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.
Packed with brilliant, practical ideas such as “powerlessness
corrupts” and the “timidity of mediocrity,” Confidence provides
fresh thinking for perpetuating winning streaks and ending losing
streaks in all facets of life—from the factors that can make or
break corporations and governments to the keys for successful
relationships in the workplace or at home.
關於作者:
ROSABETH MOSS KANTER is the Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor at
Harvard Business School. She is the former editor of Harvard
Business Review and is an advisor to prominent corporations,
governments, school systems, and community organizations, from IBM
to the Girl Scouts. Dr. Kanter is the author of such groundbreaking
books as Men and Women of the Corporation winner of the C. Wright
Mills Award for the book that best analyzes a social problem,
The Change Masters, When Giants Learn to Dance, and
Evolve!