Karthik Ramanna on "The Age of Outrage: How to Lead in a Polarized World"

Following the conversation, we invite you to join us for a meet-and-greet with the author, book signing and light refreshments.

The Age of Outrage: How to Lead in a Polarized World (Harvard Business Review Press, October 29, 2024)

Karthik Ramanna, Professor of Business and Public Policy, University of Oxford

Kenneth Corts, Vice-Dean, Research, Strategy, and Resources; Academic DirectorLee-Chin Institute for Corporate Citizenship, Rotman School of Management

A first-of-its-kind look at the outrage being directed at organizations across the globe—and how leaders can respond to it.

Outrage is everywhere—on the left and on the right—and many companies are finding themselves in the crosshairs. Go Fund Me was pressured to cut off funding to protesting truckers in Ottawa. Disney's CEO was dragged down for mishandling both sides of Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law. Facebook and other tech companies have been accused of manipulating elections in many countries and by many parties. People are angry with the world—in some cases, rightfully so—and now view companies as they do governments: as targets of their ire and potential forces for social change. Managing outrage has moved from being an occasional leadership challenge, such as handling a PR crisis, to a necessary and critical leadership capability, like strategic thinking or financial acumen.

Based on his popular Oxford leadership program and deep-dive case studies on organizations such as IKEA, Nestlé, the London Metropolitan Police, the Vatican, and others, Karthik Ramanna offers a set of practices for leaders to navigate this age of polarization—steps leaders can take to make sense of the outrage they encounter, work with relevant stakeholders to progress through it, and emerge stronger for it. Ramanna's practical framework, developed through years of experience with organizations, helps leaders "turn down the temperature," analyze root causes, develop and implement distinctive organizational responses that are mission consistent, and build individual and organizational resilience.

Just as governments have systems for managing regular adverse-weather events such as hurricanes, organizations and their leaders now need an equivalent for managing the stakeholder hostilities that contextualize nearly all their decisions. This book is the essential guide for managing in the age of outrage.

Karthik Ramanna is a professor of business and public policy at University of Oxford's Blavatnik School of Government, where he's served as director of one of the world's most diverse leadership programs. Previously a professor at Harvard Business School, Ramanna studies how leaders build trust with stakeholders. He is an expert on business-government relations and has won numerous awards, including the Harvard Business Review McKinsey Award for groundbreaking management thinking, the Journal of Accounting and Economics Best Paper Prize, and the international Case Centre's Outstanding Case Writer prize, dubbed by the Financial Times as "the business school Oscars."

Professor Kenneth S. Corts is Vice-Dean, Research, Strategy, and Resources and Academic Director of the Lee-Chin Institute for Corporate Citizenship at the Rotman School of Management. He also holds the Desautels Chair in Entrepreneurship and is a professor in the Economic Analysis and Policy area. Professor Corts is a microeconomist with research and teaching interests in industrial organization, competition policy, organizational economics, and energy policy; he has published his research in leading academic journals such as the Rand Journal of Economics, the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, the Journal of Industrial Economics, and the Journal of Law and Economics.

This event is available to attend in-person or virtually via livestream.

Rotman Events is committed to accessibility for all people. If you have any access needs or if there are any ways we can support your full participation in this session, please email Mandi Gosling [[email protected]] no later than 2 weeks in advance of the event and we will be glad to work with you to make the appropriate arrangements.

• The event will be hosted in Desautels Hall at the Rotman School of Management (105 Saint George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3E6). Your registration fee includes a copy of the book, meet-and-greet with book signing by the author, as well as access to a video replay of the session for 30 days.

• Rotman Events will email registrants a link to the livestream. Your registration fee includes access to the livestream, video replay for 30 days, a copy of the book and shipping fees. The book will be shipped to registrants after the event. Please allow 3 - 4 weeks for delivery.

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• In-person registrants who do not pick up their book at the event will have 5 business days to request postal delivery by emailing us at [email protected]. All unclaimed books will be returned to the publisher after that time.

Questions: [email protected], Mandi Gosling

Host or Publisher Rotman Events