On my way back from Cape Town, South Africa, I was trapped during the last leg of the trip from Chicago O’Hare to Phoenix, AZ. No more movies on US Airways and nothing left to read, I reached for the US Airways Magazine. Now, as a very frequent flier, I rarely read airplane magazines. Guess that’s because I bring enough work to do….but that’s another story.
I was truly entranced by the “Must Read” section – Chapter One of Lynda Resnick’s new book, Rubies in the Orchard: The POM Queen’s Secrets to Marketing Just About Anything.
Chapter One focuses on POM – pomegranate juice. The story was so compelling, we now purchase POM – primarily to wash down our vitamins in the morning…but that’s another story.
The really interesting part of Chapter One is the fact that Lynda and her husband, Stewart hired their first COO who “wasn’t quite so enthused [about the virtues of pomegranate juice and POM being a smash in the marketplace]. He was extremely capable and uniquely qualified to run the business with me, but he spent the better portion of his working day hunched over his computer, analyzing financial models that proved beyond doubt that there was just no way this juice business was going to work.”
As George Michael sings, “You gotta have faith.” And when the leadership doesn’t have faith nor passion about your mission, you’re doomed. As Lynda confesses, “In the beginning, I was having a hard time building a team and getting the business off the ground. Without the COO’s emotional investment in the project, it was hard to get emotional investment from others. Every time we tried to take flight, something, some nagging doubt, some form of disbelief, would drag us back down to earth.”
Question: Does your leadership team have faith and passion to be successful?
