This subtitle is accurate but does not fully indicate the nature and extent of what Kanter achieves in her latest book. She does indeed explain how and why both winning streaks and losing streaks begin and end but she also explores with her characteristic rigor and eloquence what she calls a basic truth: “People rise to the occasion when they have the confidence to do it.” Human success and failure have quite specific cycles measured in terms of equally specific trajectories. However, when human nature is involved, geometric measurement (at best) indicates trends, patterns, etc., but fails to explain the single most important, indeed most decisive element: self-image. Henry Ford no doubt had that in mind when suggesting, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” Kanter would agree, of course, but why do so few people demonstrate a positive self-fulfilling prophecy whereas most demonstrate a negative self-fulfilling prophecy? These are among the questions Kanter addresses in this book.
Both winning streaks and losing streaks seem to be contagious. Kanter helps her reader to understand how streaks develop and, more importantly, what streaks reveal about their probable causes. In her final chapter Kanter observes, “In losing streaks, it seems as though talent has disappeared and decline is inevitable–or else why would the workers, the managers, the politicians, the players let the situation continue to deteriorate? [i.e. the negative self-fulfilling prophecy] The opposite appears to be at work in winning streaks–that individuals can perform miracles that they do indeed walk on water. But every water walker needs the stones to make it possible to move across the water.” Kanter’s book speaks to anyone and to everyone who struggles to “rise to the occasion” but lacks the confidence to do it. The stones are already there beneath them. Kanter will help her reader to locate them, then “rise to victory”...not only in competition but also in personal fulfillment.
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