Here is the transcript and summary of Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s talk titled “Six Keys to Leading Positive Change” at TEDxBeaconStreet conference.
Listen to the MP3 Audio:
TRANSCRIPT:
Rosabeth Moss Kanter – Professor, Harvard Business School
A few years ago, I ran into a colleague I had not seen for a long time who said: “What are you working on now?”, and I said, I was in that kind of mood. I said, “Oh. Making the world a better place.” And he said,”Could you pin that down just a little bit.”
Well, I realized what I actually do is I tried to provide other people tools for making the world a better place, by giving them leadership skills. So what is your goal? You simply want to get things done. And maybe improve them a little. Do you want to start something, maybe a social venture; you can be any age to do that.
I was amazed when Katie [Stagliano] of Katie’s Krops got an award from President Bill Clinton for a venture she started to feed the homeless when she was 9 years old. So anybody can start something. Do you want to start something? Do you want to grow something? Do you want to start a business? Do you want to lead a big business? Or do you want to just make the world a better place?
The leadership lessons for being effective of doing that are things that I have learned from working with tens of thousands of leaders in dozens and dozens of countries all over the world. And I would like to boil them down to six positive things that help us keep things moving up or in a positive direction of progress.
SHOW UP
The first is the universal lesson of life which is show up. If you do not show up nothing really happens. I remember a Peter Sellers movie of a number of years ago called “Being There.” And it was a very instructive story because Peter Sellers played a fairly ignorant man Chance the gardener. And he was just hanging around the place where he did gardening, when a very important meeting was about to take place.
And as people arrived for the meeting, they did not know that he was only helping at the house. So they said who are you and he said Chance the gardener. And immediately people misunderstood and called him Chauncey Gardiner, invited him into the meeting and he ended up solving their problems.
Well, it was a comedy but I thought how real that is. The very fact of showing up, of making oneself available, of deciding that your presence makes a difference, is the first key to leadership. And I think about President Barak Obama of the United States. He really – he’s been re-elected but he started out basically by showing up. He was a fairly obscure state senator from the state of Illinois, when asked to give the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention, he showed up. He gave the speech and the rest is history.
Being there makes the difference but that is only the starting point that you are in the situation.
SPEAK UP
The second lesson that I have learned is that it is important to speak up, to use the power of voice. No one knows what we’re thinking if we do not express it. I say this to my students at Harvard Business School all the time because people get graded on class participation. And you know there are some people who think they are entitled to have all the air time and so they often just talk and continue to talk until finally they hit upon something they really have to say.
But there are others in the class, and sometimes it is the women, and I have to encourage, that they can own that air space too. And sometimes I say why are not you speaking and they say well, I want to make sure that I really have something to say. And I point out to them that the men did not feel that way; just do it. Just talk.
However the power of voice is not simply words; the power of voice is shaping the agenda, framing issues for other people, helping them think about it in a different way. This is why thought leaders can be leaders, because they influence the thinking of other people.
Have you gone to meetings where you have noticed that whoever is running the meeting, the person who ends up as the most influential is the one who names the problem and gives people an idea for action and that gets things moving, that gets things started.
I think about a Brazilian I know whom I think the world of — he is a journalist. And yet as a journalist he has managed through his columns but also through suggesting to other people actions that they could take, he has managed to transform an entire neighborhood in Brazil into what he calls “the learning neighborhood”. Where kids now not only learn in school the entire neighborhood is mobilized to help them learn.
And that learning neighborhood has helped make this section of São Paulo consider an upscale section. I just saw it in an airline magazine, so it must be true. But my journalist friend did this entirely through encouraging many separate people. He did not have power. He was just a writer. He is just a writer. What he did was encourage many different people through the power of his voice why don’t you do this, why don’t you do that; we have a problem, let’s fix education. The power of voice is big.
And I am thinking about another journalist I know using the power of voice in a very powerful way; it is Ellen Goodman whom many people know in the United States in particular as a former syndicated columnist who went through some things with her own family and decided that it is time to have end of life conversations.
And as an individual using her power of voice she has created something called the conversation project which now has as a media partner ABC and they are spreading the idea that one should just talk about preferences for end of life so that people can have a humane ending of the kind they want but it is entirely the power of voice. So speaking up is the second attribute of leadership.
LOOK UP
The third is to look up. Look up at some higher principle, bigger issue, bigger vision, values. Without vision and values leadership is hallow. No matter what it is that you want to achieve, it is always important to remember the principles. And when I say higher principles and looking up, I am not thinking about spiritual matters but for some people they would take it that way.
I am simply thinking about how important it is for any leader to know what they stand for and to be able to elevate people’s eyes from everyday problems which bog us down in the weeds, difficult to deal with. And we are in trouble times now in the world. And what we need is leaders who help us get above that, together gain a sense of hope but also to remember what is truly fundamental in our values and the best leaders do that.
In fact, one of my most recent books is about great companies. I realize I say that advice — many people wonder if they aren’t any great companies but there are truly great companies. IBM for example, Proctor & Gamble, a bank in Brazil, a bank in Korea, amazing that there can be good banks. Companies that I have seen all over the world that stand for vision and values, and when their leaders lead they are constantly reminding people of a nobler purpose. It is not just making money, we are trying to achieve something for the world, that is what we get from looking up.
And I have learned this in my own work and a project I manage at Harvard. We can get bogged down in the details. Believe me academic politics are not fun. There are always things that we have to work on. It can really drag you down and a wise person who was one of the first people to work on this project with me said “You know we should remember to start every meeting by reminding ourselves of our mission, reminding ourselves of what we stand for.” And you know that lifts the spirits like nothing else. There is a purpose, there is a reason that we are doing this and that’s going to stand us in good stead when I get a few skills down.
TEAM UP
But the fourth skill and why vision and values matter in part, the fourth skill is team up. Team up. Everything goes better with partners. Nearly anything worth doing is very difficult to do alone and the best enterprises, the best projects, the best ventures are one where there is a sense of partnership from the beginning.
I did a study with a colleague about technology startups; some of them very famous. And in recent years which ones came to dominate the industry. Like Google in search, not Altavista. Like Facebook rather than MySpace, and one of the things we discovered besides having a good value proposition was that they had more and better partners, faster partners matter.
For the best social enterprises that I see around the world including one that I am very proud of, I happen to be on the national board of this forever. It is an international — national service organization called City Year. And City Year was founded by four partners; two of the co-founders continue to build it and grow it and there was a sense of teaming from the beginning. Finding partners who believe is essential and when you find partners, then you can do incredible things in the world.
Here is something that many people may not know about secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton. Hillary Clinton is very interested in solving problems of the world from her position at the state department which has development, social progress on its agenda, and not only international diplomacy. But she sees development as a part of diplomacy.
And she also wants to solve problems that disproportionately affect women and there has been a problem in the world known for a long time; it is the problem of women cooking on open fires. In fact, more women die from cooking on open fires than major diseases in the developing world. That was something I did not know until I learned about the clean cook stove project.
So secretary Clinton and her office of global partnerships picked this up and created a massive teaming up of governments and businesses and NGOs all over the world. And finally the alliance for clean cook stoves is beginning to make progress in building an industry in which households, women can have affordable access to clean cook stoves. Which means by the way no air pollution; it means they can cook in their home without worrying about it burning up. Otherwise they had the cook stoves at a distance from the home, a massive example of teaming up. And that’s how we are going to solve the problems of the world in the future by the way make the world a better place is because we take lots of separate efforts and we bring them together aligned in one big team.
NEVER GIVE UP
So now I have had four skills and I want to get to the fifth which is never give up, because I have something that I coined a while ago, I call it Kanter’s Law, I hope you do too.
Kanter’s Law is that everything can look like a failure in the middle. There is almost nothing we start that does not hit an obstacle, a road block; it takes longer than we imagined because we had never done it before. It may take longer just to convene the first meeting.
I sometimes I have my MBA students do an action plan and they say week 1 change the strategy, week 2 implement. Well you know that is not realistic. I mean middles are very very difficult. You hit a bump in the road you did not know was there because you have never go down the path before. The critics surface, they start attacking. It does not work the way it was envisioned. It is true for all kinds of technology. You have to go back to the drawing board.
And so never give up because if you give up by definition it is a failure. You have stopped prematurely. If you keep going persist and persevere, find a way around the obstacles, flexibly redesign, often you can produce a success. Sometimes it is not the success you first imagined.
A lot of technology turns out to be applied in ways that we had never thought of in the beginning. But that ability to hang in there and not give up is a hallmark of leaders. I mean I think about a friend and colleague in my own area Dr. Donald Berwick who was recently the chief administrator for Medicare, the biggest health program in the United States. Well for 20 or more years he has been pursuing the idea of quality in healthcare. He has been pursuing the idea of innovation to raise quality and reduce cost.
And do you know that it sometime takes 17 years to get an innovation in healthcare from the mind of those who dream it up into use. That is an amazingly long time but he never gave up. And my iconic example of a leader that we should all aspire to emulate is Nelson Mandela, the first democratically elected president of South Africa. He was in prison for 27 years and did not give up. Finally emerged from prison to be elected president, first democratically elected president.
You know sometimes my students say 27 years in prison and he emerged without a feeling of revenge. He emerged ready to get on with it, just interrupted in the middle, get on with it and build the country. They say I could never do that. I could never feel that much forgiveness.
Well I think we hope that you are not in prison for 27 years; we hope that your middles are shorter and sweeter but find your inner Mandela. Find the strength to persist even against the naysayers, the critics and the obstacles because that is what makes a difference between success and failure.
And then when you get to the point where it looks like what you are doing is working, it is taking hold. You have the first pilot. You have the little more support. You do the six things which is lift others up; share success; the credit, the recognition, the idea of giving back once you have a success, because that’s what creates an environment in which you can do it again; you can do it the next time. You build support rather than lose support. You must feel positively about the achievement but make sure other people feel elevated by what you do as well.
So that quickly are six secrets of success if you want things to continue to be up, then show up, speak up, look up, team up, never give up and lift others up.
Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s talk, titled “Six Keys to Leading Positive Change,” provides valuable insights into effective leadership and driving positive change. Here are the key takeaways from her talk:
Show Up: Kanter emphasizes the importance of showing up as the first step in leadership. Being present in a situation and making oneself available is crucial for making a difference. She cites examples like President Barack Obama, who began his journey by simply showing up and delivering a compelling speech. Being there is the starting point of leadership.
Speak Up: Kanter stresses the significance of using one’s voice and speaking up. Voice is not just about talking but also about shaping agendas, framing issues, and influencing people’s thinking. Thought leaders are those who can name problems, propose solutions, and initiate action in meetings, demonstrating the power of voice in leadership.
Look Up: Kanter advises leaders to look up to higher principles, values, and vision. Leadership without a clear vision and set of values is hollow. Leaders should elevate people’s focus from everyday problems and guide them towards a nobler purpose. Kanter highlights the role of great companies that stand for vision and values in inspiring and motivating their employees and stakeholders.
Team Up: Collaboration and partnerships are emphasized as the fourth key to leadership success. Kanter suggests that everything goes better with partners and that nearly any worthwhile endeavor is difficult to achieve alone. Successful ventures often involve finding and collaborating with partners who share the same values and vision, as exemplified by companies like Google and Facebook.
Never Give Up: Kanter introduces “Kanter’s Law,” which states that everything can appear as a failure in the middle of a project or initiative. Leaders should be prepared to face obstacles, critics, and unexpected challenges. Persistence and perseverance are essential attributes of leaders who refuse to give up, adapt to changing circumstances, and find ways around obstacles to ultimately achieve success.
Lift Others Up: The final key to leadership success is the act of lifting others up. Kanter underscores the importance of sharing success, credit, recognition, and giving back to the community. Leaders should create an environment where others feel elevated and motivated by their achievements, fostering support and collaboration for future endeavors.
In summary, Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s talk provides a practical framework for effective leadership and driving positive change. These six keys—show up, speak up, look up, team up, never give up, and lift others up—serve as a guide for leaders striving to make the world a better place and inspire progress in various aspects of life and society.
