great job.” Those emails, the ones from authors, were what got passed around. There was too much emphasis, in my view, on what moved authors, and not enough emphasis on what moved contemporary audiences.
Today, we are far more conscious of our readers’ needs. We absolutely continue to include long-form pieces organized around big ideas and informed by significant research that will change how your company works. At the same time, we will also include shorter pieces, particularly for the digital space, edited to respect the contemporary reader’s time. In total, we no longer accept that longer articles equal better quality articles. Quality is not judged by who published the longest piece for the benefit of the author alone. Provided that we maintain our same high standards for content, this approach enables us to connect with new readers alongside of our longstanding readers; it’s an overall additive approach.
I should add that there was a time in the not-too-distant past where being author-centric, not audience-centric, meant that that HBR was not current in its use of digital tools. Some thought that digital was, perhaps, a trend more than a timeless platform. As such, digital was not treated seriously. A famous quote from a past editor at HBR was, “HBR will never blog. HBR will be blogged about.”
David Wan brought in Joshua Macht, the executive vice president of product innovation and our group publisher, to help solve that. Rather than dividing the brand into two disparate pieces — a magazine with serious articles and a digital publication that was more frivolous or less considered — we collaborated to embrace our readers in all formats with worthwhile content. We created a unified HBR.org site, an online magazine, plus e-commerce, which serves as a vital complement to our physical magazine.
Historically, there was, perhaps, an argument to be made that HBR couldn’t apply the same editorial rigor to original digital content, in real time, as to the content in its iconic magazine. That said, the digital space has new dynamics for a new generation of readers. Our digital editors help academics to translate their pieces in such a way as to help them speak to that new audience — making academics practical and applicable.
Even as we change and evolve, we are not seeking more readers strictly for the sake of growth. We are always seeking ways to keep improving the practice of management in an ever-changing world.
In the decade since you became editor in chief of HBR, you’ve witnessed a fair amount of change in the world of business. Can you remark upon some of the changes you’ve seen in the practice of management during that time?
We’re now living in the era where brands have realized that it’s not enough to simply run a decent company and earn a good profit. If you want to attract and keep the best employees and satisfy a broad range of stakeholders and shareholders, you need a compass — a sense of meaning. You have to do the right thing in terms of environmental, social, and governance issues. People are waking up to this more and more.
Those topics are important to us at HBR. We’re not just about how to make a wheelbarrow full of money. Although, I have to admit, we actually did put a wheelbarrow full of money on our cover once. But, of course, money isn’t what we are all about. HBR is about how to build a long-term company, how to build a stable business, and how to hold true to your values — not just because they sound good, but because research has shown that they can yield positive results.
Sometimes, like lately, it can seem like these ideas are under attack. We’re seeing a rise in short-term thinking, for example. As a result, we have something of a bounce in our step because all these substantive topics that are core to how our authors see the world are suddenly in play. They’ve become edgy, or controversial, or they just have power because they stand out amidst the noise. That’s a transformation that I’ve seen in management, but none of these things are settled. They are sort of ever-evolving.
Since there is a tremendous amount of pressure on today’s leaders to yield to the short-term profit motive, what is the secret to building something of enduring value in times like these?
We run so many articles about strategy, and in some ways they’re basically the same: They’re all about figuring out who you are, what you’re doing, and being focused. They’re also about deciding all the things you’re not going to do, because it’s tempting to try to do everything. That’s the secret to building something great that lasts, and it’s not a secret at all.
It’s timeless advice, and each one of those strategy articles is valuable because they reframe that advice for people in a way they can hear. Each article is retelling a fundamental truth in a new way that connects with readers.
Another secret: Keep experimenting, but bring discipline to your experiments. Figure out in advance why you’re launching whatever you’re launching. What are you hoping to learn? What will you measure, and what timeline are you going to follow so you know when to shut it down if you’re not getting the right results? Accept in advance that it’s good to fail because you will learn from failure.
Creating an institution that’s experimental and has the rigor and discipline to shut down experiments that don’t work is not easy. In fact, it’s one of the hardest things in the world. Say you try something and it’s modestly successful. Now people’s egos are attached to it. Maybe the boss thought of it. Now it becomes really hard to shut down. That’s where the discipline comes in. When you build a culture that knows how to test and experiment, you can bring a laser focus to your strategic decisions.
