Trillion Dollar Coach – by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle
Recommendation: 7/10. Date read: 4/3/21.
Details the leadership and life lessons of Silicon Valley’s most renowned coach and mentor, Bill Campbell. Bill played a critical role in the growth of Apple, Google, and Intuit, among dozens of others before he passed away in 2016. This book serves as a guide for forward-thinking leaders who are seeking to build enduring companies by empowering their people. As Bill emphasizes, people are the foundation of any company’s success. You have to start here and ensure the right team is in place while accruing respect through your own actions and the substance of your character.
See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.
My Notes:
Humility:
Your title makes you a manager; your people make you a leader.
“You have demanded respect, rather than having it accrue to you. You need to project humility, a selflessness, that projects that you care about the company and about the people.” Bill Campbell
Focus on being all substance rather than style or virtue signaling.
“Leadership is not about you, it’s about service to something bigger: the company, the team.”
Manager’s role:
“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.”
Trip reports:
“To build rapport and better relationships among team members, start team meetings with trip reports, or other types of more personal, non-business topics.”
Decision making:
“Eight out of ten times people will reach the best conclusion on their own. But the other two times you need to make the hard decision and expect that everyone will rally around it.”
First-principles:
How do you make hard decisions when the room is full of conflicting opinions? “In any situation there are certain immutable truths upon which everyone can agree…it’s the leader’s job when faced with a tough decision, to describe and remind everyone of those first principles. As a result, the decision often becomes much easier to make.”
“Define the ‘first principles’ for the situation, the immutable truths that are the foundation for the company or product, and help guide the decision from those principles.”
Compensation:
“Compensation isn’t just about the economic value. It’s a signaling device for recognition, respect, and status, and it ties people strongly to the goals of the company.”
Work the team, then the problem:
“When faced with a problem or opportunity, the first step is to ensure the right team is in place and working on it.”
“The top characteristics to look for are smarts and hearts: the ability to learn fast, a willingness to work hard, integrity, grit, empathy and a team-first attitude.”