Rosabeth Moss Kanter - Confidence: How Winning and Losing Streaks Begin and End

Contents

WINNERS AND LOSERS:
HOW CONFIDENCE GROWS OR ERODES

The Locker Room and the Playing Field: Booms, Busts, Streaks, and Cycles

Winning Streaks: The Cycle of Success

Why Winning Streaks End

Losing Streaks: Powerlessness Corrupts and Other Dynamics of Decline

Why Losing Streaks Persist

TURNAROUNDS: THE ART OF BUILDING CONFIDENCE

The Turnaround Challenge

The First Stone: Facing Facts
and Reinforcing Responsibility

The Second Stone:
Cultivating Collaboration

The Third Stone: Inspiring
Initiative and Innovation

A Culture of Confidence:
Leading a Nation from Despair to Hope

IMPLICATIONS AND LIFE LESSONS

Delivering Confidence: The Work of Leaders

Winning Streaks, Losing Streaks, and the Game of Life

To Barry and Matthew, of course

Praise forConfidence

As a long-time admirer of Kanters pioneering work, I can say that this book is a masterpiece. But reader, take note: fasten your safety belt and get ready to be thrown for a loop by the originality, and heretofore uncovered insights and a fresh perspective that will enliven, if not transform, your mind set of how business is done. An astonishing piece of scholarly work written with grace and lucidity.

Warren Bennis, distinguished professor of business administration, USC, and author of On Becoming a Leader

What a completely original way to look at organizations! I found myself nodding in agreement as I read each page. And as much as I believe that confidence and success are inextricably linked, Ive never seen a how-to book on the subject of confidence. Thank you, Rosabeth, for articulating and illustrating for all of us what we instinctively know to be true... success comes to those who believe they will be successful. Congratulations on this important new book.

Shelly Lazarus, chairman and CEO, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide

A novel and very thoughtful approach, this exciting work documents what successful organizations and people learn during the course of their careers: work hard every day, have high standards, demand excellence around you, and stick to your values. The surprising thing is if everybody in an organization does one little thing better than they thought they could, the collective power and positive energy can be astounding. Kanters extensive research shows what that kind of confidence looks like and how great leaders inspire it in others.

Ivan Seidenberg, chairman and CEO, Verizon

Confidence is a riveting account of how winning and losing streaks begin and end. With fascinating examples from the realms of business and sports, this is actionable advice that every business leader can benefit from.

Pamela Thomas Graham, president and CEO, CNBC

This book is packed with real-life examples providing important and profound new insights into the psychology of continuing success or repeated failure. Confidence will make a lasting difference to leaders, and it can help improve the state of the world and the lives of individuals.

Dr. Daniel Vasella, chairman and CEO of Novartis

Confidence provides a fascinating analysis of real-world behavior that creates self-reinforcing cycles of winning and losing. Kanter goes behind the scenes to show how companies, sports teams, and even governments foster winning streaks and succumb to losing streaks. Systems have momentum, yet as Kanter demonstrates, leaders make choices that affect the odds of success, propelling a winning streak or reversing a losing one. Her work demonstrates the critical role of effective leadership in setting high-expectations and instilling confidence in organizations. Her message about the importance of confidence in success makes inspirational reading.

Laura DAndrea Tyson, dean, London Business School, former economic adviser to President Clinton, and Business Week columnist

You dont need a crystal ball to predict who will succeed at the next big challengejust read this remarkable book, and see for yourself how confidence separates winners from losers. From avoiding doom loops to the chemistry of teamwork, everyone from novices to the most experienced leaders can learn from a world-renowned experts brilliant new theory about how to shed losers curses and maintain winners advantages. Confidence provides big ideas of the highest intellectual value and brings them down to earth through engaging, practical stories. Its a winner!

Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO, WPP

Confidence is the right book for our times... a thought-provoking must-read for anyone recharging their organization.

Ann Fudge, chairman and CEO, Young & Rubicam

Confidence is full of important insights and practical ideas. Rosabeth Moss Kanter shows that winning streaks happen when ordinary people get extraordinary results by consistently playing above their game. Whatever your endeavor, these are lessons you can start using today.

Billy Beane, general manager, Oakland As

Rosabeth Moss Kanter brings her deft touch to a subject which is relevant across profession, education, age, race, gender, and all of the other differences that sometimes divide us. Confidence is a great addition to the literature of success (and its less welcome companion, failure).

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University

Preface

My son thinks I wrote this book so I would finally know enough about sports to swap stories and watch ball games together. My corporate clients and senior executive audiences think I wrote it to give them a roadmap for how to get to the top and stay there, especially if they need to turn around unproductive cycles to get in shape for high performance and growth. My civic and nonprofit boards think I wrote it to help them manage through turbulent times and develop strong community leadership.

My Harvard colleagues think I wrote the book to weave my past work on innovation and change into a new theory of organizational cycles and dynamics. My MBA students think I wrote it to make lessons about teamwork in business more interesting by drawing from the best sports teams. My husband thinks I wrote it so I would learn how to persevere even when the roof crumbles over me (which it did, because of the unfortunate timing of renovations).

There is truth in all these professional and personal reasons for writing Confidence. But if I think back on what I had in mind at the beginning, my first goal was empowerment.

I wanted to give more people the tools and the confidence to avoid the destructive patterns of losing streaks and get onto winning pathswhether they are executives concerned with business strategy, managers and employees looking for ways to foster teamwork and a creative work environment, coaches and fans cheering their favorite teams to victory, professionals interested in success trajectories, or community activists seeking to improve the quality of life at home.

I wanted to understand confidence in order to spread it.

The mission of Harvard Business School, where I work, is to educate leaders who make a difference in the world. I get to spend time with people in the highest circles of business and government and advise them. (For example, I was one of a handful of American experts invited to the Economic Summits of both President Clinton in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1992 and President Bush in Waco, Texas, in 2002.) But my students these days are not interested just in business per se; they might wind up being business consultants by day and nonprofit volunteers by night, or working to develop better leadership for public schools, or heading organizations to improve health care or make a dent in global poverty.