Think Outside the Building: How Advanced Leaders Can Change the World One Smart Innovation at a Time

Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Book | 2020

Think Outside the Building: How Advanced Leaders Can Change the World One Smart Innovation at a Time

Abstract

Over a decade ago, renowned innovation expert Rosabeth Moss Kanter co-founded and then directed Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative. Her breakthrough work with hundreds of successful professionals and executives, as well as aspiring young entrepreneurs, identifies the leadership paradigm of the future: the ability to “think outside the building” to overcome establishment paralysis and produce significant innovation for a better world.
Thinking inside the building"—using the authority of position—can work in corporate settings but not when you have to work with, through, or around people with independent power bases and within challenging cultural and political situations. Kanter's insight into advanced leadership is an important and original contribution, one that transcends conventional practice.
The book illustrates how purpose-driven people united in their conviction that positive change is possible can have real impact on some of today’s biggest problems, from climate change to gun safety to inequality to racial issues. Kanter provides candid narrative accounts of their successes and near stumbles. A former Trader Joe’s executive, for example, navigated across business, government, and community sectors to deal with poor nutrition in inner cities while reducing food waste. A concerned European banker used the power of persuasion, not position, to find novel financing for improving the health of the oceans. A Washington couple enticed global partners to join an Uber-like platform to match skilled refugees with talent-hungry companies. A visionary journalist-turned-entrepreneur closed social divides by giving 50 million social media users access to free local education and culture.

Keywords: Leaders; advanced leadership; Advanced Leadership Initiative; community; change leadership; innovation; problem solving; cross-sector collaboration; institutional change; Leadership; Change; Leading Change; Communication; Innovation Leadership; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business and Community Relations; Civil Society or Community;

Format: Print

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Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. Think Outside the Building: How Advanced Leaders Can Change the World One Smart Innovation at a Time. New York: PublicAffairs, 2020.

Gun violence was a significant problem in America. Three Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellows Christy Wood, Russell Sternlicht, and Gareth Glaser each decided to do something about gun safety. They each used their professional and leadership experience to identify their own solutions to the issue. Wood created a set of principles for investments funds to pressure gun manufacturers and gun sellers within their portfolios to adopt safety standards. Sternlicht designed a membership-based lobbying and advocacy group in order to harness the power of mass movements to create positive change. And Glaser founded a smart-gun company whose product could help reduce certain types of deaths and injuries. Would any of these three innovations move beyond the historical gridlock on gun safety?

Anand Piramal and his team sought to "democratize healthcare" in India through the development of a new service delivery model. If Henry Ford could build and deliver cars to everyone in the United States, Piramal thought, then why can't India deliver healthcare to the 70% of its citizens who lack access to it? They began pilots in 2008 but soon ran into unexpected difficulties. After a second round of pilots in early 2010, they had to decide whether to proceed and if so how.

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Think Outside the Building: How Advanced Leaders Can Change the World One Smart Innovation at a Time

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