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GREAT COMMUNICATION SECRETS OF GREAT LEADERS
ROSABETH MOSS KANTER—DOYENNE OF CHANGE
It may be a first for a professor who holds a prestigious chair at the Harvard
Business School, but for Rosabeth Moss Kanter, it was a logical step—to
synthesize her message into a rap song. Kanter has been writing, teaching, and
consulting on change for more than two decades. “Why not take this [rap
music] and turn it to a positive social purpose—to reclaim this genre from the
gutter and elevate it to something that can inspire?” 2
Kanter sees parallels between hip-hop and the corporate world. “I
began to realize that the messages about the culture of business were just as
good reaching down into the community. Like the line [in the song] that
says, ‘Don’t get trapped in old divisions on a patch of tiny turf.’ I had in
mind both the turf battles that go on within bureaucracies and gangs on the
street.’” 3
CHARTING CHANGE
Through her 15 books and more than 100 articles, Kanter has been charting
bureaucratic machinations and internecine corporate wars since the 1970s,
when American businesses were hierarchical and those at the top ruled with
the mindset of “my way or the highway.” Today the landscape of American
business is global, and the hierarchical systems that worked so well in a com-
mand-and-control economy are seen as dysfunctional. Organizations operat-
ing within this landscape need to evolve new models, new ways to adapt to
change. And that’s where Kanter comes in.

Change is hard work. It takes time. We talk about “bold strokes” versus
“long marches.” Bold strokes are when leaders issue edicts—to open or
close a department, say. But building and creating things of value—that
takes long marches . . . and a lot of people volunteering to be followers. 4

Her book The Change Masters was published in 1983, just as American
businesses were on the verge of reawakening from a slump and trying to nav-
igate the new challenges of global competition. In this book, Kanter proclaims
a theme that is really a cornerstone of her work: the need to use what is at hand,
chiefly people. As she writes,

The issue is to create the conditions that enable companies to take advan-
tage of the good ideas which already exist, by taking better advantage of
the talents of their people. By encouraging innovation and entrepreneur-
ship at all levels, by building an environment in which more people feel
included, involved and empowered to take initiative, companies as well as
individuals can be masters of change instead of its victims. 5