About Author/s:

Karthik Ramanna is professor of Business and Public Policy at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government. An expert on business-government relations, sustainable capitalism, and corporate reporting and auditing, Professor Ramanna studies how organizations and leaders build trust with stakeholders. His scholarship has won numerous awards, including the Journal of Accounting and Economics Best Paper Prize, the Harvard Business Review McKinsey Award for “ground-breaking management thinking,” and three times the international Case Centre’s prizes for “outstanding case-writing,” dubbed by the Financial Times as “the business school Oscars.” He previously taught at Harvard, having gained his PhD at MIT.

Context

Climate change, globalization, immigration, gender identity, AI – these and many other topics are increasingly touch-paper issues that can cause uproar and outrage in moments, especially if some word or policy is accidentally misdirected or communicated. Humans are no different at their core to how we were fifty or even several hundred years ago, but the world we now live in has changed immensely. Technology, social media particularly, allows sparks of anger and disgust to be amplified and supported in a way that it never could have in a small community. Dispersed groups of the outraged can now coalesce online and self-organize to create momentum and noise and disruption that could never have been established before.

The challenge for leaders everywhere today, is to be able to identify these potential incendiary events early on, and either dispel the heat from them before they ignite, or more challengingly to extinguish the conflagration when they do occur. This may not be as physically dangerous as the work of a real fire-fighter, but nonetheless it is an increasingly important skill for all leaders to have at their disposal – as we now live in an Age of Outrage, and incendiary incidents become increasingly frequent and have the potential to do as much damage, or possibly even more, to organizations, whether for-profit, non-profit or governmental, as real fires can.

This book is Karthik Ramanna’s template for just such an approach. He disarmingly describes his shock at realizing that despite being a gay, Indian immigrant from a working-class background he was still very much seen as ‘part of the establishment’ once he had become an Oxford professor – and therefore a legitimate target for the outrage of those he now sees as seeing themselves as desperate (do not think the current leaders and institutions can make lives better), excluded (believe that those leaders and institutions have given them a raw deal) and isolated (see that the blame lies with hostile or alien “others”).

Core Idea

Karthik Ramanna sets out his stall very clearly in the first chapter of the book:

“The framework that I present in this book offers an approach through which leaders faced with angry stakeholders can make sense of the outrage they are confronted with, work with relevant stakeholders to progress through it, and perhaps even emerge stronger for it.”

and the rest of the book takes us through the elements of the framework. At the heart of the concept is the ambition to dampen the outrage, or as he puts it ‘turn down the temperature in the moment’, and this is done in that most human of ways – though conversation, discussion and trying to create conditions where each side, rather than ‘othering’ one another, actually can start to see the situation through a different lens. This does not mean they will agree with what they previously could not tolerate, but they may be able to tolerate it.

Ramanna’s framework is initially based upon the work of Craig Anderson, a psychology professor who developed the General Aggression Model (GAM) in his 2002 paper. The GAM is a behavioural theory that distils a variety of complex psychological concepts, and identifies two sets of aggression processes: proximal ones – those immediately associated with aggressive behaviour; and distal ones – those that are based on long-term behavioural tendencies.

On top of this model Ramanna has developed his framework to de-escalate aggression which he sets out in a four-step process.

1. Identifying the outrage drivers
2. Scoping possible responses
3. Understanding the power available to influence these
4. Building future resilience

Perhaps Ramanna’s greatest insight though is that dealing with outrage, and more importantly ‘the outraged’, should not be viewed as something that we do on ad hoc, handle it as we encounter it, type of approach, but rather as a systematic process.

“Just as governments have systems for managing regular adverse weather events…so organizations and their leaders need an equivalent for managing the stakeholder hostilities that now contextualize nearly all their decisions“.

And the follow-on couplet of axioms he sets out:

1. no matter what you do, you can never fully address the demands made of you
2. no matter what you do, you will be seen as part of the problem

Accepting these realities is fundamental – outrage is provoked by a complex intertwining of issues, and it is important to accept that you are hugely unlikely to perfectly resolve it, certainly not by yourself alone. Ramanna highlights that understanding this is crucial, and removes you from the self-idea of being a heroic leader, which in itself would only add to most problems. The solutions, like the outrage itself, will evolve as conditions and event emerge and all that a leader can do is manage that emergence through the model.

“I do recognize that internalizing these truths can be a challenge for many leaders. It certainly was a challenge for me. It requires leaders to accept their limitations…and the very gut instinct that many leaders have…” he admits.

Conclusion

In a world where aggressive reactions are frequently stoked by environments that the receivers of the outrage may not be aware of, or party to – that is the outrage is fostered online or by groups otherwise ‘off-stage’ from where the outrage is occurring – the ability to be able to de-escalate that outrage is clearly increasingly valuable.

Ramanna’s framework seems like a solid platform for leaders to work from. In essence, his framework is an adaptation of how we are recommended to deal with our own anger outbursts. Search for ‘managing your amygdala hijack’ and the first thing to do is ‘slow down; name your emotions; be understanding’ and this is really what we are being asked to do in this organizational setting, not with yourself, but with others.

Like all skills, even if your intuition tells you to respond in this way, it is useful to understand the process from a theoretical perspective – and so putting it into action is more structured and intentional. Like so much of good leadership, being intentional rather than reactive makes you more controlled, and that in itself aids the process.

“The leadership instinct most appropriate for the age of outrage emerges incrementally from the bottom-up, as a result of active listening and deep humility, especially from those in positions of power.”

How often do we see these key attributes being expounded – absolutely correctly – as the fundamental basis of good leadership? Listen attentively, be humble. The answers are around you, create the conditions so that they can emerge and others can see that they have the agency to put them into action. Ramanna highlights the Stoics in his closing pages:

“it is because the stoics understand that they cannot control everything, that they make resilient leaders. And it is when leaders are resilient that they can really have sustainable impact.”

BUY THIS BOOK

• Title: Managing in the Age of Outrage: How to lead in a polarized world

  Author/s Name/s: Karthik Ramanna

  Publisher: HBR Press

  ISBN: 978-1-647-826-29-1

  Publishing Date: October, 2024

  Number of Pages: 272

• Author Knowledge Rating: 1-5 (based on their years of experience, academic expertise in subject areas, and exposure to cross-functional thinking in the area)
  Readability: 1-5 score(1=dense and v academic; 5=frantic; page turner)
  Appropriate Length: (1=could have been written in 25% of the length;5=could have been longer)
  Core Idea Value: (1=nonsense (or entirely esoteric); 5=game-changer)