Rosabeth Moss Kanter Quotes

“Confidence isn't optimism or pessimism, and it's not a character attribute. It's the expectation of a positive outcome.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“Throughout human history, people have developed strong loyalties to traditions, rituals, and symbols. In the most effective organizations, they are not only respected but celebrated. It is no coincidence that the most highly admired corporations are also among the most profitable.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“Friendly people are caring people, eager to provide encouragement and support when needed most.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Power is the ability to get things done.

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

The commune movement is part of a reawakening of belief in the possibilities for utopia that existed in the nineteenth century and exist again today, a belief that by creating the right social institution, human satisfaction and growth can be achieved.

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“Cheap labor is not going to be the way we compete in the United States. It's going to be brain power.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“Companies used to be able to function with autocratic bosses. We don't live in that world anymore.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“I've found that small wins, small projects, small differences often make huge differences.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“I've been looking at companies that are on a positive path vs. a negative path and I've come to use the language of sports, winning streaks and losing streaks.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“A great idea is not enough.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“We have a large pool of talented and educated women, and yet workplaces haven't necessarily changed to accommodate the reality of their lives.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“Leaders must wake people out of inertia. They must get people excited about something they've never seen before, something that does not yet exist.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“Leaders must pick causes they won't abandon easily, remain committed despite setbacks, and communicate their big ideas over and over again in every encounter.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“Confidence is contagious, but so is failure. Even the Yankees will lose if you persuade them that they will.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“Some social scientists say that in-group/out-group biases are hard-wired into the human brain. Even without overt prejudice, it is cognitively convenient for people to sort items into categories and respond based on what is usually associated with those categories: a form of statistical discrimination, playing the odds.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

The goal of winning is not losing two times in a row.

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“Nations need to understand their own strengths and weaknesses, and India's tradition of dissent and democratic debate is a positive aspect.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“Tribalism reflects strong ethnic or cultural identities that separate members of one group from another, making them loyal to people like them and suspicious of outsiders, which undermines efforts to forge common cause across groups.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“Innovative organizations provide the freedom to act which arouses the desire to act.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“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

“Leaders is the new organisation do not lack motivational tools, but the tools are different from those of traditional corporate bureaucrats. The new rewards are based not on status but on contribution, and they consist not of regular promotion and automatic pay rises, but of excitement about the mission and a share of the glory of success.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“Confidence is the bridge connecting expectations and performance, investment and results.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“The positive outlook that optimists project does not come from ignoring or denying problems. Optimists simply assume that problems are temporary and can be solved, so optimists naturally want more information about problems because then they can get to work and do something. Pessimists are more likely to believe that there is nothing they can do anyway, so what's the point of even thinking about it?”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Passion for a goal doesn't guarantee success, but without it, you can't even begin.

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Confidence makes you willing to try harder and attracts the kind of support from others that makes "winning" possible.

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“A basic truth of management - if not of life - is that nearly everything looks like a failure in the middle.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“Thinkers, makers and traders are the DNA of the world class company”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

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.

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“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.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

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.

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“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.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Those enjoying winning streaks thus win twofold. They win not only the game but also the right to greater self-determination. They become masters of their own fate. That feeling of efficacy, of being in charge of circumstances, is the essence of confidence. Winning once or twice is encouraging, but winning continuously is empowering.

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“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.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

The way innovating companies are designed leaves ambiguities, overlaps, decision conflicts or decision vacuums in some parts of the organisation. People rail at this, curse it-and invent innovative ways to overcome it.

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“Pessimists see problems as stemming from stable and universal causes, thus making them less susceptible to corrective action. Optimists, in contrast, view problems as temporary and resulting from specific factors that will either change or be changed.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“Winning becomes easier over time as the cornerstones of confidence become habits.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“The very lack of opportunity the group faces creates a self-defeating cycle and puts pressure on members to limit their aspirations.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

In the most innovative companies there is a significantly higher volume of thank yous than in companies of low innovation.

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“Confidence is the sweet spot between arrogance and despair-consisting of positive expectations for favorable outcomes.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“Money should never be separated from values. Detached from values it may indeed be the root of all evil. Linked effectively to social purpose it can be the root of opportunity.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“To take full advantage of the potential in e-business, leaders must lead differently, and people must work together differently. Let's call this new way of working e-culture-the human side of the global information era, the heart and soul of the new economy.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“Power stems from 'rainmaking,' as law firms put it: the ability to bring resources into the company.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“You've no future unless you add value, create projects.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“You can always buy something in English, you can't always sell something in English.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“Change masters are - literally - the right people in the right place at the right time. The right people are the ones with the ideas that move beyond the organization's established practice, ideas they can form into visions. The right places are the integrative environments that support innovation, encourage the building of coalitions and teams to support and implement visions. The right times are those moments in the flow of organizational history when it is possible to reconstruct reality on the basis on accumulated innovations to shape a more productive and successful future.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“If networks of women are formed, they should be job related and task related rather than female-concerns related. Personal networks for sociability in the context of a work organization would tend to promote the image of women contained in the temperamental model - that companies must compensate for women's deficiencies and bring them together for support because they could not make it on their own. But job-related task forces serve the social-psychological functions while reinforcing a more positive image of women.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“The more closed the circle, the more difficult it is for 'outsiders' to break in. Their very difficulty in entering may be taken as a sign of incompetence, a sign that the insiders were right to close their ranks.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“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.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

“Leadership is one of the most enduring, universal human responsibilities.”

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

The best way for business to move out of the Hall of Shame is to demonstrate a commitment to social causes. This also makes business sense. A focus on solving social problems has motivational benefits in lean economic times.

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter