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MAKING CERTAIN THE MESSAGE STICKS
CHAPTER 11
PROLIFIC WRITER
Kanter is a strong essayist. As a former editor of the Harvard Business Review,
she knows how to make a point succinctly so that readers, who are probably
busy managers, can grasp the basics quickly. In the preface to On the Frontiers
of Management, she calls the collection of her articles “an agenda for man-
agerial work.” She continues, “Taken together, [the articles] reinforce a single,
timeless message: the importance of providing the tools and conditions that
liberate people to use their brainpower to make a difference in a world of con-
stant challenge and change.” 6
In her essay “A Walk on the Soft Side,” Kanter addresses the inherent dif-
ficulties that managers have in dealing with the people side of business. Com-
munications is essential, but in a cross-cultural environment—or today in
alliances across companies—open communications can be a genuine chal-
lenge, one that leaders as communicators must address. “Leaders still need to
listen, carefully, and they need to open the channels for others to talk, listen,
contribute, and reflect.” Such communications opens the door to organizational
learning, allowing people throughout the enterprise to share best practices. 7
In this same article, Kanter speaks of American managers’predisposition
to “self-disclosure”—something that their counterparts in Asia and Europe do
not have. Open communications thus raises the stakes for leaders: It discloses
8
their shortcomings along with their successes. Yet it is only through collabo-
ration, involving communications, that change can occur. As Kanter writes in
another essay, “[T]he best way to lead change is to create conditions that make
change natural.” Managers in organizations where change is part of the culture
“release the potential of their people to create the future.” 9
Kanter’s message of empowerment through change, enabling people to
think and do for themselves as they turn change into an ally, has earned her
many honors—she is a best-selling author, and she has valued consulting
relationships, honorary degrees, and multiple leadership awards as well as
recognition outside her realm. The Times of London named her “one of the
10
50 most powerful women in the world.” As a result, Kanter is an extraordi-
nary leadership communicator, one who lives her message through her writ-
ing and teaching as well as consulting for both for-profit and not-for-profit
enterprises.

E-FRONTIERS
Since Kanter is someone who has concentrated on organizational change, it
was only a matter of time before she would explore the revolutions wrought by
the Internet. When her book on the topic, E-Volve! Succeeding in the Digital
Culture of Tomorrow, appeared in 2001, the bloom was already off the trend