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Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell

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The team behind How Google Works returns with management lessons from legendary coach and business executive, Bill Campbell, whose mentoring of some of our most successful modern entrepreneurs has helped create well over a trillion dollars in market value.

Bill Campbell played an instrumental role in the growth of several prominent companies, such as Google, Apple, and Intuit, fostering deep relationships with Silicon Valley visionaries, including Steve Jobs, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt. In addition, this business genius mentored dozens of other important leaders on both coasts, from entrepreneurs to venture capitalists to educators to football players, leaving behind a legacy of growing companies, successful people, respect, friendship, and love after his death in 2016.

Leaders at Google for over a decade, Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle experienced firsthand how the man fondly known as Coach Bill built trusting relationships, fostered personal growth—even in those at the pinnacle of their careers—inspired courage, and identified and resolved simmering tensions that inevitably arise in fast-moving environments. To honor their mentor and inspire and teach future generations, they have codified his wisdom in this essential guide.

Based on interviews with over eighty people who knew and loved Bill Campbell, Trillion Dollar Coach explains the Coach’s principles and illustrates them with stories from the many great people and companies with which he worked. The result is a blueprint for forward-thinking business leaders and managers that will help them create higher performing and faster moving cultures, teams, and companies.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2019

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Eric Schmidt

96 books600 followers

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5 stars
5,395 (36%)
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3,150 (21%)
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253 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,170 reviews
Profile Image for Philip Joubert.
85 reviews94 followers
May 2, 2019
This book fails both as a biography and as a playbook. It's thin on details and the rose-coloured lens of Bill makes it read more like a eulogy.

Evidence would suggest that Bill Campbell was an excellent coach. This book does not capture his playbook in a meaningful way and I learned very little.

It’s filled with stories of Bill being a hero without any description of what he really did. It contains such useless statements as: Bill swore a lot and could come across as a bit rough, but that’s fine because everyone loved him. What kind of value can the reader possibly get from that?

Rather read The Hard Thing About Hard Things.
Profile Image for Steve Sarner.
Author 2 books378 followers
March 14, 2019
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!
Profile Image for Brandice.
984 reviews
February 1, 2020
Disappointed to say I struggled with Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell. It mostly read like a compilation of tips from colleagues, friends, and fans of Bill Campbell. While nice, it’s not the book I expected, and even given Bill’s coaching experience, seems like a stretch to call this a playbook.

I wasn’t familiar with Bill Campbell prior to reading this book - He was a former football player then coach, turned business executive, who worked with and coached many high-profilers in Silicon Valley. From the book, he’s described as always being blunt and direct, yet caring deeply about his friends and the companies he worked with, always striving to make people better.

My review of Trillion Dollar Coach is not to take away from Bill’s impact — The book just doesn’t provide a true playbook or offer unique concepts. It’s collectively vague and I believe other books provide greater insight. I enjoyed How Google Works also by Eric Schmidt and Johnathan Rosenberg, a bit more than this one.
Profile Image for Frederico Cabral.
11 reviews5 followers
May 2, 2019
I had mixed feelings about this book. After a few pages I started to wonder, why did Eric decide to write it? Would it be a courtesy for Campbel? Or just a way to share Campbel's wisdom and coach techniques to a broader public? Regardless of the reason, Eric failed on both.

I wasn't expecting a profile so well described as Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson, but I wasn't expecting something so poorly written as this neither. There is not even his family involved.

Is there any take away from Bill's "coach" session or anything useful at all? No. There isn't.
Maybe, If you are a total beginner about managing people, you might get some entry-level insights here and there, but for a "Trillion Dollar Coach" my expectation was way higher.

Some stories are so basic and so vague that I can't even believe that is true. Can you imagine a meeting with several of the most well-paid executives in the world talking about their trips just to remove the "tension" of such meeting? That's the kind of "advice" you will get from this book. Simple like that! Or even better: Do everything with LOVE! And everything is going to be alright... Seriously?

What about the "advice" of how well people should be paid for their work: "Just pay well because a good salary is a sign of respect." Really? That's all?

The sensation I had, that was not even Erik who wrote the book, but someone else doing an ordinary job, looking after a paycheck.

How come a book like this end up in the list of best seller at Amazon? Actually, this is not that complicated if you are well connected and with money available: A "Clickbait" title, bunch of fake reviews, some paid blog posts on popular websites and even some commercial-driven interview with "influencers" like Tim Ferris, can produce the magic.

If Bill Campbell was really a "Trillion Dollar Coach", he deserved a better book.
Profile Image for David.
45 reviews57 followers
May 22, 2019
Meh. Too light on specifics. Too heavy on name dropping. Very male. Quite simplistic. Should have been a Medium essay.
Profile Image for Rishabh Srivastava.
152 reviews186 followers
April 25, 2019
Some great anecdotes in this book. However, the authors didn't create a framework that codified Bill Campbell's legendary coaching skills.

The major points I took away were:

1. Candor + Care - give blunt feedback (and be harsh when necessary). But deliver it an envelope of trust (make sure that the person receiving the feedback knows you have their best interests in mind)
2. Treat teams - not individuals - as the fundamental building blocks of the organization. Chastise superstars when they let their ego get in the way of doing the right thing for the team
3. Create psychological safety. If people take risks for the organization's interests, their managers have got to have their backs.
Profile Image for Bjoern Rochel.
382 reviews76 followers
July 13, 2019
I bet this is going to be a divisive book. Half of the readers will probably passionately hate it, while the other group most certainly will enjoy or love it.

The first group will likely consists of people that are either pursuing Lalouxs Teal Organisations, are allergic to the idea that a manager can be a coach to his directs and peers (such as Appelo http://noop.nl/2012/06/egocentric-lea...) or in general hate sport or competition metaphors and analogies (like DHH for example).

So if you're in that group, I suppose you shouldn't bother reading this book. It's probably a waste of your time.

On the other hand, if you're in the second group and open to the idea that there's something to learn from people working in more "classic" hierarchical management structures and specifically from Silicon Valleys top leadership culture, then this book might be something for you.

As you've probably inferred from the rating, I'm in group two. I try to learn wherever and from whoever I can. And I've also used (successfully I think 🤔😬) a lot ideas, analogies and metaphors from competitive sports when working with teams in my direct area of influence. So I guess, I was setup to like this book of a former sports coach turned executive coach.

I've first heard/read about Bill Campbell in the epilogue of John Doerrs book "Measure what matters" on OKRs. The idea that quite a few of the most well known top execs from Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon had been coached by the same guy, who preferred to stay outside of the public spotlight and fame sounded super intreaging to me. We live in the age of self marketing, where everyone boasts his opinion and best practices almost daily on all possible channels and there apparently was this super successful and influencial guy, I've never even heard of before.

The book is a combination of biography and an attempt to capture the management strategies and ideas that Bill Campbell employed and taught to such an illustrious group of people sich as Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt, Marissa Mayer, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Sergey Brin and many more.

One particular thing that really hit home with me was the emphasis on not guiding by providing answers, but instead coaching on the meta level, e.g. the principles, decision processes (similarly to David Rocks "Quiet Leadership") and the emphasis on importance of a functioning team (safety, vulnerability, trust, candor, etc similar to maybe Leonis "The five disfunctions of a team" or elements of Scott's "Radical Candor").

I also got quite a few ideas on how to run 1:1s and management meetings from this book.

Last but not least, I enjoyed a lot the fact that Bill Campbell pulled off the combination of a big heart with a foul mouth. Somehow, I always chuckle at people who master the dark art of combining swearing and swear words with honest, direct feedback that doesn't hurt the receiver, but nudges them forward.
Profile Image for Herve.
93 reviews220 followers
July 2, 2019
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.
215 reviews
September 30, 2019
I'd really love to understand why this book is rated so highly, for me it didn't go much beyond clichés and adoration. I get that Bill Campbell is a great coach and maybe he was ahead of his time - even more so, this doesn't do him justice.

The main messages of the book are:
- Trust is important
- Teams are good, you should not only focus on top players
- Love and compassion are valid in business
(- BC was this amazing dude who knew a lot of millionairs and billionairs!!!1!)

I think that the first two are staples of the self-help and business literature. And even for the readers who still follow the stereotype of the competitive "do want you want, devil may care"-type, this book doesn't provide the depth in its cases and stories to really allow for a new perspective. It rather gives great insights like "choaches listen" (duh!).

Another problem I have with the book is that its so lazily written and researched. "A study shows that positive leadership helps to reach goals" - really!? The authors are quoting "Swedish studies", "papers" and "studies" left and right - come on, it's not so hard to at least find out which journals are actually good and go a bit deeper than that.

The only interesting part of it was the last chapter on "love" as a principle in business, but even here the pages (or audiobook minutes) are wasted on financial generosity - not that that is a problem, but philantropy is not new and probably not what makes Bill Campell an interesting case.

If you are looking for actual principles and proven tool of coaching, you'll find nothing.

Don't waste your time with this book, given that there are so many better ones out there. Just in the hyper-objective self-help genre, "study A says this study B says that"-style, Adam Grant is at least getting the research right and able to tickle much more interesting insights out of his stories. Also, "the coaching habit" is easy to read, dealing with the same topic, and very sharp regarding its main talking points.
Profile Image for Rick Wilson.
797 reviews309 followers
July 7, 2020
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.
Profile Image for Mridul Singhai.
50 reviews12 followers
April 21, 2019
Eric Schmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg share the leadership tactics of Bill Campbell, by means of interesting personal encounters people have had with Bill over the years.

Two key takeaways – 
1. Be a human at work – recognize that people around you are humans.
The human values of love, kindness and care (which are foundational for interpersonal relationships) generally do not belong to a corporate boardroom, but practicing them can lead to great good – not just for the stakeholders, but also for the ecosystem at large.
2. Build & foster great teams – and the problems would take care of themselves (assuming you have technically adept people, working on the right problems).

Lastly, I really liked this sentence, "excellent teams at Google had psychological safety (people knew if they took risks, their manager would have their back)".
Profile Image for Regimantas Urbanas.
14 reviews9 followers
February 12, 2021
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 ;)
Profile Image for ScienceOfSuccess.
110 reviews207 followers
October 2, 2019
This is a typical NYT Business Bestseller about someone who died.

tl;dr HE WAS SO FUCKN AMAZING. HOW DOES HE DID ALL OF THIS? WOW, ONLY HE KNOWS, AND WE LOVE HIM FOR THAT.

Please don't waste your money and time on this book.
135 reviews3 followers
May 9, 2019
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.
Profile Image for Sarah.
208 reviews
December 31, 2023
This is my 90th and final review of 2023! A great year for reading!

Bill Campbell was CEO of Intuit from 1994-1998 (I heard about this book on a podcast about Intuit), an executive at Apple, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Columbia. He had wide ranging influence as a coach of executives including coaching Steve Jobs, the Google team (Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt, Sundar Pichai), Jeff Bezos, Jack Dorsey, and Sheryl Sandberg. His employees compared him to Oprah for his great compassion and listening skills. The main argument of the book is that you have to be a great coach to be a great manager. If that doesn’t come easily to you, you can practice in the elevator and the lunchroom :)
Profile Image for Vartika.
86 reviews
July 3, 2019
This is one of the most ‘low on new knowledge’ books about business, coaching and leadership I have ever read.

Wonder why did Eric even decide to write it/ why he didn’t chose better content.

The book just throws around names of one Silicon Valley executive after another who got coached by Bill without really getting into the details about how he exactly coached/ developed those relationships.

It’s one long praise for Bill who I am sure the authors were really in awe of and admired but they fail badly to bring the reader in on the reason for their admiration/ journey.

The third person narrative just makes the poor content more cringeworthy.

All in all, I wish Bill wrote a book about how he became the trillion dollar coach himself and really got deep into some details that could have been helpful.
Profile Image for Marco.
83 reviews46 followers
September 13, 2019
Another of those book written by CEO about CEO that keeps disappointing.

The rate on Goodreads was above 4/5 with 2k votes, I had high expectations about it, right after the first two chapter it's clear it's going to disappoint. I kept reading.

It doesn't provide any special insights, which you'd expect from "a trillion dollar coach" narrated by Google ex CEO. Just too vague, too basic.

I always wonder if Eric Schmidt and the other big star CEOs are:
1) keeping secrets to themselves
2) using ghost writers
3) bad at communicating/writing books
4) all of the above
because this is book is simply not good enough

I'm sure Bill has been a great person, the best. I'm not sure they should have tried to mix his biography with teaching lessons...
124 reviews2 followers
April 24, 2019
This book is a trillion dollar let down - the book doesn't measure up to the man, the legend, the coach. I'd have loved to channel Bill Campbell's colorful language in this review, but out of respect to him and the author's pedigree and hard work, I refrain. There are some great anecdotes, examples, and situations in this book but the codification of the principles, if any, are really poor. I had very high expectations from this book and came away disappointed.
Profile Image for Vlad.
894 reviews33 followers
October 21, 2019
This is a decent book summarizing the behaviors of one of Silicon Valley's most excellent executives. Because Bill Campbell didn't participate in the book, it's constructed posthumously, and because it's written by a couple of Bill's adoring fans, it's not anywhere near the excellence of something you'd get from an actual professional biographer such as Chernow or Isaacson. Still, was an interesting read.
Profile Image for Denis Vasilev.
681 reviews97 followers
April 22, 2019
Давно хотел узнать о Билле Кэмпбелле, так что книгу ждал. Получился микс из биографии и советов по менеджменту. Экзекьюшн и команда - это если в двух словах
Profile Image for Calin Biris.
133 reviews51 followers
December 28, 2022
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.
50 reviews
October 29, 2022
Interesting stories about a football coach turned Silicon Valley exec coach and his interactions with Jobs, Doerr, Sandberg, and more. Referenced several establishments and locations in the surrounding area of Palo Alto.
Profile Image for Pavel Annenkov.
443 reviews123 followers
June 9, 2023
О ЧЕМ КНИГА:
Описание основных подходов к работе и история жизни Билли Кэмбелла, человека который сыграл ключевую роль в становлении большинства великих технологических предпринимателей и компаний Кремниевой Долины. За свою жизнь Кэмбелл был коучем и наставником для Стива Джобса, Сергея Брина, Ларри Пейджа, Эрика Шмита и еще примерно 50 лидеров IT компаний. Он также входил в Совет Директоров Apple, Google,

КАКАЯ БЫЛА ЦЕЛЬ ЧТЕНИЯ:
Наконец то узнать подробности жизни и методы работы самого главного бизнес-коуча Кремниевой Долины.

ГЛАВНЫЕ ВЫВОДЫ:
- Команды в бизнесе достигают успеха, когда они превращаются в сообщества единомышленников, где каждый готов пожертвовать своим эго ради общего успеха.

- Сотрудники любят когда ими управляют. Но только в том случае, когда они могут чему то научиться у своего руководителя и он помогает им принимать решения. Это две важнейшие характеристики хорошего менеджера.

- Любую хорошую стратегию должен поддерживать операционный план. Важные вопросы, которые надо задавать себе каждую неделю:
1. What were the current crises?
2. How quickly were we going to manage our way out of them?
3. How was hiring going?
4. How were we developing our teams?
5. How were our staff meetings going?
6. Were we getting input from everyone?
7. What was being said, what wasn’t being said?

- Бизнес создает и развивает не личность, а команда. Главная задача предпринимателя - создавать и развивать свою команду.

- Коуч не решает проблемы бизнеса, а решает проблемы команды, чтобы она решала проблемы бизнеса.

- Любая проблема в бизнесе - это вопрос связанный с людьми. Надо для решения проблемы искать человека или убирать человека.

- Надо нанимать человека не только за опыт, но и за потенциал дальнейшего развития.

- Настоящий лидер и руководитель всегда говорит сотрудникам о том как компания будет побеждать. Без этого невозможно построить крутую команду ни в спорте, ни в бизнесе.

ЧТО Я БУДУ ПРИМЕНЯТЬ:
- Во время еженедельного общего совещания каждый начинает с одного личного события, произошедшего за выходные.

- Основа хорошей команды - это психологическая безопасность каждого из её членов. Ни отличные навыки, ни опыт участников не могут это компенсировать. Поэтому главное в начале работы команды создать доверие, которое является базой для психоло��ической безопасности каждого.

ЕЩЕ НА ЭТУ ТЕМУ:
Джон Доерр "Измеряй самое главное"
Profile Image for Saurabh Modi.
313 reviews31 followers
September 23, 2021
It’s generally an ok to good book. I say this because it’s a useful book but it doesn’t achieve its potential because it’s trying to be both a biography and a guidebook.

The good - the elements that are needed to be successful, to help others be successful, to build good companies, teams, culture. The book is a glimpse into who Bill Campbell was and what he managed to achieve (I find it hard to imagine that so many of the top Silicon Valley folks actively sought him out and learnt from him and he isn’t as well known as so many of them). The book does try to incorporate the spirit of good management and leadership practices and is generally beneficial for people who aren’t necessarily in such roles. It shows a good portrait of what people need to be better at working with other people and achieving great things. Also, it was thought provoking for me in general. I’d definitely practice some of the lessons here.

The bad - over preachy at times. Some sentences felt like broken record (Bill swore, but ppl were ok because they felt the love; Bill gave tough love but ppl knew it came from a place of care, etc). It might have been true to how he operated in real life, but after many many instances of it I couldn’t help but feel mildly annoyed. In some cases nuance was missing. The book would be read by many who haven’t had a lot of experience working in tech industry. Where nuance is missing, it can actually cause the people to fill in their gaps and reaffirm beliefs that aren’t without too much merit.

What could have been better - there could have been focus on actionability. This is my number one complaint in this book. The book seems confused between focusing on Bill’s life story (in which case I don’t care too much about actionability) and being a guide book on Management (in which case I do care about actionability). A good guide book has to be actionable otherwise what’s the point. Still, I’d give that while the book doesn’t go into how, it does go into why and what in great detail.
Profile Image for Jay Hennessey.
89 reviews27 followers
April 26, 2019
I really enjoyed reading this book and learning about Bill Campbell. Tim Ferriss’ interview with Eric Schmidt was the perfect primer to this book. I really enjoyed learning about the tech companies if Silicon Valley and the impact that Bill had with many of their leaders.

As much as I found this book to be enjoyable and interesting, I was really hoping to learn the unsuspected secrets of Bill’s success. The secret was that he was able to do all the things that most people know, but just do not do. I am not making light of Bill’s success or how well respected he was as a coach; I was just hoping gain insight on some nuggets that I had not seen or considered.

When I think of the best leaders with whom I have served, I think they emulate many of the same behaviors as Bill Campbell - they care deeply about their people; they are driven toward achieving success, the RIGHT WAY; they focus on their culture - they make people feel safe to share, to be creative, to be vulnerable, to be wrong; they own up to their mistakes; they are deliberate in how they execute - based on principles (usually written).

I believe that the magic of this book is that leaders like Bill Campbell are pretty rare and the reader gets a glimpse into “what right looks like”, shared from a variety of perspectives.

One final area that I appreciated from Bill was his focus on the Team and accomplishing the Team’s mission. The final lines of the book said it best,

“Because the world faces many challenges, and they can only be solved by teams. Those teams need coaches.”

I recommend leaders at any level read this book, especially leaders who are unfamiliar with coaching and the personal and organization benefits that great coaches can foster.
Profile Image for Kair Käsper.
157 reviews37 followers
November 23, 2019
What a great eulogy, what a terrible (leadership) book.

All I got from this book was a deep look into how the halo effect works in real life. Bill Campbell was an extremely likable guy and this book makes him into Jesus. Even the negatives or "mistakes" discussed on a few pages are made out as valuable lessons that made Bill much better.

Without a doubt most of Bill's success can be purely attributed to his ability to form deep connections with people abnormally quickly. This, however, is something you cannot learn. Or rather, you can learn to some extent, but need Olympic athlete prerequisites to get to a comparable level. The book doesn't hide it as well, that this was indeed what made Bill Bill. For me as a reader wanting to advance my leadership skills, the real core message of this book (Bill was great, Bill cared, Bill was one of a kind, be like Bill) was useless and a waste of my time.

As for the other poorly sketched out nuggets in this book - I imagine you have to be a pretty old-school oil-company/telco type of an executive or somebody who doesn't read at all to really find something new in the "it's about the people" types of lessons. 10 years ago this would have been something, but this book came out in April, this year.
Profile Image for Brian Rosenblat.
26 reviews86 followers
April 25, 2019
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!
Profile Image for Tim Ingate.
13 reviews1 follower
June 17, 2019
When Bill Campbell died in 2016, Silicon Valley lost "The Coach", as he was affectionately known.

Aside from his roles as an influential tech exec, Campbell was revered as the executive coach to Valley legends like Apple's Steve Jobs and Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

In Trillion Dollar Coach, former Alphabet chairman Eric Schmidt, Page's advisor Jonathan Rosenberg, and Google's director of communications Alan Eagle share lessons they gathered from 80 of Campbell's students that you'll want to incorporate into your own work life.
241 reviews6 followers
March 8, 2020
I always appreciate reading books that give an insider's view into the lives of impressive people. Campbell seems like one of those, and the bevy of quotes from his friends and coachees supports that.

Still, as a book, this was lacking. There wasn't much there beyond the anecdotes, and it never really lived up to it's title.
Profile Image for Nhi Mai.
4 reviews1 follower
March 22, 2020
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...
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