Six Steps for Reinvigorating America

In the early stages of the 21st century, America has lost its way both at home and in the world, argues Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter. In her new book, America the Principled, she details 6 opportunities for America to boost its economic vitality and democratic ideals. Q&A plus excerpt. Key concepts include:

* America at the start of the 21st century has lost its way both as a beacon to the world and as a can-do nation.

* Six opportunities should be pursued that widen prosperity, creates fair and flexible workplaces, motivates values-based capitalism, restores trust in government, empowers "citizen diplomats", and develops an ethos of community.

It’s no coincidence that the new book America the Principled is coming out just as the U.S. presidential election gets into full swing, says its author, Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter. She wants us all to rethink the American agenda.

"Once a widely admired as the land of opportunity, America could instead be closing it down—unless we create a positive agenda to renew the American spirit," she writes in the book’s introduction.

Kanter believes America at the start of the 21st century has lost its way both as a beacon to the world and as a can-do nation. Among the discouraging trends she sees are political and religious attacks that stifle science and innovation; growing unease and pressure in the workplace; too few companies recognizing obligations to their communities as well as to their shareholders; mistrust and contempt of government; a prevailing political ideology that is xenophobic and isolationist; and the splitting of Americans into antagonistic ideological camps instead of finding common ground upon which to build.

What’s needed, she continues, is an agenda built on core American principles that:

Q&A with: Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Author: Sean Silverthorne

Full Story: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5802.html