2qtr2005 - Book Review - Confidence: How Winning Streaks & Losing Streaks Begin & End

Title: Confidence: How Winning Streaks & Losing Streaks Begin & End
Author: Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Link to Purchase: (Don't) buy the book

From the publisher:

From the boardroom to the locker room to the living room--how winners become winners . . . and stay that way. Is success simply a matter of money and talent? Or is there another reason why some people and organizations always land on their feet, while others, equally talented, stumble again and again?

"There's a fundamental principle at work--the vital but previously unexamined factor called confidence--that permits unexpected people to achieve high levels of performance through routines that activate talent. Confidence explains:

• Why the University of Connecticut women's basketball team continues its winning ways even though recent teams lack the talent of their predecessors


• Why some companies are always positively perceived by employees, customers, Wall Street analysts, and the media while others are under a perpetual cloud


• How a company like Gillette or a team like the Chicago Cubs ends a losing streak and breaks out of a circle of doom

The lessons a politician such as Nelson Mandela, who resisted the temptation to take revenge after being released from prison and assuming power, offers for leaders in both advanced democracies and trouble spots like the Middle East "From the simplest ball games to the most complicated business and political situations, the common element in winning is a basic truth about people: They rise to the occasion when leaders help them gain the confidence to do it.

"Confidence is the new theory and practice of success, explaining why success and failure are not mere episodes but self-perpetuating trajectories. Rosabeth Moss Kanter shows why organizations of all types may be brimming with talent but not be winners, and provides people in leadership positions with a practical program for either maintaining a winning streak or turning around a downward spiral.

"Confidence is based on an extraordinary investigation of success and failure in companies such as Continental Airlines, Seagate, and Verizon and sports teams such as the University of North Carolina women's soccer team, New England Patriots, and Philadelphia Eagles, as well as schools, health care, and politics."

The book was filled with a surprising number of case studies. Each one focused on a particular company and how its leadership addressed its problems. Many were absolutely fascinating and I liked how examples of failed turnarounds were also included to help add richness and depth to the materials.

Too, her central theme was a good one - that rebuilding people's confidence in each other is an essential step in ending a team's or an organization's losing streak. So was her discussion of the Three Cornerstones of Confidence, her methodology for enabling such a transition:

1. Facing Facts and Reinforcing Responsibility,


2. Cultivating Collaboration, and


3. Inspiring Initiative and Innovation.

And in what was, perhaps, the most important paragraph in the whole book - Chapter 1; Page 7 - Dr. Kanter succinctly addressed what confidence is, what it influences, and what it is influenced by:

Confidence consists of positive expectations for favorable outcomes. Confidence influences the willingness to invest - to commit money, time, reputation, emotional energy, or other resources - or to withhold, or hedge investment. This investment, or its absence, shapes the ability to perform.

Yet on the whole, I found the book to be a very long, difficult, and only somewhat rewarding read. The author took almost 200 pages to set-up her discussion on the Cornerstones, something her editor could have better addressed. Too, there were so many richly-detailed case studies that I found myself skipping over many of them just so I wouldn't lose the point the author was trying to make by including them. And, while Dr. Kanter has much to be proud of, I found her style to be unflatteringly self-aggrandizing. So it's good I read the book so you don't have to!

The important thing to remember about Confidence: How Winning Streaks & Losing Streaks Begin & End is that if you're looking to build confidence in your team, in your team members, or in yourself, you must be willing to invest an appropriate amount of money, time, reputation, emotional energy, and other resources. That idea is definitely a keeper.