Book review "The Trillion Dollar Coach" by Schmidt, Rosenberg, Eagle

Intro

"The Trillion Dollar Coach" is a book about Bill Campbell.

Bill was a football trainer that became a very successful CEO of companies like Claris and Intuit.

But he also was a very influential and special coach to many Silicon Valley CEOs like Jobs, Schmidt and many more. Many credit him for creating very successful companies though his coaching.

The authors were partly coached by Bill, but were also close friends.

Bill died of cancer in 2016, and this book is their tribute to him.

Notes

Chapter 1: The Caddie and the CEO

• Don't create teams, create communities!
• A good coach is a good leader, and a good leader is a good coach and manager

Chapter 2: Your title makes you a manager, your people a leader

• Google removed managers, but this led to chaos. Good managers are important.
• Managing is not about authority, but about credibility, listening and coaching
• Bill starts meetings with informal topics about families, the last weekend, fun and so on
• Marissa Mayer used the Thank you prayer. Every team has to thank the other team. Repeating something is not allowed. Good way to start a meeting (but also very nerdy).

• Bill used 5 words (aka the top 5 items) on the wall to discuss (Good 1:1 tip) Examples items to discuss:

  • Performance on job requirements
    • Sales figures
    • Delivery / product milestones
    • Customer feedback / product quality
    • Budget numbers
  • Relationship with peer groups
    • Product and Engineering
    • Marketing and Product
    • Sales and Engineering

  • Management / Leadership

    • Are you guiding / coaching your people
    • Are you weeding out the bad ones?
    • Are you hard at hiring?
    • Are you able to get your people to do heroic things?

  • Innovation

    • Are you constantly moving ahead to get better?
    • Are you constantly evaluating new technologies, new products, new practices``
• Consensus is not optimal in decisions. The best decision should win.
• Rule of two: If there's a turf war then take two most vocal of the group and give them 2 weeks to decide together. Rest of the group likely will follow.
• As a leader - be the last to speak up - otherwise you'll influence the team.
• Leading by first principles is important. Define them and lead based on them.
• Manage and keep difficult people (aberrant genius) - as long as their behavior isn't abusive or unethical.
• If you got the right product for the market go as fast as you can
• If you have to let people go be generous and celebrate their successes.
• Be honest with your board (and some more good tips with setup and interactions)

Chapter 3: Build an Envelope of Trust

• The most important currency anywhere is trust.
• Leadership is about something bigger than oneself, it's about company and your team
• Only coach the coachable: Honest and humility is important as is hard work
• Don't tell people what to do, but tell stories why they are doing it. Guide them.
• Push teams to be more courageous
• People should be themselves to be effective. No need to wear a tie if you are a jeans person

Chapter 4: Team First

• When faced with a problem then make sure the right team is working on it
• Watch for people that are excited for someone else's success. Overindex those signals.
• Bill looked for hard working people that want to have an impact every day - "doers".
• Hire for potential as well as experience
• Look for smarts, hard work, integrity, grit.
• Pair people up to create good peer relationships
• The book also features a very good leadership survey
• Diversity is important! Make sure you do not only hire women.
• Be relentlessly positive!!!!
• Strive to win, but win right with commitment, teamwork and integrity.
• Lead - especially when something goes wrong. Teams then look for guidance and decisiveness.
• Team is more important than a single person.

Chapter 5: The Power of Love

• Compassion is important
• Create social capital. Bill invited people to the SuperBowl and to other venues and paid for it.
• Help people: Be generous with your time and connections.
• Have love for the founders. The have the guts and skills to start a company. ** Founders have vision, this is something that career managers lack. Founders are important! Vision does not show up on a balance sheet!

Chapter 6: The Yardstick

• The what next decision. Bill also tried to coach people that left companies in their 50s. That is not easy to let go. But he helped to find a new occupation and mission for themselves.

Verdict

Easy to read. If you are into leadership literature a lot it might not bring too many new tricks. It is still a very good read to refresh your knowledge about what good leadership means.

My main takeaway is his saying: Look for four traits in people: "Smarts, Integrity, Hard Work, Grit". Bill's approach on 1:1s is also very inspiring to me. As is his love for the founders.

Great book for anyone and an excellent tribute to Bill Campbell.