Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times, author David Olive notes in 'No Guts, No Glory'. And so, presumably, did the men Olive profiles in 'No Guts, No Glory' (McGraw-Hill, 329 pages, $34.99).

“Nothing reveals character like adversity,” Olive writes in the introduction to profiles of some of the heaviest hitters in Canadian business history. “Adversity exposes mediocrity. It punishes the panic-stricken and the overly cautious alike.”

Before telling the stories of his extraordinary batting order of CEOs and their companies, Olive opens with five fundamental lessons from the men: seek opportunity in adversity; dare to pursue a big idea; be prepared to reinvent the company, adversity or not; build a team culture; and think globally.

Writes Olive: “Character, as it manifests itself in this book, handily trumps genius in every instance. The ‘genius of trade’ in these pages are gifted to an unusually abundant degree with the more attractive traits — genius, persistence, resolve.”

An examination of business leaders can be a dreary exercise, but Olive spices his with refreshing flair and candor while touching all the bases. The subjects and companies are household names in Canada:

* Garfield and Galen Weston of the Loblaws supermarkets. “Among Galen Weston’s natural gifts,” writes Olive of the mastermind behind the company’s turnaround, “is a sense of the inevitability of his success, a quality essential in any entrepreneurs. But it is matched by an entrepreneurial capacity for hard work, and an iron stomach in tolerating risks.”

* Max Ward, the bush pilot who built charter airline Wardair against the odds. “Ward had ferried snow-weary Canadians to the Caribbean and Mexico, carried Muslims to Mecca, rescued Vietnamese refugees from the Far East and shepherded Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip on tours of the Canadian North.”

* Isadore Sharp, the Four Seasons Hotel magnate who became the world’s leading operator of luxury lodging. “On full-moon nights in Bali, guests at the Four Seasons Jimbaran Bay could opt for a Hindu karma-cleansing ritual on the black-sand beach at the nearby Tanah Lot Temple, where devotees in sarongs were annointed with holy water and crowned with a tiara of blossoms . . . For himself, Sharp seemed content to find inner peace as his wife’s bridge partner.”

* Andrew Sarlos, the stock-market icon. “Sarlos kept bouncing back — from being tortured in a Hungarian prison as an anti-Soviet dissident, and then in rebuilding after the HCI disaster (the former Hand Chemical Industries), and still later in staging a prompt recovery after the Crash of ’87.”

* Paul Reichmann, the property developer who staged a remarkable comeback only three years after Olympia & York Developments went bankrupt. “He spoke in a barely audible whisper and was unfailingly polite, exuding an aura of Old World courtliness . . . But his even temper and propensity for self-effacing comments often gave deal-makers on the other side of the negotiating table reason to wonder if it wasn’t they who were being ureasonable.”

* Frank Stronach, Magna’s auto parts czar. “Frank Stronach,” writes Olive, “paid a price for the showmanship that marked his career. But he was incurably stagestruck.”

* Laurent Beaudoin, a snowmobile maker who became president of Bombardier Inc. at 27. “He nearly blew himself up with a homemade welding torch that consisted of a tin can and a tire pump to provide pressure, into which he poured gasoline.”

* Robert Scrivener and Lethbridge native John Roth, the men behind the Toronto Stock Exchange’s 800-pound gorilla, Nortel. “After 30 months on the job, Roth had ‘enhanced shareholder value,’ as the saying goes, by about $122 billion US. Roth could go out and buy General Motors, Sears Roebuck, J.P. Morgan, Nike, Mattel, Quaker Oats, Bethlehem Seel and the entire U.S. airline industry, and still have enough left over to build five new Millennium Domes for London, England.”

There is some tough slogging through mundane company and industry background, but the perspiration is worth the inspiration. 'No Guts, No Glory' belongs on every CEO’s desktop — and resume.

(David Olive will be at Indigo Books in Southcentre mall at 7 p.m. tonight (Wednesday) to discuss his book.)