Harari, Oren 1949-

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Harari, Oren 1949-

PERSONAL:

Born July 30, 1949, in Tel Aviv, Israel; immigrated to the United States; son of Herbert and Rut Harari. Education: San Diego State University, B.A., 1970; University of California, M.A., 1974, Ph.D., 1978.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Graduate School of Business, University of San Francisco, 2130 Fulton Ave., San Francisco, CA 94117-1045. Agent—Lavin Agency, 77 Peter St., 4th Fl., Toronto, Ontario M5V 2G4, Canada. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

University of California at Berkeley, survey researcher in psychology and industrial engineering, 1975-76; St. Mary's College, Moraga, CA, program evaluator, 1976; U.S. Navy, personnel research psychologist; McLaren School of Business, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, assistant professor of organizational psychology, 1977-82, associate professor, 1982, professor of management, 1982—; Tom Peters Group, senior consultant, 1984-96; member of editorial board of Tom Peters's "On Achieving Excellence" newsletter, 1993-95, and Journal of Managerial Issues; Conservatree Paper Co., member of board of directors; management expert for Time Magazine-Direct Resources' Time Vista, an interactive Web site for businesses, 1997-99. Speaker and consultant.

MEMBER:

Academy of Management, American Psychological Association, Western Psychological Association.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Leapfrogging the Competition: Five Giant Steps to Market Leadership was rated by Management General as one of ten best business books of 1997, and was featured in a PBS Business Channel special in 1998.

WRITINGS:

(With David Beaty) Lessons from South Africa: A New Perspective on Public Policy and Productivity, Harper & Row (New York, NY), 1989.

(With Nicholas Imparato) Jumping the Curve: Innovation and Strategic Choice in an Age of Transition, foreword by Tom Peters, Jossey-Bass Publishers (San Francisco, CA), 1994.

Leapfrogging the Competition: Five Giant Steps to Market Leadership, American Century Press (Washington, DC), 1997, published as Leapfrogging the Competition: Five Giant Steps to Becoming a Market Leader, Prima Publishing, 1999.

(With Chip R. Bell) Beep Beep! Competing in the Age of the Road Runner, Warner Books (New York, NY), 2000.

The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, McGraw Hill, 2002.

The Powell Principles: 24 Lessons from Colin Powell, a Legendary Leader, McGraw-Hill (New York, NY), 2003, published as The Powell Principles: 24 Lessons from Colin Powell, Battle-proven Leader, 2005.

Break from the Pack: How to Compete in a Copycat Environment, Wharton School (Upper Saddle River, NJ), 2006.

Columnist, Management Review, 1991-2000, MWorld, 2000-01; contributor to Harvard Business Review, California Management Review, Industrial Relations, and other publications.

SIDELIGHTS:

Oren Harari has written extensively for both academic and popular audiences on organizational psychology and its applications in the modern business world. Born in Tel Aviv in 1949, Harari earned a Ph.D. from the University of California and worked as personnel research psychologist for the U.S. Navy. He has spent much of his career at the University of San Francisco, where he teaches management and organizational psychology. With Nicholas Imparato, also of the University of San Francisco, he authored Jumping the Curve: Innovation and Strategic Choice in an Age of Transition. Arguing that the changes taking place in modern business in the late twentieth century make the moment as important as three other times in history—the classic, medieval, and modern epochs—Harari and Imparato stress that the customer should be the motivating factor in all business decisions. For this work, Harari and Imparato interviewed top executives at one hundred companies around the world about their management style and their ability to stay ahead of their competition. Based on their interviews, Harari and Imparato put together thirteen attributes of someone who is a successful "agent of change." They also chronicled the success stories of several companies that made radical changes in their business strategies.

Harari is also the coauthor of Beep Beep! Competing in the Age of the Road Runner. Taking the lesson of the vintage Warner Brothers cartoon in which the Road Runner always outwits—sometimes inadvertently—his predator, Wile E. Coyote, Harari and coauthor Chip R. Bell explain that it is the coyote's conventional thinking that always subverts his goal. Booklist reviewer David Rouse explained that the authors showed that "one must incorporate curiosity, playfulness, collaboration, and honor into the workplace."

In The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, Harari offers chapters on the eighteen principles of the former secretary of state and notes how they can be applied to business. The book was not unauthorized by Powell, but instead Harari studied the published writings of Powell, the son of immigrant parents who came to the United States from Jamaica. Powell joined the U.S. Army soon after it became racially integrated and rose to become a four-star general, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and a much-admired and respected military and political leader.

A Publishers Weekly reviewer wrote that "Harari has done an admirable job of distilling the essence of Powell's leadership style." Booklist reviewer David Siegfried was of the opinion that "you don't have to be a CEO to benefit from the words and wisdom of Colin Powell."

Harari demonstrates his theories with case studies in Break from the Pack: How to Compete in a Copycat Environment. Management Today reviewer Henry Engelhardt noted some of the positive points made by Harari, "including: why profit is the ultimate measure of success; why some companies are better off sticking to their knitting rather than extending their product line; and why intangibles are more important than tangibles…. I think some people will be able to improve their businesses by taking some of his lessons to heart."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Writers Directory, 23rd edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 2007.

PERIODICALS

Association Management, February, 2004, Carole Schweitzer, "Culture Rules: Management Expert Oren Harari Explains Why Culture Can Outweigh Technology in Transforming Organizations," interview, p. 61.

Black Enterprise, July, 2002, Alfred A. Edmond, Jr., review of The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, p. 102.

Booklist, October 15, 1994, Barbara Jacobs, review of Jumping the Curve: Innovation and Strategic Choice in an Age of Transition, p. 382; January 1, 2000, David Rouse, review of Beep Beep! Competing in the Age of the Road Runner, p. 843; February 15, 2002, David Siegfried, review of The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, p. 970; November 1, 2002, review of The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, p. 460; February 15, 2003, review of The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, p. 1041.

HRMagazine, August, 2002, Mike Frost, review of The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, p. 119.

Library Journal, October 1, 1994, Gary White, review of Jumping the Curve, p. 90.

Management Today, March, 2002, James Hudson, review of The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, p. 39; March 1, 2002, James Hanson, "Leading from the Front: The Leadership Principles of Colin Powell Are Inevitably Conditioned by US Army Training Techniques, and Are None the Worse for That," p. 39; July 1, 2007, Henry Engelhardt, review of Break from the Pack: How to Compete in a Copycat Environment, p. 30

Publishers Weekly, January 10, 2000, review of Beep Beep!, p. 53; August 6, 2001, John F. Baker, review of The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, p. 16; February 11, 2002, review of The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, p. 177.

Reference & Research Book News, November, 2002, review of Break from the Pack.

Research-Technology Management, July, 1996, review of Jumping the Curve, p. 59.

Washington Business Journal, February 22, 2002, review of The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, p. 39.