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GREAT COMMUNICATION SECRETS OF GREAT LEADERS
and dot.coms had become another word for “out of work” or, worse, for an
elaborate con game. Even Kanter, a veteran trend observer, was surprised:
“I’ve lived through many cycles of enthusiasm for something that gets exces-
sive, swings too far, and all of a sudden is trashed, and then finally it gets
incorporated appropriately . . . but I have never lived through a cycle where
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things turned on their heads so fast.”
While critical of some dot.com excesses, Kanter believes “E-volve! has
enduring lessons about change, and it points the way toward key elements of
how you run your company differently because it is on the Web, or simply
because other companies are.” 12
Like her other works, E-volve! provides case studies of successful e-enter-
prises, coupled with survey research. From her studies she has distilled several
lessons. One is the nature of e-culture itself. She does not mince words:
“E-culture is not lipstick on a bulldog; it is a fundamentally different way of
life . . . not just new wardrobe [casual clothes] . . . or a little redecoration.” 13
Under her “requirements of change,” Kanter cites the need for improvisation,
the need for partnership networking, and the use of “customer power” as an
agent of community building. She redefines “competition for talent” as an
avenue for “empowerment” as well as providing a means for employees to
learn to do for themselves and to be compensated financially as well as
through the values of being part of a larger community. 14
QUALITIES OF CHANGE AGENTS
It is in the people part that Kanter returns to her roots as a change agent. Cit-
ing the “star performers” in her book, those men and women who not only
have adapted to e-culture but are adapting it, she posits “seven qualities of the
mind” that are necessary in order to “e-volve.” 15
All of these qualities are timeless. “Curiosity and imagination,” “commu-
nication,”and “sensitivity to the range of human needs” are qualities that are
familiar to many. What is different is the need for managers to be “cos-
mopolitan” and to possess a “grasp of complexity” in order to divine a new
culture that takes “conflicting points of view into account.” In points six and
seven, Kanter gets to the heart of what it means to be a manager in today’s
world. Successful managers will “work with other people as resources not as
subordinates” and “lead through the power of their ideas and strength of their
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voices” rather through position and rank. In short, as Kanter says in an inter-
view, “So my ultimate message is that we need leaders who react to change
with curiosity, not denial. We need leaders who empower people —empower
them to do the work better, to rethink how the system is designed . . . and who
make value choices to use technology to benefit rather than to isolate and
dehumanize people.” 17