Business Book Roundtable

September 29, 11:15 AM - 1:00 PM

CONFIDENCE by Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Confidence From the boardroom to the locker room to the living room—how winners become winners . . . and stay that way. Is success simply a matter of money and talent? Or is there another reason why some people and organizations always land on their feet, while others, equally talented, stumble again and again?

This event is co-sponsored by the Union League Club’s Authors Group.

Where:

Union League Club of Chicago
65 West Jackson Blvd
Chicago, IL

Who:

Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Author

Questions:

Dana Damyen
269-923-0137 (Office)
269-208-9600 (Cell)
Dana_Damyen@Whirlpool.com

Event Details:

Is success simply a matter of money and talent? Or is there another reason why some people and organizations always land on their feet, while others, equally talented, stumble again and again?

There’s a fundamental principle at work—the vital but previously unexamined factor called confidence—that permits unexpected people to achieve high levels of performance through routines that activate talent. Confidence explains:

• Why the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team continues its winning ways even though recent teams lack the talent of their predecessors.
• Why some companies are always positively perceived by employees, customers, Wall Street analysts, and the media while others are under a perpetual cloud.
• How a company like Gillette or a team like the Chicago Cubs ends a losing streak and breaks out of a circle of doom.
• The lessons a politician such as Nelson Mandela, who resisted the temptation to take revenge after being released from prison and assuming power, offers for leaders in both advanced democracies and trouble spots like the Middle East.

From the simplest ball games to the most complicated business and political situations, the common element in winning is a basic truth about people: They rise to the occasion when leaders help them gain the confidence to do it.

Confidence is the new theory and practice of success, explaining why success and failure are not mere episodes but self-perpetuating trajectories. Rosabeth Moss Kanter shows why organizations of all types may be brimming with talent but not be winners, and provides people in leadership positions with a practical program for either maintaining a winning streak or turning around a downward spiral. Confidence is based on an extraordinary investigation of success and failure in companies such as Continental Airlines, Seagate, and Verizon and sports teams such as the University of North Carolina women’s soccer team, New England Patriots, and Philadelphia Eagles, as well as schools, health care, and politics.

Packed with brilliant, practical ideas such as “powerlessness corrupts” and the “timidity of mediocrity,” Confidence provides fresh thinking for perpetuating winning streaks and ending losing streaks in all facets of life—from the factors that can make or break corporations and governments to the keys for successful relationships in the workplace or at home.

Speaker Profiles

Rosabeth Moss Kanter is an internationally known business leader, best-selling author, and advocate for change in business, government and education. She is the Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, specializing in strategy, innovation and leadership for change. She advises major corporations and governments worldwide, and is the author or co-author of 15 books, including her latest book, Evolve!: Succeeding in the Digital Culture of Tomorrow. Other award-winning best - sellers include Men & Women of the Corporation, The Change Masters, When Giants Learn to Dance, and World Class: Thriving Locally in the Global Economy. In 2001, she received the Academy of Management's Distinguished Contribution Award for her work about management.

Considered one of the most prominent business thought leaders in the world and a well-known dynamic speaker, she has shared the platform at major events with prime ministers and presidents as well as CEOs, and she appears often on radio and television. She sits on the boards of many pre-public firms, and she co-founded Goodmeasure Inc., whose consulting clients include some of the world's most prominent companies. Goodmeasure is currently developing Web-based versions of Kanter's leadership and change tools, to help embed them in the daily work of organizations everywhere.

Dr. Kanter's current research focuses on the development of new leadership for the digital age – how to guide the trafixedFontation of large corporations, small and mid-sized businesses, health care, government and education as they incorporate new technology, create new kinds of alliances and partnerships, work across boundaries and borders, and take on new social responsibilities. In 1997-1998 she conceived and led the Business Leadership in the Social Sector (BLSS) project, under the auspices of the Harvard Business School's Initiative on Social Enterprise, which involved more than 100 national leaders, including CEOs, Senators, Governors, and the First Lady, in dialogue about public-private partnerships for change. It resulted in the launch of a BLSS video series and a national call to action in collaboration with business associations, an activity she continues as a senior adviser to IBM's Reinventing Education program. From 1989-1992 she also served as Editor of the Harvard Business Review, which was a finalist for a National Magazine Award for General Excellence in 1991. She joined the Harvard Business School faculty in 1986 from Yale University, where she held a tenured professorship from 1977 to 1986.

She has received 20 honorary doctoral degrees and more than a dozen leadership awards, and has been named one of the “100 most important women in America” (Cosmopolitan) and the “50 most powerful women in the world” (Times of London). Her public service activities span local and global interest. She has been a judge for the Ron Brown Award for Corporate Leadership given at the White House, a member of the Board of Overseers for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, is a Fellow of the World Economic Forum, served on the Massachusetts Governor’s Economic Council (for which she co-chaired the International Trade Task Force), and led the effort to establish a Year 2000 Commission for legacy projects for Boston. She serves on many civic and nonprofit boards, including City Year, the national urban youth service corps that was the model for Americorps and is launching the Clinton Democracy Fellows program in South Africa.