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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
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English
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THINK OUTSIDE THE BUILDING

Rosabeth Moss Kanter

How Advanced Leaders Can Change the World One Small Innovation at a Time

One of the leading business thinkers in the world offers a bold, new theory of advanced leadership for tackling the world's complex, messy, and recalcitrant social and environmental problems.
To address the big social and environmental issues of our day--from poverty, to race and gender disparities, to climate change--we need a different kind of leadership. Good leadership can help solve problems and guide an organization to success. But as Rosabeth Moss Kanter recognized, there is an enormous gap between "good leadership"--where individuals can use authority to get things done--and "advanced leadership"--where individuals possess the skills required for tackling complex, messy, and recalcitrant issues. Advanced leadership requires not just "thinking outside the box," but "thinking outside the building."

Over a decade ago, Kanter co-founded and has since directed Harvard's breakthrough Advanced Leadership Initiative. In this book, she combines extraordinary stories from the business world with a pragmatic tool kit to deliver a new theory of leadership for producing significant societal change, one that begins where conventional leadership thinking ends. We desperately need leaders with wisdom and experience willing to exercise their imaginations to create solutions to society's intractable problems. This book will teach them how.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter is an influential and well-known 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 build a growing international model that helps successful leaders at the top of their fields apply their skills to national and global challenges and build a new leadership force for the world.
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Published 2020-01-28 by Public Affairs

Comments

"This book distills some of the vivid case studies and lessons from [Harvard's Advanced Leadership Initiative] and suggests such leaders have the capacity to create new ideas to tackle big societal problems. Moss Kanter's optimism and enthusiasm for what she calls a 'success revolution' is infectious, but she wisely warns that societal change takes time, which is 'sometimes forgotten in an era of impatience'."

Why Rosabeth Moss Kanter Says Leaders Must 'Think Outside The Building' To Address Complex Problems ... Read more...

Rosabeth Moss Kanter has done it again! This is the best book on leadership written in this century. It may change the world--at the least make it better.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter discussed her expectations for the Biden presidency with Harvard Business School Working Knowledge. Read more...

THINK OUTSIDE THE BUILDING is featured as a Financial Times Book of the Month for January! They write: "This book distills some of the vivid case studies and lessons from [Harvard's Advanced Leadership Initiative] and suggests such leaders have the capacity to create new ideas to tackle big societal problems... Moss Kanter's optimism and enthusiasm for what she calls a 'success revolution' is infectious, but she wisely warns that societal change takes time, which is 'sometimes forgotten in an era of impatience'." Read more...

Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) interviewed Rosabeth Moss Kanter Read more...

In this season of public appetite for big solutions to big problems, Kanter's Think Outside the Building is both a clarion call and a map for new leaders to step up.

Think Outside the Building is full of sound advice, clear frameworks and relatable stories for anyone looking to tackle seemingly intractable local, regional, national and global challenges. Read more...

"Striking ... This realistic and hopeful manual shows how accomplished individuals can tackle problems whose victims often lack resources to take action."

Rosabeth Moss Kanter contributes an article to the September issue of Harvard Business Review on how leaders can guide their teams through crises. Read more...

Rosabeth Moss Kanter was interviewed about the future of work: COVID Killed the Traditional Workplace. What Should Companies Do Now? ... Read more...

I feel so strongly about this book and its message that I want everyone who aspires to make a difference to read it. It is the quintessential guide for answering the question we all eventually ask: Have I accomplished my purpose in life? As a graduate of West Point and an Airborne Ranger infantry officer I learned to ask, 'If not me, who?' Here are the personal tools for getting it done, showing us how small pebbles can make big waves.

THINK OUTSIDE THE BUILDING is one of this year's winners of the getAbstract International Book Award Read more...

A conversation with professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter on how great leaders look beyond their own organizations to solve challenging problems. Read more...

Lifetime Achievement Award 2019

UK & Commonwealth: Nicholas Brealey UK ; Dutch: Scriptum ; Russian: Eksmo ; Thailand: Nation International Edutainment ; Taiwan: CommonWealth Magazine ; Vietnam: Minh Long Book

Drawing on fifty detailed case studies and hundreds of interviews, Rosabeth Moss Kanter distills her experiences with Harvard's Advanced Leadership Initiative in this informative and fascinating volume. Both an 'inspiration and a guide to action,' this book challenges the reader with narratives describing extraordinary new approaches to old institutional and societal problems; Kanter has penned essential reading for twenty-first century leaders.

Think Outside the Building is an excellent and inspiring guide for anybody who is trying to make change in the world. Drawing on the stories of dozens of effective efforts, Rosabeth Moss Kanter has created a guidebook that, with wisdom and optimism, extracts the essential techniques for success--especially for new initiatives with a mission to improve society.

Kanter's book lays out the next big step in innovation: the bold leadership to imagine new solutions to big problems of communities and the world. Her brilliant new book is a compelling read, full of fascinating stories and breakthrough ideas.