Research Catalog

Title

We the possibility : harnessing public entrepreneurship to solve our most urgent problems / Mitchell Weiss.

Author

Weiss, Mitchell (Professor of business)

Publication

• Boston, Massachusetts : Harvard Business Review Press, [2021]
• ©2021

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

viii, 267 pages : illustrations; 25 cm

Summary

"Public entrepreneurship is not an oxymoron. During his years as a public official, Mitchell Weiss was told that government can't do new things or solve tough challenges--it's too big and slow and bureaucratic. Sadly, this is what so many of us have come to believe. But in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, he and his city hall colleagues raced to support survivors in new, innovative ways. This kind of entrepreneurial spirit and savvy in government is growing, transforming the public sector's response to big problems at all levels. In this inspiring and instructive book, Weiss, now a professor at Harvard Business School, argues that we must shift from a mindset of "Probability Government"--overly focused on performance management and on mimicking "best" practices--to "Possibility Government." This means a leap to public leadership and management that embraces more imagination and riskier projects. Weiss shares the basic tenets of this new way of governing in the book's three sections: Government that can imagine. Seeing problems as opportunities, and designing solutions with citizens. Government that can try new things. Testing and experimentation as a regular part of solving public problems. Government that can scale. Harnessing platform techniques for innovation and growth; and how public entrepreneurship can reinvigorate democracy. The lessons unfold in the timely episodes Weiss has seen and studied: a heroin hackathon in opioid-ravaged Cincinnati; a series of blockchain experiments in Tbilisi to protect Georgian property from the Russians; the U.S. Special Operations Command prototyping of a hoverboard for chasing pirates, among many others. At a crucial moment in the evolution of government's role in our society, We the Possibility provides both inspiration and a positive model to help shape progress for generations to come"--

Subject

• Political entrepreneurship
• Public administration > Decision making
• Crisis management in government

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Introduction: Can we solve public problems anymore? -- Part one. Government that can imagine. Problems as opportunities -- Reach up to reach out -- Part two. Government that can try new things. Experimenting in public -- Regulating the future -- Part three. Government that can scale. Government as a platform -- Trisector entrepreneurs -- Inventing democracy -- Part Four. We get the government we invent. Possibility or delusion -- Helping time.

Call Number

JFE 21-5257

ISBN

• 9781633699199
• 1633699196

LCCN

• 2020036286
• 40030367616

OCLC

1138680224

Author

Weiss, Mitchell (Professor of business), author.

Title

We the possibility : harnessing public entrepreneurship to solve our most urgent problems / Mitchell Weiss.

Publisher

Boston, Massachusetts : Harvard Business Review Press, [2021]

Copyright Date

©2021

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Form:

Online version: Weiss, Mitchell, We the possibility Boston, MA : Harvard Business Review Press, [2020] 9781633699205 (DLC) 2020036287

Other Standard Identifier

40030367616

Research Call Number

JFE 21-5257