Editorial Reviews. Review. "Al Weatherhead's Power of Adversity has changed my response to The Power of Adversity: Tough Times Can Make You Stronger, Wiser, and Better - Kindle edition by Al Weatherhead, Fred Feldman. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like.
Table of contents
- See a Problem?
- Related Articles
- Power of Adversity: Tough Times Can Make You Stonger, Wiser, and Better by Al Weatherhead
- The Power of Adversity
- Al Weatherhead with Fred Feldman
See a Problem?
I believed the invention of a new sprinkling and pouring cap held enormous potential for the growth and well-being of Weatherchem, because so many food companies might make use of such an innovative product. So how could we engineer a product that poured and sprinkled but didn't leak? We went down many dead-end roads and endured long months of frustration trying to figure that out. We could have given up, like so many who had tried before us. But we didn't give up, and finally mastered the adversity by devising a cap with flaps that didn't open and close on an inside hook like everyone else's caps did.
Instead, our cap's flaps opened and closed on a ridged outside perimeter that kept it from popping open and leaking. We had our solution, but now we faced a second challenge. If we failed with our first Flapper mold we would be bankrupt. Remember, no one in the world was making such a product. While I was optimistic, I had no guarantee that, beyond Durkee, there would be interest in the device.
To go forward with the Flapper, or not? I was gambling my fledging company's future on a roll of the dice. A consensus from my Weatherchem team was not long in emerging: The Flapper made Weatherchem a fortune. It truly changed my life. Problem Solving Is One of the Great Joys in Life from Chapter Nine Harnessing with relentless passion the infinite power of adversity has led me to stunning revelations. Before adversity struck, I was preoccupied with false impressions of personal appearance and grandiosity. Adversity beat out of me self-delusion and stripped me of false vanities.
Related Articles
And as I began to understand my own suffering, I began to view life with new eyes. For example, I came to see that Weatherchem, my plastic cap and closure company, was alive. It is not merely a place built of concrete, steel, machinery, and motion, but a living, breathing entity pulsating with energy and in possession of a soul. When I am in my factory and listening closely, I can hear its heartbeat, and not just in the rhythms of its machinery but individually and collectively from the people who work within its walls.
I have also come to believe that successful management is more like taking a pulse than taking inventory. After decades of leadership experience, I can now walk onto any factory floor and intuit its health from the spark, rhythm, and air of its space. Is there the buzz of dissonance or the hum of synchronicity?
In short, is the adversity that inevitably must run through a factory like electricity, a friction or a fuel? I can always find the answers to those questions in the faces of the employees, for beyond all the mechanics of the place there is one truth: Indeed, much of what is wrong in a good deal of current business theory and practice is its failure to recognize that the heart of any factory beats to the rhythms of its employees. The bottom line must not be profit, because profit can only come as a fruit of the health and dreams of the human endeavor the factory represents.
Management's responsibility, then, is to cultivate within the workplace an environment that lends itself to creativity, dreams, and a collective spirit larger than the sum of its paychecks and mechanical parts. I have learned all this--as I've learned most everything else--through adversity's hard knocks.
As a child, dreaming in my father's factory, I saw the camaraderie, respect, love, and energy shared by Weatherhead employees. I watched, too, as my parents poured their lives into the company.
All this created the heartbeat of that factory. Then, with the death of my father, the Weatherhead Company developed a diseased heart. Mismanagement crushed the human endeavor upon which the factory thrived, as you and I thrive on clean air, water, nourishing food, a healthy heart, and a happy soul. Some would say the business simply failed.
To me, the demise of my father's company was a death in the family. This adversity left me reeling.
Power of Adversity: Tough Times Can Make You Stonger, Wiser, and Better by Al Weatherhead
It took a long time for me to realize that my failure to be the heir to my father's company, prestige, and fortune was really a blessing, a gift from God to me. Adversity empowered me to realize that what was torn down, I could--and needed--to rebuild. And so I decided to start my own company. For several years I put out feelers and investigated different opportunities.
False starts were the norm and numerous. Then, in May , I heard about a little plastics company in Twinsburg, Ohio. The Ankney Company had one patent, for a two-piece plastic closure, and two customers, Clevepack and R. The owner, a mechanical wizard named Bob Ankney, was being pressured by his wife to sell the company he had started twenty-five years previously. I went to see Ankney, and I was impressed by his factory.
Sure it was small, but I preferred to think of it as young --here was a toddler company that would be demanding, but was also slick as a whistle with vast potential. I wanted to buy the place. Ankney, although hesitant, also said he was impressed with me. Curious, I asked him why. Once you have given birth to a company, disengaging is as difficult as letting go of a child.
The Power of Adversity
A few months later Ankney passed away. I inquired about the fate of the company. This is a lesson I try to teach at my factory as I mentor the new generation of management that has taken over the day-to-day leadership of my business. I stress that the important thing is to have fun moving forward, addressing the inevitable mistakes as they arise but not obsessing about dead ends or what might go wrong in the future. His views on management stem from the adversity he faced when the company his father founded failed after his father's death.
I watched, too, as my parents poured their lives in the company.
Al Weatherhead with Fred Feldman
All this created the heartbeat of that factory. Then, with the death of my father, the Weatherhead Company developed a diseased heart. Mismanagement crushed the human endeavor upon which the factory thrived, as you and I thrive on clean air, water, nourishing food, a healthy heart, and a happy soul. Some would say the business simply failed. To me, the demise of my father's company was a death in the family. This adversity left me reeling Adversity empowered me to realize that was torn down, I could -- and needed -- to rebuild.
And so I decided to start my own company.
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