Innovation and Leadership for Changing the World

About

When traditional approaches are inadequate or resisted, advanced leadership skills are essential. Over a decade ago, renowned innovation expert Rosabeth Moss Kanter worked with successful professionals and young entrepreneurs to identify the leadership paradigm of the future: the ability to “think outside the building.”

With insight from her book Think Outside the Building: How Advanced Leaders Can Change the World One Smart Innovation at a Time, Kanter provides extraordinary accounts of purpose-driven men and women whose convictions drove them to take action and affect positive change. A former Trader Joe’s executive who navigated business, government, and community sectors to deal with poor nutrition in inner cities while reducing food waste. A concerned European banker who used the power of persuasion (not position) to find novel financing for improving the health of the oceans. A Washington couple who enticed global partners to join an Uber-like platform to match skilled refugees with talent-hungry companies. A visionary journalist turned entrepreneur who closed social divides by giving fifty million social media users access to free local education and culture. Kanter shows us how people everywhere can unleash their creativity and entrepreneurial adroitness to mobilize partners and innovate for a brighter future.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter is a professor at Harvard Business School (holding the Ernest L. Arbuckle Professorship), specializing in strategy, innovation, and leadership for change. She is also chair and director of the Harvard University Advanced Leadership Initiative, a Harvard-wide innovation she co-founded in 2008 to help successful leaders at the top of their fields confront national and global challenges and build a new leadership force for the world.