Call It Evolve

Rosabeth Kanter Weaves Big Ideas Into a New Book

By JULIA WELLS

The book lecture was about to begin, and suddenly Rosabeth Moss
Kanter, celebrated author and star of the event, spotted a friend in the
front row. Against a backdrop of the grand Stanley Murphy murals in the
Katharine Cornell Theatre, hugs were exchanged, lipstick smudged.
"I had a big idea the other day - a very big idea -
I'll tell you about it," Ms. Kanter said.

It was a classic Rosabeth moment.

Make no mistake, big ideas are her stock in trade. Longtime Harvard
business school professor, yes. Author of 16 books, yes. Named one of
the 50 most powerful women in the world by The Times of London -
yes, yes. But big ideas are what Rosabeth Moss Kanter is really all
about, and she deals in them the way stock brokers deal in blue chips
and mutual funds.

Her latest big idea has been woven into a book titled Evolve!
- a hip, catchy primer on the culture of the digital world. In
fact it is so hip that Ms. Kanter, a middle-aged, self-described child
of the sixties, has also made her own brief, if promotional, foray into
the hip-hop world. The forward to the book is a rap song Ms. Kanter
wrote herself.

No, really. Here's the chorus:

Get ready for the next step

Select the best step

It's a leap in evolution

From the Internet revolution

Just pick a direction

In this world of connection.

So many problems to solve -

You've got to evolve.

Ms. Kanter performed the rap song to a small but delighted audience
during a recent talk on her book at the Katharine Cornell Theatre.

In an interview at her Vineyard home on the Edgartown Great Pond
this week, she agreed that the book is both about youth and e-culture.
"It was very rejuvenating," she said, adding:

"But youth wasn't the heart of the phenomenon; that was
the spirit. I was enjoying this because there was something new to
learn. I was enjoying the newness of it, and I was learning how to
communicate in a language I did not really know."

When she was writing the book (most of it was written on the
Vineyard) she taped near her computer a line from the song My Back
Pages, written by Bob Dylan: I was so much older then, I'm younger
than that now.

In one chapter she wrote:

"For many youthful dotcoms in my e-culture project, the
kitchen is the most important room, and food the most important part of
bonding. Employees bring sleeping bags to work and take pride in pulling
all-nighters that resemble communal living in the office. They are
convinced that they will change the world and that no one over 30 can be
trusted. They spend venture capitalists' money as though it were
allowances from their parents. One senior staffer of a successful Web
design firm enjoys gaining credibility with corporate clients despite
his purple hair. . . . In some circles, hiring experienced professional
managers for Internet startups is referred to as getting adult
supervision."

The book is based on a landmark research project that included 300
on-site interviews and a global survey of 785 companies.

Ms. Kanter, who is known as an expert on managing change in the
business world, argues that the real soul of the dot-com world is
centered not in technology but on the ground, in networks of
relationships.

Her favorite e-business stories include the stories of eBay,
Williams-Sonoma, Reuters, Sun Microsystems and Razorfish.

But if you are looking for loads of numbers and statistics, you
won't find them in Evolve!

"People remember stories better than they remember
statistics," Ms. Kanter said.

In Evolve!, the stories are the book. Still, it is a serious
academic exercise. Ms. Kanter unpacks the e-world in an unusual way,
analyzing what she calls the "style versus substance" issue
that she claims separates the successful companies from the unsuccessful
ones. She compares dot-com management with improvisational theatre.

Unfortunately, while the book was at the printer the dot-com world
unraveled - but Ms. Kanter is sanguine about the subject.

"Books I feel are for the ages, and I have decided there is a
good reason everybody is reading history this summer," she said
with a wry smile, adding: "I was looking for enduring traits,
enduring lessons. So maybe now some people will read it as history, but
really I think it is forward-looking."

She also said:

"I was very skeptical, and I was writing it before the crash.
It's funny because my fear was that I would be seen as too
skeptical and too negative about this new economy, and now I am seen as
too positive. But Williams Sonoma is today one of the most profitable
sites. . . . I feel good about the picks. The book is really about how
the internet changes the culture for the rest of us. Technology is not a
business in itself - it's a tool for the rest of us to get
something done."

Over and over, Ms. Kanter uses community as the metaphor for the
internet age.

"Internet communities are like real-life communities,"
she said. "So then how do you create a common vision and a common
set of goals, how do you get lots of different groups of people moving
in the same direction? On the internet people can talk about fishing,
for example, and they can have all kinds of conversations about fishing,
but it doesn't do anything to save the seas."

Two weeks ago at its annual meeting in Washington, D.C., the
prestigious Academy of Management gave Ms. Kanter a career award for
Scholarly Contributions to Management.

Evolve! also won an award in the offbeat Boston Magazine Best of
Boston competition. The book was named Best Proof that Harvard Cares
About the Inner City.

So what does the guru of managing change say about managing change
on the Vineyard?

"It is the leadership problem of our age - and this is
what Martha's Vineyard experiences, only it experiences it as an
Island," she said. She continued:

"There is a need to get some consensus about what the problems
are, and as I watch I can see these many groups forming: There is the
affordable housing group, there is the presence of The Nature
Conservancy with the power of its national organization behind it. This
is a great model for leadership. But you have to find a way to mobilize
everybody. We're not using the tools to build community."

About the Steamship Authority, Ms. Kanter said simply:
"It's in chaos. It's a mess, and it's one of the
few institutions that spans the Vineyard."

She also said: "We really need to have people involved in
solving the problems rather than leaving it to a few people to create a
plan that we will then complain about. A community needs to be about
common goals, people need to feel part of it and feel responsible for
it. Your people are your resources and you need to figure out what they
have to offer.

"But things evolve, that's the whole point.

"I really wish I had a magic bullet but our problem in America
is we all want a magic bullet. And sometimes it just isn't
there."

In the book she concludes:

"No wonder everyone is searching for answers. But perhaps they
are searching in the wrong place. . . . The answers lie not in
cyberspace but on the ground, where real people make real
choices."

Evolve! is on sale at the Bunch of Grapes in Vineyard Haven and at
Bickerton & Ripley in Edgartown.