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

I read Trillion-Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell for two reasons. Campbell was a legendary executive coach in Silicon Valley. I wanted to pick up leadership insights that I could use. I also coach people on how to write great books. I wanted to pick up some coaching tips.This book takes an awfully long time to start to prepare to begin to get ready to share anything helpful. The book opens with Bill Campbell’s memorial service. The authors talk about what a swell guy Bill was and what a great coach he was and what a great impact he had on them. They tell you why they decided to write the book. That takes about 20 pages. Now that you know, you can skip ahead if you get bored.I’m glad that I stayed with the book, despite the slow start. There were some good things that make the book worth the price. There are also some bad things that you can overlook or that may keep you from wanting to read the book. And there are ugly things, too. Let’s take the good things first.The GoodThere’s a lot of standard management/leadership advice here. You may have heard many of these ideas before, but they’re worth reading again. Sometimes the stars align, and a common point becomes an uncommon insight. There is one powerful idea here. “Your title makes you a manager, your people make you a leader.” That was one of Bill Campbell’s mantras, but he gave Donna Dubinsky credit for opening his eyes to it.There were also three areas of advice that seemed particularly insightful to me. One was the advice to “Lead based on first principles.” First principles are things that everyone agrees on and set the foundation for the company or the product.The second important, practical insight was, “Manage the aberrant genius.” The aberrant genius is that high-performing team member who is difficult to deal with. I’ve seen several treatments of this in other books, but this is the best. There are specific guidelines for what to tolerate and what not to tolerate. There are ideas about when it’s time for the aberrant genius to depart.The third, and the most potent insight was, “Work the team, then the problem.” This seems to have two meanings. First, make sure you put the right team together before you tackle a problem. The other is that when you have a problem getting things done, address the team and the way it works before you worry about fixing the problem. This is not something unique to Bill Campbell. Ed Catmull says much the same thing in Creativity, Inc. This book has more detail and is therefore more helpful. The section on coaching the team is excellentThe BadThese are things that I didn’t like. They may keep you from buying the book, or that you skip when you read the book, or things that don’t bother you at all.Early in the book, the authors say, “We quickly rejected the idea of writing a hagiography.” A hagiography was originally a biography of a saint. Today, the term refers to a biography that idealizes its subject. Sorry guys, you wrote a hagiography.There’s way too much about what a swell guy and a great coach Bill Campbell was. We learn that he used the “F word” a lot, but it was okay because it was Bill. He hugged everyone, but it was okay because it was Bill. We’re told that he knew things “instinctively.” People took things from him they wouldn’t take from anybody else. There were too many phrases describing how Bill did something no one else can do.“Of course, he was right.”“Intuitive sense”“Remarkable ability”“Conversations with Bill were more nuanced than layered.”“Bill’s genius”Then, there’s my favorite. “With Bill, you close your eyes and it’s more about who he was.”That may be true, but it’s distinctly unhelpful and it’s nothing like a “playbook.” If you can’t describe how he produced those remarkable results or developed that “remarkable ability,” you’re describing a magic trick. The book would have been less of a hagiography and more helpful if there was more about times when Bill Campbell dealt with adversity. There is something about how he supported Steve Jobs when Jobs was forced out of Apple. The authors could have used that to humanize Bill. We could have learned about his struggles at the time and how risky his stance was. Another example. Bill was CEO at GO when the company was in its death spiral. That’s a failure story in one sense. The authors could have told it in some detail. It illustrates why people admired Bill Campbell, trusted him, and listened to him. This wouldn’t be a hagiography if there was more about how Bill the football coach became Bill the Silicon Valley Wonder Coach. There’s plenty of ticking off achievements and admiring quotes, but precious little that humanizes the man. The content of this book will work better for you if you are a Silicon Valley or high-tech CEO. The authors describe things that a middle manager often can't do. They blur the line between what a middle manager can do and what an external coach can do.There are also some things in the book which step over the line from bad to ugly.The UglySome things made me uncomfortable. One of them was a tone throughout the book I call “Silicon Valley macho.” There’s a kind of repeating background beat of “We’re tough. We can handle this stuff.”Bill Campbell liked to give “everyone” bear hugs. He used the “F word” and other colorful language a lot. The book seems to imply that it’s okay because Bill did it, and Bill was a great guy. There’s not a single note that I could find of anyone being uncomfortable when Bill did it.People are less likely to object to a hug from a guy who is a great friend and coach of the CEO of their company. They may not like it, but they’re not real likely to speak up.Full disclosure here. I don’t think that kind of language or that kind of behavior are appropriate in a business or professional setting. If that’s what it takes to be a great coach, I’ll pass.Bottom LineThere are good leadership insights in Trillion Dollar Coach. Those insights, by themselves, make this book worth reading. I don’t think you’ll learn much about coaching, though.A lot of the book describes Bill Campbell’s unique way of communicating. It might not work for you if you haven’t been a football coach and a Silicon Valley CEO. It’s dangerous to believe you can do it his way and succeed. Bill Campbell gave people insightful and helpful advice and he told the truth. If you can figure out how to do that in your own way you’ve learned something powerful indeed.

I found “Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell” to be an excellent book. As someone who has served as a CEO of early stage companies for many years and has also been asked frequently for advice by growth minded professionals and entrepreneurs, this book resonated. My copy is dog-eared and filled with post-it notes highlighting the many gems I discovered and can incorporate immediately into my own approach to managing and coaching.“Trillion Dollar Coach” is the ultimate compliment for what appears to be an incredible individual. Like most, he was not known to me nor to many outside Silicon Valley and the tech industry. Paying homage with a great deal of love and respect to the person who had a positive influence on your life is the ultimate compliment a subordinate or co-worker can give. There is much we can learn from this book which was authored by Google’s Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle who spent years under his influence.Campbell died in 2016 at age 75.His passing drew tributes from many notable tech executives and other luminaries in Silicon Valley. Apple rescheduled its earnings announcement by one day to allows its top executives attend his funeral. He was known to all affectionately as “Coach Campbell.”His roster of mentees went well beyond Google and included Dick Costolo, Lee Bullinger, Ben Horowitz, Ronnie Lott, Sundar Pichai, Bill Gurley, Sheryl Sandberg, John Doerr, Steve Jobs, Larry Page, Jeff Bezos, and the boys and girls flag football teams at Atherton’s (CA) Sacred Heart Schools.“Trillion Dollar Coach” takes you through Campbell’s life so you can learn about those experiences, particularly in coaching...that shaped him, his success as a CEO, and his influence as a coach. What is left out is Campbell’s devotion to being Catholic and exercising the Catholic values that helped shape him. He was not one to talk about his faith but all who knew him knew how important this was in his life.Campbell’s journey began in the Rust Belt of Pennsylvania. He then attended Columbia University where he led its football team to an Ivy League Championship in 1961, a feat that has yet to be repeated. Upon graduation, he decided on a career as a college football coach ending up back at Columbia as its head coach. He had a hard time at Columbia and did not win. His failure was having too much compassion. “I was not hard-edged enough.”So, with his compassion and degrees in economics and education, Campbell headed to J. Walter Thompson (a top ad agency my dad helped to build) and then to Kodak where he rose quickly. Apple’s Scully brought him in to head sales and marketing where he created its famed Orwell ad. He was recognized as a rising star and was brought in to be CEO from 1994 to 1998 of personal software company, Intuit.Campbell, the CEO with empathy, created a strong organizational culture at Intuit. Campbell’s core belief was that teams that work together are the most productive. And to do this, all employees must focus on making themselves and those around them better.Campbell’s motto was “your title makes you a manager, your people make you a leader.”“Trillion Dollar Coach” brings Campbell’s principles to the forefront. The fundamental take-away is that Companies (organizations too!) need to have teams that work together as communities and these teams need a coach to make this happen. Coaching for Campbell is not an after-hours session with a mentor. It is a real-time, interactive activity that requires managers to be involved as good coaches. “You cannot be a good manager if you are not a good coach.”The book highlights Campbell’s: five key factors for success; his simple practices that lead to a strong, cohesive organization; the critical human values we all care about; what to do if you are over 50; five words on a whiteboad; how CEOs should work with their boards; how to build and envelope of trust; the value of pairing people; how to deal with the elephant in the room; and the power of love (See Joel Manby’s “Love Works”).Schmidt, Rosenberg, and Eagle provide many practical examples and the necessary color to make this book an entertaining and useful guide for everyone.Campbell was an expert at getting people to do things they did not think they were capable of doing. His specialty was knowing people, identifying their strengths and doubling down on them to help them shine both on the inside and out.

This book was a really good read, I enjoyed to know a little more about Bill Campbell, He will teach you the most valuable inside a company.Every manager need to read this books, It s really awesome.

Full with great tips to become a better leader, a better coach and most of all, a better person. Great reading for seasoned executives trying to get to the next level.

A great book with very comprehensive and easy-to-digest writing. The book will tell concrete explanation about how influential and productive leader interact with the team

What makes this book so good is that it is so easy to read, a must for anybody that is a manager, coach or leader.

Esse livro é um must para quem quer conhecer o que é realmente liderança. Melhor livro sobre o assunto que li até agora!