In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Dr. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, discusses how businesses can benefit from thinking broadly about society.
Describing her latest book, "Supercorp: How Vanguard Companies Create Innovation, Profits, Growth, and Social Good," she encourages companies to find new opportunities by creating a new perspective on every aspect of operations and using that to drive the business strategy.
Organizations, she suggests, can think broadly and -- by breaking familiar patterns -- think differently:
"One of the essential tasks of leaders is to inspire people—but it isn't just to inspire people individually, it's also to create a framework in which people can communicate and collaborate. Having a strong corporate culture is one of the best ways to do that.
That's one cluster of lessons. A second cluster of lessons is: Do more in the outside world. Think more broadly. Ask everyone to be scouts for new ideas. Hold meetings in unusual places, where you make contact with customers that you don't yet have—who are not yet in your market but could be."
Full Q & A here.
