FOREWORD

By Noel Tichy, Professor, University of Michigan and author of Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls (Penguin, New York).

Luis J. Echarte has written an important leadership book. Through his life-long narrative we are taught much about leadership. Throughout history, we learn through stories and narratives that have important lessons and plot lines. In my own writing, The Leadership Engine and Cycle of leadership books, I borrow from Harvard Psychologist, Howard Gardner, who in his book, Leading Minds, frames the concept of leaders leading through stories. He talks about the “who am I story” the leader’s personal life journey, such as Martin Luther King ultimately dying for his vision; the “who we are story” like King giving millions of people a sense of belonging to the quest for quality and the end of discrimination; and finally the “how we will get there story” the roadmap for accomplishing “where are we going.”

Luis takes us on a journey through his “who am I story.” Whenever I have leaders share their live journey, I have them tell the narrative, the ups and downs of their lives from childhood on, because who you are as a leader and a person are the sum of these experiences. Those who grow and improve as leaders do so because they learn from the tough times. Luis engages us in a very entertaining and insightful life journey line. He starts with his early years in Havana, Cuba where he shares, “my mother would parade me around town as if I were her Faberge’ egg—and I demanded to be treated as such. Apparently no one was eager to give me the attention I deserved and I would drive the whole neighborhood crazy by shrieking at the top of my lungs to rectify my sense of neglect.”

There are many colorful stories as he is growing up in Havana, including his father’s wisdom, “In order to get anywhere in Cuba you had to be able to play baseball, dance and win at pool—especially if you wanted to get anywhere with the girls.” He was a very accomplished baseball player and by the time he immigrated to the United States, the big league scouts pursued Luis and tried to convince him to try out for the Cleveland Indians. But he knew better than to bet his future on baseball. He had a variety of struggles and experiences in the US which eventually led to his marrying a member of the family that owned Bacardi. Luis’s career as a successful contractor came to an unhappy ending as he writes, “I saw the chance to work at such a prestigious corporation as a clear exit out of my own complicated family politics, as well as an invitation to escape the confines of the construction industry altogether.” Luis’s career changed when his father-in-law Edwin Nielsen, Chairman of Bacardi, “needed to employ and ally to manage the company while he attended to the family politics.” Thus Luis started his Bacardi career. It turned out he walked into another screwed up family set of dynamics. His father had just been undercut by his own brother which led to the construction business disintegrating.

Luis writes “I was oblivious to most of the Bacardi family politics… I certainly had no idea that I would be fighting a losing battle against over a century of accrued family hostility.” He goes on to state how out of touch he was with reality, “If someone thought my being married to the chairman’s daughter would shoehorn me into the top echelon of the company, it was a delusion.” However, Luis is a resilient leader. He stayed out of the mainstream of Bacardi and he built a new business for “Bacardi Imports” diversifying the company into wines, vermouths, other products, etc. Throughout the book, Luis stands back and shares with the reader what he learned in his life journey. At Bacardi he learned 1) “to constantly be on the lookout for ways to move up the food chain and create my own empires... challenging yourself to know and do more” be a self-renewing leader. 2) “The market is the best source of information. Ask your customer what his or her priorities are and then work your actions according to the customer’s needs.” He learned customer centricity. And 3) “change before they (customers) do and supply them with what they are looking for before they’ve even started looking for it.” One of his biggest accomplishments at Bacardi was the partnership with Coca Cola, developing pre-canned frozen mixers marketed under the Bacardi tradename which led to a line of Topical Fruit Bacardi Mixers.

Luis uses his life story to land very important, often painful leadership lessons. After all Luis’s success growing profitable new businesses at Bacardi his father-in-law joined the coalition of family members who were threatened by Luis’s success and had him fired. Luis shares another of his life lessons in the book: “Identify your enemies and keep them close but pick your allies carefully and be wary of trusting anyone —friends and family can represent the most dangerous kind of enemy.” History had repeated itself for Luis, the next chapter of his life is ironic as he is working for another family business, Grupo Salinas headed by Ricardo Salinas.

He took time off and went on his own search for renewal including Buddhist enlightenment, taking him to China, Nepal and Tibet. Serendipity played a role in the next chapter of his life; he was at a Young President’s Organization convention in 1991 where he met Ricardo Salinas who convinced him to join his crusade to serve the “bottom of the pyramid” consumer base. It took several years to finally get Luis to say yes to Ricardo and join his company in 1994.

Luis’s story with Ricardo and Grupo Salinas is chock full of not only entertaining vignettes but important life and leadership lessons: Dealing with adversity, overcoming challenges and building coalitions to accomplish important business outcomes. Luis’s heroic journey almost came to a tragic end when he was diagnosed with a rare cancer, gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST). He was treated at the Mayo Clinic and has been cancer free since then.

This near-death experience amidst all the rest of his extraordinary personal and leadership experiences provide us with a very thought provoking and entertaining journey of a life examined. The book makes the reader reflect on the ups and downs in their own lives. It is a heroic journey with tragic humor as well as warm humanity from a leader willing to take time to look in the mirror and reflect on his life lessons.