EVENTS 2019-05-20T23:35:31+00:00

THOMAS A. ROSSMAN

A Message From AIP’s Founder

After the fall of the Soviet Union, I spent many years in the FSU and Eastern Europe, witnessing firsthand the misery, devastation, and poverty of a failed political and economic system. I also witnessed the painful and largely unsuccessful attempts by many of those newly independent states to transition into open, democratic societies. These experiences led me to begin intensively investigating the nature and history of how political decisions are made on every level and how they can be fundamentally improved.

The final tribulation that set me on this journey was being in NYC during 9/11 and having the horrifying experience of watching the Twin Towers burn from my bedroom window. The accumulated weight of these searing tragedies and the disturbing decline of our own political process over the past two decades has inspired me to dedicate my life to transforming the American political process and, in so doing, to shine a light for other countries around the world to follow.

As a financial consultant and emerging markets specialist, I have traveled the world in search of a better understanding of how and why people think and make decisions the way that they do. As an idealistic young businessman, all of my theoretical aspirations were shattered by the rough-and-tumble world of financial and geopolitical reality. This wake-up call has fueled my passion—just as the great innovators in science, technology, medicine and industry before me—to systematically discover what works and what does not in the political realm.

INTERVIEWS, SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS, & PRESENTATIONS
WITH THOMAS A. ROSSMAN

MEDIA TAGLINES

  • To err is human, to innovate, divine
  • You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks
  • Solutions, not illusions
  • Error is the enemy, not each other
  • We all have different ways of looking at the world, so let’s systematically discover what works and what does not
  • We all make mistakes, we all have bias—get over it
  • Let’s declare war on bad ideas, not each other
  • Innovation has transformed every aspect of our daily lives and our modern world—why not politics?
  • We are all prisoners of our own predispositions

  • Innovation is both a mindset and a methodology
  • End our reliance on the tired, old, failed ideas of the past
  • Narrow, one-dimensional, linear thinking will never solve problems in a complex, dynamic world
  • Innovation will transform our politics, just as it has every other field to which it has been applied

TOPICS

 

HOW THE POWER OF INNOVATION CAN BE UTILIZED TO SOLVE ANY PROBLEM

Innovation has transformed every aspect of our daily lives and every facet of the modern world.  In fact, every field to which innovation has been applied, we have witnessed exponential success.  Science, technology, medicine, industry, agriculture have all transitioned from Medieval darkness to the illumination of modernity through the mindset and methodology of innovative problem solving.  Every person and every organization on earth has access to this miracle of modernity, if you are willing to learn how to apply it properly by using the mindset and methodology of innovative problem solving.  This discussion covers both the theoretical and practical aspects of discovering and implementing the best solutions.

CURB YOUR DOGMATISM

Before John Locke wrote his seminal masterpiece The Two Treatises of Government, which became the foundational work for all modern democracy, he and his colleagues thought it might be useful to fully grasp how people thought about the world and formed their views. This exercise led to the foundational work of British Empiricism, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

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This is the approach I take in Curb Your Dogmatism.  Here are a few observations to frame the discussion:

  • Several recent studies have comprehensively analyzed the increasing breakdown of the American electorate into partisan tribes. Polarization has been increasing for decades, but the recent trend of bitter tribalism is uniquely foreboding for the future of American politics.
  • At the same time, according to USAFacts.org, 88 percent of Americans prefer government policies that are based on facts and evidence, not dogma or partisanship. Further, 67 percent are part of the “exhausted majority” which is not reflexively wedded to either side, and 61 percent explicitly believe we need to listen and compromise more.
  • The disconnection between the duopolistic extremes and the vast majority in the middle is our complete lack of a mindset and methodology for solving political problems.  Innovation is the cure to both of these ills. It is the most effective tool for solving problems that humanity has ever discovered, and in every field to which it has been applied it has yielded exponential progress.

To err is human, to innovate, divine! Partisan tribalism has been with us since Cain and Abel and is not going away anytime soon unless we take steps to combat it. With the advances in psychology, behavioral economics and cognitive neuroscience, we now understand with great precision how intimately tribalism, dogma, ideology, and cultural differences are infused in our thinking. We have also learned how to effectively overcome this barrier to solve problems through creative, innovative thinking and action.  Innovation has transformed every aspect of our daily lives and our entire modern world, and it can empower us to transform our political process as well! As Albert Einstein averred, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Innovation will empower us to overcome the dividing and dysfunctional influence of partisan tribalism and transform our entire political process.

AMERICAN INNOVATION PARTY/MOVEMENT

The entire story of the United States is tightly intertwined with innovation.  From the Pilgrims and pioneers to the Founding Fathers and forward-thinking entrepreneurs, Americans have always striven to improve the way we do things. This spirit of innovation is one of our defining qualities as a people and one of the foundational pillars of American Exceptionalism. It is therefore only logical that we would be the first to apply the mindset and methodology of innovative problem-solving to our political process and light the way to inspire the world.

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Solutions you can believe in:

Over the past three centuries, every aspect of the modern world that has transformed, improved, and extended our lives is a direct result of the relentless pursuit of innovation. By applying the same time-tested, proven approach, we also have the ability to transform and improve our divided and dysfunctional political process. More specifically, the benefits of modern technology, medicine, communications, industry, and agriculture in our daily lives are all a byproduct of massive innovation in those fields.

The reason for this unparalleled success is very simple: Innovation is the most effective problem-solving tool in human history. In every field to which it has been applied, we have consistently generated creative solutions and exponential advancement. Unfortunately, politics has not been one of those fields—until now. If history is any guide, then innovation can empower Americans to unite our polarized polity while fundamentally improving our divided and dysfunctional political process.

BOOK THOMAS A. ROSSMAN

Please contact him at 917-589-5994 or Tom@AmericanInnovationParty.com

Author Profile

Thomas “Tom” Rossman is an emerging global thought leader in improving political and economic decision-making. He has spent his career studying and investigating how people around the world can think and interact more effectively. As a young executive in finance during the 1990s, Mr. Rossman was an early champion of developing markets, investing in the newly emerging countries of Latin America and Asia far ahead of the crowd.

Following communism’s collapse, Mr. Rossman took a key role at the leading Turkish investment bank, Global Securities, bringing American capital and investment to the developing markets of the Former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Turkey, and North Africa. By assisting in the privatization process within Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, Mr. Rossman became an important link between Western capital and know-how in the early stages of modernizing these formerly closed economic systems.

First as an institutional advisor and then as an independent consultant, he continued to advocate the sustainable development of democratic and stable free market institutions and expanding economic opportunity throughout the region. More recently, Mr. Rossman provided a similar advisory role to major holding companies and financial institutions in the Middle East seeking to effectively navigate through the volatility of the global financial crisis.

Mr. Rossman has spoken on these topics at conferences around the world, including in London, New York, Istanbul, Baku, Almaty, Bishkek, Tashkent, Stockholm, Washington DC, and Houston, and he has lived in both Turkey and Kuwait. He studied religion and history at Nyack College in Nyack, New York, and did his master’s work in international relations at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Medford, Massachusetts.

His book The Synthesis Revolution: New Thinking for a New Era of Prosperity was released in November 2012 and is available in paperback and e-book formats. His forthcoming book, Forming a More Perfect Union, is an updated social contract for America in the 21st century.