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America Can Restore Its Strengths As The World-respected Land Of Opportunity By Returning To Open-society Principles. An Open Society Invests In People And New Ideas, Rewards Talent And Hard Work, Values Dialogue And Learns From Dissent, Operates To High Standards With Transparent Information, Looks For Common Ground, Sees Problems As Opportunities For Creative Change, And Encourages Those Who Are Fortunate To Help Others Get The Same Chance, Because Service Is The Highest Ideal. With Such Standards In Mind, America The Beautiful Can Return To Its Admired Role As America The Principled.

-Rosabeth Moss Kanter

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America Can Restore Its

Rosabeth Moss Kanter

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America Can Restore Its Strengths As The World-respected Land Of Opportunity By Returning To Open-society Principles. An Open Society Invests In People And New Ideas, Rewards Talent And Hard Work, Values Dialogue And Learns From Dissent, Operates To High Standards With Transparent Information, Looks For Common Ground, Sees Problems As Opportunities For Creative Change, And Encourages Those Who Are Fortunate To Help Others Get The Same Chance, Because Service Is The Highest Ideal. With Such Standards In Mind, America The Beautiful Can Return To Its Admired Role As America The Principled.

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Innovative Organizations Provide The Freedom To Act Which Arouses The Desire To Act.

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Our Future Will Be Shaped By The Assumptions We Make About Who We Are And What We Can Be.

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Confidence Makes You Willing To Try Harder And Attracts The Kind Of Support From Others That Makes "winning" Possible.

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Everything Looks Like A Failure In The Middle.

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Power Is America's Last Dirty Word. It Is Easier To Talk About Money - And Much Easier To Talk About Sex - Than It Is To Talk About Power.

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A Self-reinforcing Upward Spiral: Performance Stimulating Pride Stimulating Performance.

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Making A Difference

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Everything Looks Like A Failure In The Middle. In Neary Every Change Project, Doubt Is Cast On The Original Vision Because Problems Are Mounting And The End Is Nowhere In Sight.

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Mindless Habitual Behavior Is The Enemy Of Innovation.

I've Found That Small Wins, Small Projects, Small Differences Often Make Huge Differences.

Leaders Are More Powerful Role Models When They Learn Than When They Teach.

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The Martha Stewart Trial Makes Clear How Far Women Have Risen In The Business World. America Can Be Proud Of Our Equal-opportunity Prosecution And Conviction.

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Friendly People Are Caring People, Eager To Provide Encouragement And Support When Needed Most.

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The Architecture Of Change Involves The Design And Construction Of New Patterns, Or The Reconceptualization Of Old Ones, To Make New, And Hopefully More Productive, Actions Possible.

Peter Drucker Being One Of The Most Important Influences Because He Has Helped To Think Differently About Organizational Leadership And Management. Frankly, I Learn Something Of Value From Everyone I Meet. My Harvard Colleagues. My Students. The Executives I Work With. For An Eager Student, Which Is What I Am, There Is So Much To Be Learned From Everyday Experiences. I'm A Sponge. Always Will Be.

Change Is Like Putting Lipstick On A Bulldog. The Bulldog's Appearance Hasn't Improved, But Now It's Really Angry.

It Is Easier To Talk About Money -- And Much Easier To Talk About Sex -- Than It Is To Talk About Power. People Who Have It Deny It; People Who Want It Do Not Want To Appear To Hunger For It; And People Who Engage In Its Machinations Do So Secretly.

The Degree To Which The Opportunity To Use Power Effectively Is Granted To Or Withheld From Individuals Is One Operative Difference Between Those Companies Which Stagnate And Those Which Innovate.

Confidence Is The Sweet Spot Between Arrogance And Despair-consisting Of Positive Expectations For Favorable Outcomes.

People Who Are Making Decisions About The Future Often Don't Have Access To Some Of The Best Ideas In The Company, Which May Be At The Periphery Or At Lower Levels.

... People Are Capable Of More Than Their Organizational Positions Ever Give Them The Tools Or The Time Or The Opportunity To Demonstrate.

The Most Distinguished Advocate And The Most Distinguished Critic Of Modern Captialism Were In Agreement On One Essential Point: The Job Makes The Person. Adam Smith And Karl Marx Both Recognized The Extent To Which People's Attitudes And Behaviors Take Shape Out Of The Experiences They Have In Their Work.

What Being Among The 'right People' Entails Is The Possession Of Human Capital, Rather Than Organizational Capital: An Individual Reputation, Portable Skills, And Network Connections. Career Responsibility Is Squarely In The Hands Of Individuals, A Function Of Their Knowledge And Networks. Transferable Knowledge Is More Important To A Career Than Firm-specific Knowledge.

After Years Of Telling Corporate Citizens To 'trust The System,' Many Companies Must Relearn Instead To Trust Their People - And Encourage Their People To Use Neglected Creative Capacities In Order To Tap The Most Potent Economic Stimulus Of All: Idea Power.

A Vision Is Not Just A Picture Of What Could Be; It Is An Appeal To Our Better Selves, A Call To Become Something More.

In Most Important Ways, Leaders Of The Future Will Need The Traits And Capabilities Of Leaders Throughout History: An Eye For Change And A Steadying Hand To Provide Both Vision And Reassurance That Change Can Be Mastered, A Voice That Articulates The Will Of The Group And Shapes It To Constructive Ends, And An Ability To Inspire By Force Of Personality While Making Others Feel Empowered To Increase And Use Their Own Abilities.

Sports Is A Perfect Activity In Which To See Streaks And Cycles, Organizational And Otherwise, In Action - And To Watch Confidence Build Or Erode. There Are Repeated Episodes Of Performance With Similar Rules And Clear Winners Or Losers. I Added Team Sports To My Studies Of Business Because There Are Excellent Parallels To Work Groups In The Performance Of Sports Teams And Also Excellent Parallels To Larger, More Complex Businesses Or Organizations In The Strategy, Structure, And Culture Surrounding Any Particular Team.

Even The New Feminist Research On Sex-role Socialization And Sex Differences Has Sometimes Had The Unfortunate Consequence Of Creating A New Set Of Stereotypes About What Women Feel And How Women Behave. Despite The Large Amount Of Overlap Between The Sexes In Most Research, The Tendency To Label And Polarize And Thus To Exaggerate Differences Remains In Much Reporting Of Data, Which May, For Example, Report The Mean Scores Of Male And Female Populations But Not The Degree Of Overlap.

A Great Thinker Once Described Innovative Thinkers This Way: "some Men See Things As They Are And Say, 'why?' I Dream Of Things That Never Were And Say, 'why Not?'" Innovative Thinkers Are Constantly Asking Questions Such As These. How Can We Improve Recruiting, Hiring And Training. How Can Be Add Greater Value To Our Products And Services By Making Them Even Better? How Can We Do More To Nourish The Personal As Well As Professional Development Of Our People? What More Can We Do As A Good Citizen Where We Do Business?

A Great Idea Is Not Enough.

Confidence Is Not Lodged In People's Brains, It Comes From The Support System That Surrounds Them. Let's Not Confuse Confidence Overall With Just Self-confidence. Self-confidence Is Only One Part Of Confidence. People Also Need Confidence In Others - Their Colleagues And Leaders - That They Can Count On Them To Do The Right Thing And Not To Let Them Down.

Too Many People Let Others Stand In Their Way And Don't Go Back For One More Try.

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