Customer Reviews

Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End

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1 star:		(13)

 

 

REVIEW SUMMARY: The author of CONFIDENCE informs the reader "I wrote this book not only to show teams, companies, communities, and countries how to cultivate better leadership. I also had a grander goal: to help people in many walks of life to find the confidence to win whatever game they are playing..." (page 350) Unfortunately, the product of these laudable goals falls woefully short both as a source of wisdom and as an interesting read. Those seeking insight into to how to best lead change, how to increase their own confidence, or strategies for effective leadership in general, should select other sources. Several excellent books are recommended at the end of this review.

REVIEW: CONFIDENCE fails the reader for 3 reasons: 1) the few insights provided are so basic as to be best described as trite; 2) the surplus verbiage and detail embedded in the text and examples causes the reader's mind to wander; and 3) the author's excessive reference to herself is in conflict with the leadership advice she is offering and seems to border on narcissism.

In the book's final chapter Ms. Kanter boils down the breadth of her wisdom to the following hackneyed bit of advice: "By now the secret of winning should be clear: Try not to lose twice in a row." (page 350) The author believes this sentence to be so valuable, indeed, so profound, that she makes it a separate paragraph.

The author indulges herself with superfluous detail that can drive the reader to distraction. For example, in describing the Philadelphia Eagles' need to prioritize their resources and efforts, Ms. Kanter included the following sentence: "Andy Reid's request for software for his Avid computer system had to take a backseat to the technology needs of the stadium." (page 157). This excess verbiage, and countless other examples, is testament to the author's lack of consideration for the fact that the reader's time is valuable, and we struggle with information overload.

Ms. Kanter's frequent references to herself reminds one of a tabloid gossip columnist seeking to convey his/her own self importance. We learn the names of her son and husband, the breed of dog she has, that she lives in Cambridge and walks to work at Harvard Business School along the Charles River in Boston and that she vacations in Martha's Vineyard and Miami. That she was one of the few to be invited to the Economic Summits of both Presidents Bush (senior) and Clinton. And that she plays tennis. It seems to this reviewer that the author includes this insipid text to hide the fact that she does not have much to say of value to the reader.

The excessive use of first person pronouns is perhaps unequaled in managerial professional literature. In the 3.5 paragraphs found on the first page of the Preface, a reader will find the words "my" or "I" 20 times - that's not a typo, twenty uses of first person pronouns in 3.5 paragraphs. I compared the first Preface page of several of the highly regarded management guru Peter Drucker's books and found a complete lack of first person pronouns. Ms. Kanter's extreme reference to herself is consistent throughout the book. It's as if she had no help researching and writing the book. Her assistants and collaborators should be forever thankful of the oversight.

If this book was written by "John Doe" of "No-Name Business School," it would have never been accepted for publication because it is poorly written and contains very little of value.

Recommendations:

Wonderful books on leadership available from Amazon:

1) "John P. Kotter on What Leaders Really Do" by John P. Kotter. The entire book is great, though a little dry, chapters 1 and 4 are brilliant and are worth rereading every year.

2) "Leading At The Edge" by Dennis N. T. Perkins. Perkins' book draws on the incredible story of Shackleton's 1914 - 1916 Antarctic Expedition to reveal the power of effective organizational leadership under conditions of uncertainty, ambiguity, and rapid change. The book uncovers 10 lessons complete with inspiring examples from the Shackleton expedition, as well as contemporary business case studies of the strategies in action on what it takes to be a great leader. A wonderfully written book with very valuable ideas.

Books on "confidence" from Amazon:

1) "Learned Optimism" by Martin E. P. Seligman. Optimism and confidence are inextricably linked. The book is a very interesting to read and provides a self-test to help the reader determine if they look at the world with pessimistic lenses or optimistic lenses. He then goes on to offer techniques for enhancing one's optimism and, therefore, one's confidence. A well researched and written book.

I had great expectations of this book as it started out OK. But soon (within a couple chapters) I realized that the author had run out of new things to say. While there are some non-fiction authors that can captivate and entertain an audience with a single concept (ie... Gladwell w/"Tipping Point/Blink"), this author's writing style seems unusually laborious and repetitive -- languishing in incomprehensible detail. Sad to say, but I think I would have been better off just reading a synopsis of this book.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter's latest work has successfully identified and elaborated an essential, but often glossed-over component of success (and failure): Confidence (and the lack thereof). The book does a terrific job at tackling a slippery subject -- one that would, at first glance, appear to be very hard to study, and even harder to explain. This book could have laid out a theory and left it at that - or it could have told stories without developing a robust conceptual framework. Instead, Kanter's book digs deep inside the concept with surprisingly in-depth case studies of winners and losers (including business leaders, sports teams, and political leaders), and also builds a fresh and incisive model, filled with valuable take-away lessons. Her penetrating analysis of confidence, though intellectual and serious, is written in a clear and accessible manner. I found it not only to be an interesting and fun read, but also a useful resource for work.

Although it is often implied that confidence is a special quality found only in extraordinary individuals - either you have it or you don't - or, alternatively, that "all it takes is believing in yourself," Rosabeth Moss Kanter shows, rather, that confidence is actually a purposeful endeavor, one that can be organized, systematized, and practiced. Only when we understand confidence better, can we successfully apply it in our own lives. And this is why this book is an important read.

There's not an ounce of meat in this book.

This book features a steady stream of the author's self-praise and excessive "name-dropping". The "conclusions" are certainly not original. The thesis of the book is never really developed and the text is directionless and slow.

The word "confidence" gets overused and abused among many personal and business coaches, so I was surprised to see Kanter's choice of title. In a way, it's misleading, because Kanter focuses more broadly on how to capitalize on winning streaks and turn around losing streaks. Confidence is only part of a leadership formula.

Kanter chooses sports examples because they're clear-cut. Wins and losses are easy to identify. However, the lessons from those case histories apply to a variety of business, organizational and personal situations.

If you read carefully, she warns that turnarounds aren't easy. "Try not to lose twice in a row," she warns. If you conclude there's no point in trying to win, there's trouble ahead. Signs of a losing streak include weak accountability, deteriorating relationships and disappearing initiative. "The only good thing about losing is that it sounds an alarm bell," she concludes.

Once you realize you're on a losing streak, Kanter emphasizes, you need to build, not retreat. Stay calm, she says. Dig deeper. Work harder. Seek support, even when you feel like hiding. And most important, remember you can't "jump the processes." Use small steps to achieve big goals. Everybody wants a quick fix and that's a surefire recipe for disaster.

As a career consultant, I am often asked how to break individual losing streaks. Typically a client says something like, "I lost my job, got sick, had family crises, and had to move. And now I'm defeated." Or clients lose one job after another, fueled by discouragement.

Kanter's book has to be translated to reach individuals. Her message seems to be, "Someone has to take charge." In one moving example, a family rallied behind a teenager who was failing math. They bought him nice clothes to communicate, "You're worth it." The stigma of hiring a tutor was defused by making the tutor a member of "Team Robert." In another example, a woman's public humiliation was defused by her husband's strong encouragement.

So if you lack an insightful manager or empathetic relatives, you may have to draw your own plan. Coaches and consultants may become your change managers. I'm working on an article for my website on this very topic.

Bottom line, though, this book clearly targets managers who are in a position to mastermind a turnaround. I'd have liked to see more about the way individual employees or team members can handle themselves, regardless of the leader's capabilities. Should they leave a losing organization? Strengthen themselves and create their own goals?

Kanter has always studied organizations at the macro level and it's not reasonable to ask her to address individuals now. This book deserves attention for frank, unsparing focus on winners and losers, and for an understanding of the way organizations win and lose every day, all around us.

I can't believe the average customer review is greater than 4 stars! This book was a chore to read; I will admit that I could not drag myself throught he entire text. And I mean "text". This book was written like a textbook. I felt I back in college slogging through my required reading. This book was written as if someone did a whole bunch of research (using many different grad students of course), then tried to compile all the data into a book. The problem is, anybody can do that, but few can do that well. The writer loses the reader in all those details, forgeting to stick to the basics, highlight them with interesting examples, and repeat them often. I know she probably thinks she did this, and she did, just not well. I've never seen such an interesting topic made so boring.

Rosabeth Kanter uses relevant case studies to show us how confidence produces winning streaks in every walk of life. This book provides a unique perspective on this heretofore unexplored requisite for success. It is enlightening. Another worthwhile and compelling book that should not be missed if you want to learn how to be emotionally self-reliant and make the most of every situation is Optimal Thinking: How To Be Your Best Self.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter documents example after example of courageous leaders who defied the odds and led their organizations out of failure, danger and/or chaos into shining examples that have inspired millions. Her sports analogies are both easy to relate to and fascinating to read, inspiring leaders (whether or not they have any doubt) with documentation on the efficacy and track record of success that most often follow those who take the high road and lead with courage, ethics, energy and conviction. And if there is any doubt that taking the high road is the best way to turn a losing streak into winning, her analysis of the work of Nelson Mandela is stunningly convincing.

In March 2004, I had the great pleasure of hearing Dr. Kanter recite, sans notes, the outline of the book's final draft with a small group of nonprofit leaders visiting Boston from 15 cities. Her research, insight, analysis, energy, passion and presentation were both astonishing and inspiring. All of us, who face the daunting imperative of fundraising in a poor economy and the many challenges/opportunities, thrills and perils of both profit and and nonprofit corporate leadership, were mesmerized, electrified and totally re-energized by her presentation.

Reading the book only deepens that experience and has motivated me to order 30 copies for the staff and senior corps members of the relatively young (5-year-old) AmeriCorps agency I have the privilege of leading. This is the book that will inspire our team to continue to excel and thrive and soar in taking the services we provide to the next level of growth and leadership in our great community. This book will give our team the confidence of knowing exactly how the best examples of success have been achieved by others, and that confidence will ensure that our program and those we serve in our beloved community will stay in the winner's column.

Penny Bailer, Executive Director, City Year Detroit
09-19-04

Recently I got into a conversation with the guy next to me on the plane about some of the memorable books we had each read in the past few years. Unfortunately, I had to recall `Confidence'-easily the worst book I've read in years.

To describe it as disappointing is to go easy on Ms. Kanter. It is far beyond that, and altogether abominable and embarrassing. That such a prestigious business school like Harvard can tenure a professor who writes such insipid pablum boggles the mind.

Let's start with the central (and only) idea of the book--that winning begets winning and losing begets losing. This of course strikes most people as fairly straightforward and unworthy of a book's worth of elaboration. Yet Ms. Kanter tumbles all over herself to spell out the details: why this is the case (as if someone with an ounce of inferential ability couldn't figure it out in a couple of minutes), how it affects team morale, how it self-perpetuates, etc... And worst of all, endless, endless, endless examples that do nothing or very little to elucidate; rather, they simply restate what has just been said. And they restate and restate and restate.

Tautological (I think the word was invented in anticipation of this book), boring, tedious, insipid, stupid, unthoughtful, unenergetic, disengaged, disrespectful. All these adjectives apply forcefully to the book. Most of all, though, it is utterly uninventive and cliched.

Turn to any page and you'll find such gems of penetrating insight as (forgive me, but these are so funny I have to quote at length):

"Winning feels good, and good moods are contagious. Success makes it easier to view events in a positive light, to generate optimism. It produces energy and promotes morale. It is easier to aim high and expect to reach the target." (P. 29)

"Overcoming obstacles, leaping over hurdles, and recovering from fumbles can strengthen a team that has the discipline not to panic under pressure." (P. 71)

"Once the 'loser' label gets slapped on, those suffering losses are set up to fail. They find it harder to get support, harder to get opportunities." (P. 115)

"Various turnaround tasks operate on different clocks. Bold strokes are fast and can be done by one powerful person; long marches to change culture and behavior take more time and the commitment of many people. Execution is play by play, game by game, while strategy is season by season..." (P. 178)

"People embodying the pathologies of the past can always be replaced, but eliminating the bad does not automatically produce the good. It takes a major effort on the part of leaders to foster confidence that a demoralized company or group is capable of working together and succeeding at it. Restoring people's (sic) confidence in one another requires four kinds of action..." (P. 241)

"Confidence is an expectation of a positive outcome, but what happens when outcomes are negative? The dividing line between winning streaks and losing streaks is the choice of behavior in response to setbacks...

That decision to build rather than retreat, to rally rather than get discouraged, involves viewing setbacks through an optimistic lens, as an opportunity to learn and move on." (P. 357)

And it just goes on and on, mercilessly and cluelessly.


The wisest, most incisive business people read, study and think about far more than just sports and business. I would recommend Ms. Kanter first enroll in a decent freshman-level literature or history seminar. There she can learn to write and, with some effort on her part and perhaps a bit of luck, to formulate some imaginative approaches to problem-solving.

Beyond this bilge, I have had the good fortune to come across many books that have helped address confidence. These are: selected essays by Montaigne and Emerson, `Hamlet', Whitman's "Song Of Myself", David Herbert Donald's biography `Lincoln', `Emotional Intelligence', `Flow', and Jack Welch's `Winning'.

`Confidence' inspires confidence only in the realization that you (no matter who you are) are at least intelligent enough to be the "Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor" at Harvard Business School.

I'm torn in this review... LOVED the high points and the premise - intriguing and powerful... the concepts are tought provoking and the illustrations on point. In between the strong points are redundant, nauseating passages that preach the obvious, as if trying to create a sense of framework, but doing it unnecessarily. Reads like long winded Tom Peters. A shorter book without those passages would have been much better. It's worth reading for the good parts. Darn, wish she'd had a tougher editor and better writing because the concept has the potential for 5 stars.