Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage
Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage
By Laura Huang
Released January 28, 2020
How do you find a competitive edge when the obstacles feel insurmountable? How do you get people to take you seriously when they're predisposed not to, and perhaps have already written you off? Laura Huang has come up against that problem many times—and so has anyone who's ever felt out of place or underestimated. Many of us sit back quietly, hoping that our hard work and effort will speak for itself. Or we try to force ourselves into the mold of who we think is "successful," stifling the creativity and charm that makes us unique and memorable. In Edge, Huang offers a different approach. She argues that success is rarely just about the quality of our ideas, credentials, and skills, or our effort. Instead, achieving success hinges on how well we shape others' perceptions—of our strengths, certainly, but also our flaws. It's about creating our own edge by confronting the factors that seem like shortcomings and turning them into assets that make others take notice.
Laura Huang is an associate professor at Harvard Business School; previously, she was an assistant professor at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Her research has been featured in the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Forbes, and Nature. Her research has won awards including a 2016 Kauffman Foundation Fellowship; Huang was named one of the 40 Best Business School Professors Under the Age of 40 by Poets & Quants. Her speaking and consulting clients include Google, Uber, BlackRock, Keystone, Bionic, and the Level Playing Field Institute.
