Trillion Dollar Coach audiobook

I read a lot of books on leadership, management and business in general. Trillion Dollar Coach was fantastic and has earned a spot on my top 10 list. I was particularly excited to read Trillion Dollar Coach because I've always had tremendous admiration for Bill Campbell and the amazing relationships and accomplishments he had in forming much of the interactive age of Silicon Valley. In fact, I don’t know that there is anyone who comes close to being so involved and connected with so many of the pioneers and leaders of the tech industry.This was a very easy (and fun) read peppered with fascinating stories and insights on many of tech’s most famous builders and leaders. In addition, there were many clear-cut and actionable takeaways as well. Here’s a few that stood out for me: • Bill’s Framework for 1:1s One on one meetings are a big part of my week and this check list added some perspective and thought provoking suggestions on how I can make mine better. I've implemented this framework moving forward. • Managing the “Aberrant Genius” One of the toughest management challenges, I could have used these tips many times in the past. It’s definitely going to come in handy moving forward! • Working with and leading engineers for the non-engineer manager I love the fact that Bill came from a non tech sales and marketing background and made such a major impact with very technical people. There’s a lot of advice and thoughts on how to be effective here which definitely resonated with me. • People who are going to be let go should not be surprised. I loved this. It was perhaps my favorite part of the book as it validated something I have always believed and try very hard to always practice. People should never be surprised if they are laid off or fired. It's how to best handle RIF’s and other separations with dignity. It was very validating to learn that the late great Bill Campbell had the same philosophy as me in this area. • Stay relentlessly positive but direct And at the same time remain focused, honest, transparent and, as noted, direct. Be the coach that tells their team “what they don’t want to hear and to see what they don’t want to see so they can know what they can be”.Bill Campbell was a true business legend and this is a special book that allows one to go behind the scenes and benefit from the perspective and advice he bestowed on so many other legends in the making. People like Bezos, Schmidt, Page, Sandberg, Mayer, Horowitz, Brin and many more. Finally, very special thanks to HarperCollins / Harper Business for providing me with this Advance Reading Copy of the book!

I had so often heard of this hidden secret of Silicon Valley that when I read about a book written about him, I had to buy and read it immediately. Which I did. And what about the authors: first and foremost, Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google… I had mentioned Campbell 3 times here:– first in 2014, in Horowitz’ The Hard Thing About Hard Things: there is no recipe but courage. This is there I had Campbell picture just between Steve Jobs abd Andy grove.jobs-campbell-grove– then in 2015, in Google in the (Null)Plex – Part 3: a culture. This piece is also mentioned in the new book: Google decide management was not needed any more and neither Schmidt, nor Campbell liked it. here is how it was solved: “The newly arrived Schmidt and the company’s unofficial executive coach, Bill Campbell, weren’t happy with the idea, either. Campbell would go back and forth with Page on the issue. “People don’t want to be managed,” Page would insist, and Campbell would say, “Yes, they do want to be managed.” One night Campbell stopped the verbal Ping-Pong and said, “Okay, let’s start calling people in and ask them.” It was about 8 P.M., and there were still plenty of engineers in the offices, pecking away at God knows what. One by one, Campbell and Page summoned them in, and one by one Page asked them, “Do you want to be managed?” As Campbell would later recall, “Everyone said yeah.” Page wanted to know why. They told him they wanted somebody to learn from. When they disagreed with colleagues and discussions reached an impasse, they needed someone who could break the ties.”– finally last year, in Business Lessons by Kleiner Perkins (Part II): Bill Campbell by John Doerr.Not bad references! I am not finished with the Coach. I have never been a fan of coaching and I am probably wrong. Let me just begin. “I’ve come to believe that coaching might be even more essential than mentoring to our careers and our teams. Whereas mentors dole out words of wisdom, coaches roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty. They don’t just believe in our potential; they get in the arena to help us realize our potential. They hold up a mirror so we can see our blind spots and they hold us accountable for working through our sore spots. They take responsibility for making us better without taking credit for our accomplishments. And I can’t think of a better role model for a coach than Bill Campbell”. [Page xiv]On the next page, Schmidt explains he may have missed on important point in his previous book (How Google Works) where he emphasied the imporatnce of brillinat individuals, the smart creatives. And this may be the higher importance of teams, as decrived in Google’s Project Aritotle. I just give a link form eth New York Times about this: What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team. New research reveals surprising truths about why some work groups thrive and others falter.The first two chapters are devoted to the life of this extraordinary character. A tireless worker, who started as an American football college coach to become the CEO of high-tech companies such as Claris or Intuit before becoming the Silicon Valley star coach. All told on the occasion of his funerals in 2016. If you do not want to wait for my next blog and not buy the book you may want to read the slidehare from the authors, but first you should read his manifesto, it’s the people.People are the foundation of any company’s success. The primary job of each manager is to help people be more effective in their job and to grow and develop. We have great people who want to do well, are capable of doing great things, and come to work fired up to do them. Great people flourish in an environment that liberates and amplifies that energy. Managers create this environment through support, respect, and trust.Support means giving people the tools, information, training, and coaching they need to succeed. It means continuous effort to develop people’s skills. Great managers help people excel and grow.Respect means understanding people’s unique career goals and being sensitive to their life choices. It means helping people achieve these career goals in a way that’s consistent with the needs of the company.Trust means freeing people to do their jobs and to make decisions. It means knowing people want to do well and believing that they will.Eric Schmidt and its coauthors emphasize the importance of teams, of people and of products. For example:“In our previous book, How Google Works, we argue that there is a new breed of employee, the smart creative, who is critical to achieving this speed and innovation. The smart creative is someone who combines technical depth with business savvy and creative flair. […] As we were researching this book and talking to the dozens of people Bill had coached in his career, we realized that this thesis misses an important piece of the business success puzzle. There is another , equally critical, factor for success in companies: teams that act as communities. integrating interests and putting aside differences to be individually and collectively obsessed with what’s good for the company. […] But adhering to these principles is hard, and it gets even harder when you add factors such as fast-moving industries, complex business models, technology-driven shifts, smart competitors, sky-high customer expectations, global expansion, demanding teammates… […] To balance the tension and mold a team into a community, you need a coach, someone who works not only with individuals but also with the team.” [Pages 22-4]“Bill started his business career as an advertising and marketing guy, then added sales to his portfolio after joining Apple. But through his experiences in the tech world, in his stints at Apple, Intuit, Google, and others, Bill came to appreciate the preeminence of technology and product in the business pecking order. “The purpose of a company is to take the vision you have of the product and bring it to life,” he said once at a conference. “Then you put all the other components around it – finance, sales, marketing – to get the product out the door and make sure it’s successful.” This was not the way things were done in Silicon Valley, or most other places, when Bill came to town in the 1980s. The model then was that while a company might be started by a technologist, pretty soon the powers that be would bring in a business guy with experience in sales, marketing, finance, or operations, to run the place. These executives wouldn’t be thinking about the needs of the engineer and weren’t focused on product first. Bill was a business guy, but he believed that nothing was more important than an empowered engineer. His constant point: product teams are the heart of the company. They are the ones who create new features and new products.” [Pages 67-8]About teams again, and trust : “Not surprisingly when Google conducted a study to determine the factors behind high-performing teams, psychological safety came out at the top of the list [1]. The common notions that the best teams are made up of people with complementary skill sets or similar personalities were disproven; the best teams are the ones with the most psychological safety, And that starts with trust.” [Page 84]About talent: Bill looked for four characteristics in people. The person has to be smart, not necessarily academically but more from the standpoint of being able to get up to speed quickly in different areas and then make connections. Bill called this the ability to make “far analogies”. The person has to work hard, and has to have high integrity. Finally, the person should have the hard-to-define characteristic: grit. The ability to get knocked down and have the passion and perseverance to get up and go at it again.” [Page 116]And finally, may be most importantly, about founders: “He held a very special place in his heart for the people who have the guts and skills to start companies. They are sane enough to know that every day is a fight for survival against daunting odds and crazy enough to think they can succeed anyway. And retaining them in a meaningful way is essential to success in any company. Too often we think about running a company as an operating job, and as we have already examined, Bill considered operational excellence to be very important. But when we reduce company leadership to its operational essence, we negate another very important component: vision. Many times operating people come in, and though they may run the company better, they lose the heart and soul of the company.” [Page 178]In conclusion, People, People, People.[1] More details about the study can be found in James Graham, “What Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team” New York Times, February 25, 2016.

There are a variety of reasons I consider a book "great." Some books are great because they break new ground. Some because they re-categorize and redefine already established ideas. Some books are great because they summarize an issue better than others. This great book definitely falls into the second camp. Leadership hasn't changed over the last couple thousand years, I don't believe anyone who tries to sell me otherwise. I wouldn't say it's a "drop everything and read this" book. No "groundbreaking leadership lessons" are to be found in these pages. It doesn't promise "10 things to make you a better manager or leader!" What this book delivers is a great lesson in leadership from an influential Silicon Valley character. No flashy clickbait, no stupid "rah-rah" bullshit. Just good, solid fundamentals on being an effective leader. The "blocking and tacking" of management if you will. Caring for your people, taking time to connect, helping people feel safe, giving and being deserving of trust. These are all things that are super important. But somehow they are all things I forget to prioritize after reading enough HBR productivity nonsense. At the end of the day, we are all trying to do our best, good leaders effectively help others do their best. It's been a great refresher for me on communication and being helpful. I've been challenging myself to listen more deeply because of it. This is a book I hope to revisit in a year. The parts of it I found helpful today, listening better, focusing on personal connection, likely will have changed as my situation changes. But the fundamentals around being a good leader won't.

This book is highly overlooked and undervalued, based on the number of reviews it has on Goodreads ;) it's a must read for anyone working in a team, leading a team or just trying to live a purposeful life and make all people around them better, happier and more effective. Football coach who has turned to be the greatest Business coaches of our times. Bill was a coach in some of the biggest tech companies of the Silicon Valley - Google, Apple, Amazon, just to name a few ;) he was coaching the founders, leaders and regular people in the Valley and beyond, leaving an impact on more than 80 very well known people in the industry. I genuinely recommend you reading this book and become at least a bit more of how the Bill used to be ;)

Maybe not as organised as I would have liked (me being picky here). It's a great book and I have a new role model.

Cartea de față e un elogiu adus unui lider de lideri. Mi-a plăcut pentru că pe lângă poveștile interesante despre modul în care Bill Cambell a lucrat cu Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt, Lary Page, Jeff Bezos și mulți alți fondatori și CEO de companii din tehnologie renumite la nivel mondial, este și un ghid de bune practici și principii care te învață cum să acționezi în diferite situații în care poți ajunge ca lider al unei companii.

Told through stories of those who worked most closely with Bill Campbell, there is wisdom in this book about what it takes to inspire and lead teams. Bill taught people how to bring their full, authentic selves to work. To be a great leader, you need to be willing to deeply support and connect with your people. He set a high bar for himself and the people he mentored and this book is a good reminder of how important this is.Bill seems to have been a selfless coach and mentor and wanted to avoid the spotlight. In some ways, that's one key thing lacking in this book. While you get to know his wisdom through anecdotes, I didn't feel like I really got to know Bill Campbell. But maybe that's the way he would have liked it!

While Bill Campbell is truly an inspiring leader and coach, the writer failed to specify the details & concepts of Bill's leadership. Meanwhile, some of the stories and key takeaways from this book were very interesting and worth reading: his generosity and give and take moto, his direct feedback but positive impact, how he build people and team...

Bill Campbell is a legend. Good reminder to just be a good human in business

Only book on management I've ever read that describes my own personal philosophy around leadership. It's about enabling individuals, cohesiveness, and yes, love.

i can’t tell you why i picked up this book at the library but i’m glad i did! It was very interesting to learn about this CEO of coaching CEOs. Bill Campbell was a football coach turned Silicon Valley businessman. this book definitely made me want to become a manager for a Fortune 500 company but the feeling was fleeting after a 50 hour work week. Any who, it was an interesting read overall to learn his specific tactics to ensue success for companies.

One of the best business books I’ve read in a while. Had internalized some of these things and it was nice to have them validated, but learned a lot more too.

This is a great book. I never knew as much about Bill Campbell but now a big follower of his work. This book highlights the need for compassion at work, and how to do so to build great teams. A must read for any leader, manager, indirect manager, vision-setter.