How to Bounce Back From Setbacks

Mike Espy is no stranger to success -- even when it has meant overcoming long odds. As a teenager in rural Mississippi, he was one of two student-body presidents of the first racially integrated class in his high school. He served for six years in Congress -- the state's first black member since Reconstruction. Under Bill Clinton, he was named U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, becoming both a Washington celebrity and a committed government reformer.

And then disaster struck. In 1994, reports surfaced that Espy, now 47, had flown on corporate jets owned by companies that his department regulated and had accepted gifts, such as tickets to sports events, from those companies. Next came word that Espy's then girlfriend had accepted a scholarship from Tyson Foods, another company that the Agriculture Department regulated. These disclosures did more than raise eyebrows. They prompted the White House -- and an independent counsel -- to question Espy's ability to do his job.

Espy resigned from the Clinton cabinet humbled and depressed. He figured that the independent counsel's investigation would last six months -- tops. "I wanted to move on with my life," he says. In the end, the investigation lasted four years, produced a 39-count indictment, and generated the sort of public scrutiny and private humiliation that only a Washington scandal can create. And it forced Mike Espy to confront a question that would determine the trajectory of the rest of his professional life: How do I bounce back from this devastating setback?

The road to long-term success is seldom a straight line, for companies or for individual leaders. New products get launched with great fanfare -- and then disappear from sight. Companies make big bets on a strategy -- only to discover that the playing field has shifted once again. All-too-human executives use poor judgment or permit just one ethical lapse -- and find their reputations tarnished forever. There is no success without the occasional failure. Yet the mythology we've created about business rarely allows us to recognize that obvious fact. Successful leaders, we've come to believe, never make a bad call. They never reach a dumb decision. They never, under pressure, choose to do something that they later regret.

"In America, failure is considered a disruption in progress," says Scott A. Sandage, a history professor at Carnegie Mellon University who teaches a course on success and failure. "Even as the understanding of economic challenges increases, there's an intensification of shame around failure."

Andrew Shatté, 38, vice president of research and product development at Adaptiv Learning Systems -- a firm that teaches executives how to be more resilient -- agrees: "It's easy to become flustered by setbacks, because most of us believe that our companies and careers should keep advancing. Successful people learn how to gain control of situations that are out of their control, retool themselves, and rebound quickly from disaster."

Here are in-depth profiles of people and companies that have managed to bounce back from setbacks. Warning: The experiences are not pretty, the emotions are deep, and the victories are sometimes less than decisive. But these stories are candid and authentic, the lessons powerful and useful. So read on, be grateful that you've probably never faced setbacks quite this severe -- and consider yourself better prepared to face whatever difficult circumstances you might encounter in the future.

Mike Espy: The (Long) Road Back

One of Mike Espy's trademarks is that he writes a note to himself every day to set out his goals. Once he resigned from his U.S. Cabinet post, his goals were no longer set for him. He suddenly had to determine his own future, and his list making became more extensive. He was shocked by the vitriol in Washington and by his own poor judgment. "I considered myself legally and ethically innocent," he declares as he sits in his Jackson, Mississippi law office. "I didn't give favors to any companies. I focused on policy, not on politics. And I thought the administration would support me. But I took too much for granted. My judgment was faulty in many ways."

Facing the folks back home was nerve-racking. Espy still winces a little as he recalls a homecoming game at his daughter's high school. At the time, she was a sophomore and a member of the homecoming court. He dreaded having to escort her across the school's football field so that she could join her court. "I wanted to take myself off the radar screen," says Espy. But while lying low was a strategy for short-term survival, it wasn't a strategy for change. "I had no job or income prospects," he says. "I couldn't be a lobbyist. I couldn't be an attorney. I was disgraced. It was the worst year of my life." The daily notes to himself became a list of obligations: how to pay the mortgage, how to provide child support.