Bill Campbell- The Trillion Dollar Coach
“Coaching is more essential than mentoring to our careers and our teams. Mentors dole out words of wisdom, coaches roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty.”
Bill Campbell coached some of Silicon Valley's most successful leaders, including Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt, and Larry Page. Bill was a football coach who turned into a business coach. He transformed what many saw as a weakness in competitive football into a tremendous strength in business. While he admitted he lacked the "dispassionate toughness" needed for football coaching because he "worried about feelings," this empathy became his superpower in the corporate world.
Medium: Book
How strongly I recommend it: 10/10
Other Recommendations: Here
10 Takeaways
To be a great manager, you have to be a great coach. The higher you climb, the more your success depends on making other people successful.
Teams of people who subordinate individual performance to that of the group will generally outperform teams that don’t.
When change happens, the priority has to be what is best for the team.
Disagreeable givers are gruff and tough on the surface, but underneath they have others’ best interests at heart. They give the critical feedback no one wants to hear but everyone needs to hear.
Get the team right and you’ll get the issue right.
Do favors. Apply judgment in making sure that they are the right thing to do, and ensure that everyone will be better off as a result. Then do the favor.
Executive teams must have a coach if they want to perform at their best.
Managers who put their people first and run a strong operation are held as leaders by their employees; these managers don’t assume leadership, they earn it.
Strong managers recognize when the time for debate is over and make a decision.
Positive human values generate positive business outcomes.