Currents:Book Review—Starting From Where You Are:Journeys Toward Renewal and Confidence GILL IAN RICE

Moltz, Barry J. Bounce! Failure, Resiliency, andConfidence to Achieve Your Next Great Success.John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2008. 256 pp.ISBN: 978-0470224083 (hardcover) $24.95.

Pratt, Courtney, and Gaudet, Larry. Into the BlastFurnace: The Forging of a CEO’s Conscience.Random House Canada, 2008. 352 pp.ISBN: 978-0307356031 (hardcover) $34.95.

Kinzer, Stephen. A Thousand Hills: Rwanda’s Re-birth and the Man Who Dreamed It.John Wiley & Sons, 2008. 400 pp.ISBN: 978-0470120156 (hardcover) $25.95.

Economists and political specialists are analyzing thecurrent global financial crisis and the role of gov-ernment and business leaders in reversing what isviewed as a failure of the economy. The election slo-gan of new U.S. President Barack Obama—“Yes, wecan”—inspired many Americans to believe they canact in concert to survive their country’s economic,social, and foreign policy challenges. And three re-cent books tell stories of very different postfailureadvances.

According to Barry Moltz in Bounce!: “Many thingscan create failure—create, not cause: a person’s ac-tions, the actions of others, the external environ-ment, or perhaps the phases of the moon.” Individ-uals need to realize that failures inevitably happen;what is important is how people deal with them.To succeed after failure, one needs to be resilientand confident. Courtney Pratt and Larry Gaudet au-thored Into the Blast Furnace, a memoir of Pratt’stenure as CEO of Canadian steelmaker Stelco, Inc.

during its bankruptcy court proceedings. They ex-plain that they present the memoir because storiesdie out if they are not shared, and this particularlyapplies to the moral insights that Pratt’s story hasto offer. Economic recession and bankruptcy re-flect failures that pale in comparison to the genocideRwanda experienced during the 1990s. Rwanda’spresident, Paul Kagame, however, has led a recov-ery from civil war into an era that appears peace-ful, exciting, and full of promise—a journey StephenKinzer reports in A Thousand Hills.

It is odd that conventional business wisdom pro-nounces that failure is good because it teaches peopleso much, yet most people are unwilling to talk abouttheir disasters as openly as they talk about their suc-cesses. Moltz advocates that people learn to acceptfailure without shame because shame is the glue thatkeeps them stuck in the past. Much of his book fo-cuses on entrepreneurs, who, he says, should adopta mantra: “I am not my business. A failed businessor failed event does not make me a failure.” Accept-ing and learning to recognize how each experienceis positive or negative has value in helping people todecide what to do next. Moltz shares an intriguingBuddhist parable that deals with the challenge of let-ting go of past events. Two monks walked by a riveras they returned to their monastery. They noticed awoman dressed as a bride crying on the riverbankand learned that she needed to cross the river to getto her wedding but did not want to get her dress wet.These monks belonged to a sect that forbade themfrom touching women in any way, but one of themonks ignored this rule and picked up the womanand carried her across the river, thus saving her wed-ding gown. The second monk was very angry and

c© 2009 Wiley Per iodicals , Inc .Publ ished onl ine in Wi ley InterScience (www.interscience.wi ley .com)

Global Business and Organizat ional Excel lence • DOI : 10.1002/ joe .20261 • March/Apr i l 2009 87

continually scolded the first monk all the way backto the monastery. The first monk’s mind was hap-pily focused on the sunshine and the beautiful natureall around him. After reaching the monastery, hewent to bed. In the middle of the night, the secondmonk woke him up and asked him how he couldhave carried the woman across the river when heknew it was forbidden. The first monk was puzzledand asked, “What woman?” The second monk re-minded him of what he had done. “Ah, yes,” repliedthe first monk, “I only carried her across the river,but you have carried her all the way back to themonastery!”

Cultural differences relating to acceptance ofentrepreneurial failure should be taken into accountin decision making. Moltz presents examplesof the Vietnamese, Greek, Japanese, Australian,New Zealand, and Swedish cultures, where thestigma of failure is much greater than it is inNorth America and lasts much longer. Onestudy examines whether or not people would dobusiness with those who have failed before. Inthe United States, 45 percent of people surveyedwould not do business with people who had failed,whereas in Sweden, this percentage was almost70 percent. The annual Global EntrepreneurshipMonitor (http://www.gemconsortium.org/) is across-national assessment of entrepreneurial ac-tivity in over 40 countries. This study definescountries as having a high “failure index” whenpeople are afraid to fail because of social stigma orgovernmental penalties. A high index leads to a lowrate of entrepreneurship, except in high-necessitycountries (or developing countries like Rwanda,a nation the size of the U.S. state of Maryland)where people have no alternative; this is termed“necessity-driven entrepreneurship.”

In traveling across Rwanda, Kinzer was puzzledto notice only one short stretch of illuminatedhighway. The streetlights, he discovered, wereerected by Gerard Sina, an entrepreneur regardedby President Paul Kagame as an exemplary citizen.

Sina, the son of a subsistence farmer, has no formaleducation. In the Rwandan genocide of 1994, helost most of what he had, including the bakerybusiness he had begun in his early twenties. Bythe end of 1994, however, he had started bakingagain, and now has a strip of businesses alongthe highway: a bakery, a restaurant, a motel, asnack bar, and clean restrooms—the only highwayrest stop in Rwanda. More notable is that Sinais one of East Africa’s leading producers of juice,jam, preserves, and banana beer. His attempts toexport fruit failed when he realized the fruit priceswere too low to guarantee an income and spoilagewas too high. Instead, he decided to add value.He started to make and export fruit products. Hepersuaded 2,000 farmers in the area around hisprocessing plant to replace their subsistence cropswith fruit. He provides agronomists to teach themand has demonstration gardens of fruit and herbs.Other enterprises of Sina’s include a brick factory, acarpentry shop, a livestock compound, and a school.

To develop the sense of ease and the confidenceof someone like Sina, Moltz advises that individ-uals must come to the realization that they can sur-vive almost any outcome, despite how treacherousit may be—then they can look forward with theconfidence that they will be okay. He argues thatfailure, no matter how it is created, can be refresh-ing because it gives people the ability to start afreshwith a modified or entirely new outlook that hasa new probability for success. Once they let go ofwhat has happened, they have a fresh chance to suc-ceed. Moltz quotes Mary Schmich, a columnist withthe Chicago Tribune, who sums up losing like this:“Sometimes losing is like a soft rain at the end of asearing desert day. It comes as a relief. Losing canbe liberation, reorientation, freeing you to do some-thing gentler on your soul.” And Moltz reports thatAlberto Alessi, the Italian product designer, believesthat people should actually revel in failure. Alessideclares: “Dance on the borderline between successand disaster. Because that’s where your next break-through will come from.” He places all his failed

88 March/Apr i l 2009 Global Business and Organizat ional Excel lenceDOI : 10.1002/ joe

products in a private museum where he has weeklydiscussions with his designers.

Moltz posits that people can do better and deal withfailure more appropriately if they set up their ownmeasures of success or failure (thus freeing themfrom the ambiguity or misleading indications fromsociety or other people) and, significantly, if thesemeasures are not dollar-based. Moltz concludes thatto gain true business confidence and resiliency, peo-ple must learn to value the process over the outcome.When failure occurs, it should be regarded as just an-other decision point. Active decisions are what leadto a “bounce” and a natural flow of one’s businesslife. Likewise, Pratt and Gaudet focus on the processof a very public admission of failure: a bankruptcycourt proceeding. Their perspective on failure is sim-ilar to Moltz’s, as they write: “you can choose notto learn from the hardest life experiences. Or, youcan absorb the blow and, if you’re lucky, use it tohumanize yourself—to focus your attention on thepeople who really matter.”

In discussing a passage through failure, Pratt andGaudet focus more on the human side of the processthan on its business or financial side. The formatof their book is unusual, as it is told in the thirdperson, in the form of a novel. It details thecharacters involved and the relationships betweenthem and provides vivid descriptions of places. It is,on the one hand, a story told through the concernsof the workers and retirees of the steel company,and on the other hand, a tale told through theconscience of Courtney Pratt himself, who was,at the time of the bankruptcy proceedings, theCEO. Each chapter is separated from the next bya “conscience dialogue,” which is a fictional, butrealistic, conversation between Pratt and variousplayers, such as a steelworker, a hedge fund partner,a Stelco pensioner, a public relations consultant,and a lawyer. The stress Pratt endures is palpable.

Many executives will identify with Pratt’s difficultiesof trying to separate family and work lives. North

American culture teaches that these are separate eth-ical domains; Pratt finds that the pressure was in-tense to visualize the Stelco workforce as a mass ofnumbers on a spreadsheet, not as individuals con-nected to families, which are in turn connected tocommunities. Although Pratt recognizes that bound-aries should be respected between the family and theworkplace, he believes that the integrity of an execu-tive’s actions in both spheres needs to be consistent.

The ideal reader, Pratt and Gaudet explain, is any-one who has struggled with ethical challenges. Suchpeople are likely to become more numerous as moreand more executives are faced with downsizingdecisions in the worsening economy. Pratt believesthat one must protect one’s moral imagination—theability to empathize with the people whose livesone affects by one’s decisions—and this beginswith knowing oneself. It’s crucial to have a strongsense of self. It is also crucial to have a strongsense of nationhood, but at the same time, thismust not be naı̈ve. Should governments intervenewith restrictions on foreign ownership? Shouldthey create economic development strategies thatdefine a more patriotic linkage between indigenouscorporate ownership and national prosperity? Prattrecognizes that these questions must be answeredin the context of the forces of globalization that de-mand economies be open to foreign investors. Alsorelevant is that consumers in North America enjoythe lower prices gained from global manufacturerslocated in developing nations. The question must beposed: Are people prepared to give up some of thoselower prices to subsidize economic security at homeand invest more strategically in North Americancompanies, workers, and products? The center ofthese dilemmas for Pratt and Gaudet is Canada, butthe decisions are relevant to many nations in a worldof increasing interdependence and reciprocity. Apertinent, unfolding story concerns the North Amer-ican automobile industry. Pratt and Gaudet’s bookis not merely a serious examination of the moralissues involved in a bankruptcy. It’s also hilarious inparts: lively and ironic. It’s evocative of the pressures

Global Business and Organizat ional Excel lence March/Apr i l 2009 89DOI : 10.1002/ joe

of legalistic maneuverings, surprises in the court-room, and all-night hotel meetings where somethingmust be achieved. If one didn’t view some of theseincidents with a sense of humor, one could not cope.“No matter how far I get from Stelco,” Pratt affirms,“it keeps stalking me.” One suspects that the writingof the book was cathartic for Pratt. It is likely alsoto be helpful to other executives as they experiencemoral dilemmas during economic hard times.

Kinzer’s account of a failure and renewal providesa panoramic view of an entire nation, albeit asmall African one of about ten million people,two-thirds of whom live below the poverty line.His investigation of the role of Paul Kagame inRwanda’s rebirth begins with a question: Why didRwanda, the “land of a thousand hills,” recoverfrom its catastrophe while Somalia is still mired inchaos and anarchy? A PBS Frontline report by JanetTobias confirms Kinzer’s impressions of progress(http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/2008/10/rwanda after th.html). Tobias observes simple signsof advancement, such as almost no trash on thestreets; virtually everyone obeying traffic laws;motorcycle taxi drivers and their passengers alwayswearing helmets; and women walking alone safelyafter dark.

There remain daunting challenges—extreme pover-ty, a landlocked, overpopulated country, and aplace where hatred does continue to fester. Indeed,Rwanda is being implicated in continuing troublesamong armed groups in the DR Congo, a conflictthat might be related to the Hutu versus Tutsi clashesof the past in Rwanda. President Kagame preachesa doctrine of security, guided reconciliation, honestgovernance, and, above all, self-reliance. Kinzer’sbook documents Rwanda’s history, from precolo-nial times through colonization by Belgium, thegenocide, and the failure of world leaders to pre-vent Rwanda’s collapse to the reconciliation courtsand improvements of the present day. Parallelingpart of this is Kagame’s life, from his early years ina refugee camp in Uganda, to rebel leader, and then

his selection as president by his colleagues in thegovernment. This framework is necessary for thereader to assess Rwanda’s evolution. Kinzer asks: IsKagame a prudent leader who limits freedom onlyto the extent necessary to safeguard his people or aninstinctively repressive one who overstates threats inorder to protect his own personal power?

The truth of the movie Hotel Rwanda and itspremise about the heroism of the hotel manager whoprotected refugees is disputed by the government ofRwanda. Critics from human rights organizationslist abuses of freedom that still occur in Rwanda.Kinzer found that diplomats today, however, praiseKagame’s accomplishments, as do Christian evan-gelicals. Kinzer gives numerous illustrations of howthe lives of Rwandans are improving slowly andconcludes that any criticisms have to be placed ina broader context of Rwanda’s situation.

What are the characteristics of Kagame as a leaderin charge of bringing Rwanda back from fail-ure? He has ambitious goals, laid out in a sweep-ing development plan, Vision 2020: “politicallystable,” “without discrimination,” “a prosperousknowledge-based economy,” as well as a 50-percentreduction in the number living in poverty and a 50-percent reduction in infant mortality over the pe-riod 2000–2020. Commensurate with the views ofMoltz and Pratt and Gaudet, Kagame stresses actionand processes: “taking their time when they shouldbe moving fast, people tolerating mediocrity whenthings could be done better.” Citizens of Rwanda are“serious and correct.” Some students of Rwanda,Kinzer observes, call it the “Prussia of Africa.” Theregime has a campaign against corruption. Part ofthis involved the confiscation of government offi-cials’ luxury vehicles in 2004. Notable is the com-plete absence of any of Kagame’s relatives frompublic life.

Kagame is reluctant to accept the status quo. Heexplains: “In my life, I always ask questions. Youwon’t tell me a thing and I won’t find a question to

90 March/Apr i l 2009 Global Business and Organizat ional Excel lenceDOI : 10.1002/ joe

ask you about it. . . . This has become part of mylife.” Singled out as a leader by his own peoplejust prior to the genocide, Kagame is also soughtout by foreign corporate executives. Kagame rec-ognizes the benefits of business partnerships andis keen for Rwanda to have a vibrant private sec-tor. A 2007 Fortune article (Gunther, 2007) de-scribes Kagame’s cooperation with companies suchas Starbucks, Google, Costco, Alltel, Bechtel, andColumbia Sportswear. Smaller-scale efforts such asProject Rwanda (http://projectrwanda.org/) also tes-tify to Rwanda’s recent success and potential: TomRitchey, a master designer and welder of mountainbicycles, has put together a cycle racing team inRwanda, and created an efficient cargo-hauling biketo help coffee growers get their product to market.Economic development is not Rwanda’s only chal-lenge. Leaders like Kagame must also shape an inclu-sive political system in a country where everyone isused to exclusionary politics. Rwanda has succeededin being the first country in the world where womenare in the majority in parliament. Janet Tobias foundthat Rwandans were quick to tell her that everyonein the country right up to President Kagame spendsthe last Saturday of every month doing public serviceprojects.

In recovering from failure, Moltz asserts that,whether one is an individual entrepreneur, a CEO

leading a company, or a president of a country,everyone starts from his own cultural bias and con-textual framework. Zen Buddhists say, “Start fromwhere you are.” Listening to the voices of one’s ownculture or environment is the first step for true con-fidence. Other important steps found in these threebooks are letting go of the past, taking action (expe-rience builds confidence), dedicating oneself to theprocess of recovery, doing one’s best to behave ac-cording to moral precepts and to avoid corruption,and having a measurement system of one’s own:with what, besides money, can success be measured?

Reference

Gunther, M. (2007, April 3). Why CEOs love Rwanda.Fortune. Retrieved November 8, 2008, from http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/28/news/companies/pluggedin GuntherRwanda.fortune/index.htm

Gillian Rice teaches marketing and marketing research atArizona State University. She was a Fulbright Senior Scholarat the University of Bahrain in 1996–1997 and is professoremerita at the Thunderbird School of Global Management.She holds a PhD from the University of Bradford. Dr. Rice’sresearch interests include environmentally related consumerbehavior, the fair trade movement, and models of employeecreativity and organizational innovation. She can be con-tacted at Gillian.Rice@asu.edu.

Global Business and Organizat ional Excel lence March/Apr i l 2009 91DOI : 10.1002/ joe