Event Details
Book Summary: "SuperCorp"
Rosabeth Moss Kanter on the answer to the global crisis of business and American-style capitalism
Out of the ashes of conventional business models arises a set of companies using their power not only for profits and sustainable growth but also social good.
If you think business corporations are doomed to be lumbering, bloated, and corrupt, think again.
Based on an extraordinary three-year investigation, interviewing more than 350 key people at major companies around the world, Rosabeth Moss Kanter provides encouraging and astounding evidence that this assumption is completely outdated. The businesses that are agile, keeping ahead of the curve in terms of market changes and customer needs, are the businesses that are also progressive, socially responsible human communities.
Take IBM. When the tsunami and earthquake struck Asia, IBM didn’t just cut a check for relief funds and call it a day. The company used its technological expertise and skilled people to create what government and relief agencies could not: information systems to effectively track relief supplies and reunite families. While IBM did this with no commercial motive, its employees’ desire to serve people suffering during these crises stimulated innovations that later benefited the company.
Or Proctor & Gamble. Despite a decade-long commitment to research and development of a water purification product, commercial prospects were unpromising. But because it was so consistent with P&G’s statement of purpose, people within the company persevered. And when the tsunami struck, it was then able to deliver roughly a billion glasses of drinking water for the victims...
SuperCorp captures the zeitgeist of the emerging twenty-first-century business. For example:
• The strong potential synergy between financial performance and attention to community and social needs
• The unique competitive advantage from embracing the values and expectations of a new generation of professionals
• The growth opportunities that result from stressing values and supressing executive egos when seeking partners and integrating acquisitions
Praise for SuperCorp
“Rosabeth Moss Kanter puts a new and welcome human face on the many ways companies can serve a public purpose while also prospering financially and building an enduring culture of success.”
—Andrea Jung, chairman and CEO of Avon Products
“Kanter makes a compelling case about the role played by corporate culture, values-based decision making, and larger societal issues in the creation of sustainable success.”
—Ivan Seidenberg, chairman and CEO of Verizon
“Innovative insights on how companies–and their leaders–can be at the vanguard of the twenty-first century. . . . Timely, informative, and uplifting–all of the qualities of a great read!”
—David Gergen, CNN senior political analyst and White House counselor to four U.S. presidents
Program
11:30 AM-1:30 PM: Noon Luncheon, followed by author's presentation.
Speaker Profiles
Rosabeth Moss Kantor (Speaker)
Professor, Harvard Business School
Named among the 50 most powerful women in the world (Times of London) and the 50 most influential business thinkers in the world (Accenture and Thinker 50), Rosabeth Moss Kanter is a renowned social scientist and writer whose work focuses on the dynamics of organizational leadership, change and confidence. She is an exceptionally gifted orator and one of the world’s leading scholars in business management.
Professor Kanter’s themes, particularly those on leadership of turnarounds and mastering change in turbulent times, are particularly relevant in today’s economic environment.
Professor Kanter holds the Ernest L. Arbuckle Professorship at Harvard Business School, where she specializes in strategy, innovation, and leadership for change. Her strategic and practical insights have guided leaders of large and small organizations worldwide for over 25 years, through teaching, writing, and direct consultation to major corporations and governments. Former Editor of Harvard Business Review (1989-1992), she received the Academy of Management’s Distinguished Career Award for her scholarly contributions to management knowledge in 2001, and in 2002 was named “Intelligent Community Visionary of the Year” by the World Teleport Association.
A prolific writer, Professor Kanter has authored or co-authored 17 books, which have been translated into 17 languages. Her recent work, Confidence: How Winning Streaks & Losing Streaks Begin & End (a New York Times business and #1 BusinessWeek bestseller), which describes the culture and dynamics of high-performance organizations as compared with those in decline and shows how to lead turnarounds, whether in businesses, hospitals, schools, sports teams, community organizations, or countries.
Questions
Mary Kupjack
Business Book RT Chairman
773.935.7221