Unifying Leadership in a Divided Time

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2024

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Around the world, the past few years have been marked by increasing political polarization and public outrage. Like it or not, this spills over into the business world, with employees, customers, and shareholders more willing than ever to challenge companies -- and one another -- on a range of issues. It's hard to know how to lead gracefully in such turbulent times, but Karthik Ramanna, professor at the University of Oxford's Blavatnik School of Government, has some answers. Drawing on his work with government officials and corporate executives, he walks us through the root causes of our current crisis, explains how to effectively navigate through disagreement, and offers practical takeaways for managers at every level. Ramanna is the author of the book The Age of Outrage: How to Lead in a Polarized World.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Got 30 minutes? Join Capital Group CEO Mike Gitlin for a new monthly edition of the Capital Ideas podcast, brought to you by Capital Group, home of American Funds Distributors, Inc.
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0:17.5	In a world of pocket computers, AI poetry, and 3D printed rockets, it can feel impossible to keep up.
0:24.9	So if you want a glimpse into what's next, the chart-topping A16C podcast brings on some of the world's most influential minds from Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak to the first CTO of the CIA.
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0:59.3	Welcome to the HBRI Deacast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Alison Beard.
1:12.9	Over the past decade or so, it seems like our debates over social, political, and economic issues have dramatically intensified.
1:19.5	Around the world, people are at each other's throats over everything from COVID restrictions to climate change to campus protests.
1:23.3	We see anger expressed on the streets and across social media.
1:28.5	And increasingly, it's spilling over into the business world in the form of consumer boycotts,
1:31.4	employee strikes, and colleagues who struggle to collaborate.
1:36.9	In this highly polarized time, it's harder than ever to separate what goes on outside an organization from the work that needs to happen inside it.
1:39.8	So what are leaders and managers to do?
1:42.7	Our guest today says there's a way to break out of this constant crisis management mode.
1:47.0	It involves strategies to take the temperature down, analyze the outrage, shape and bound the response,
1:53.0	understand your power, and build resilience.
1:56.0	Carthick Ramana is a professor of business and public policy at the University of Oxford's Blavatnik School of Government.
2:02.9	He wrote the book, The Age of Outrage, How to Lead in a Polarized World, and the HBR article Managing in the Age of Outrage.
2:10.5	Carthic, welcome.
2:11.9	Such a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me, Allison.
2:15.6	Taking a long view, there have been certainly other periods of
2:20.0	vehement disagreement on issues in the U.S. You know, I'm thinking about the civil rights era,
	...

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