Rosabeth Moss Kanter Quotes

I was determined to achieve the total freedom that our history lessons taught us we were entitled to, no matter what the sacrifice.

- Rosabeth Moss Kanter

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

- Rosabeth Moss Kanter

One of the symptoms of a losing streak is a turnover of top executives. It's a revolving door.

- Rosabeth Moss Kanter

It's almost impossible to break a losing streak on your own.

- 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

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

Organizational structures that allow divisions and departments to own their turf and people with long tenure to take root creates the same hardened group distinctions as Congressional redistricting to produce homogeneous voting blocs - all of which makes it easier to resist compromise, let alone collaboration.

- Rosabeth Moss Kanter

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.

- Rosabeth Moss Kanter

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

- Rosabeth Moss Kanter

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.

- Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Business requires understanding financial matters, but management is different from running the financial aspects of the business - it requires understanding complex systems, how they operate, the nature of organisations, what happens when people interact in groups and how to motivate and guide people.

- Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Mindless habitual behavior is the enemy of innovation.

- Rosabeth Moss Kanter

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

- Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Ambivalence about family responsibilities has a long history in the corporate world.

- 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

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

- Rosabeth Moss Kanter

The boomers' biggest impact will be on eliminating the term 'retirement' and inventing a new stage of life... the new career arc.

- 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

Too many people let others stand in their way and don't go back for one more try.

- Rosabeth Moss Kanter

The creative process for me doesn't work as well without an image of an audience in mind.

- Rosabeth Moss Kanter

My creative process involves that old saying: It's 90% perspiration and only 10% inspiration.

- Rosabeth Moss Kanter

I see the level of sophistication and knowledge about business growing dramatically. Several decades ago, only a few companies thought about international business.

- 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

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

- 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

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

When you fail at something, the best thing to do is think back to your successes, and try to replicate whatever you did to make them happen.

- 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

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

Power is the ability to get things done.

- Rosabeth Moss Kanter

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

- Rosabeth Moss Kanter

To stay ahead, you must have your next idea waiting in the wings.

- 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