#1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller
New York Times Bestseller
USA Today Bestseller

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.

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About a decade ago, I received the following e-mail forward from Andrew Westrgren, Intuit’s then head of corporate development.

“Andrew

Make sure Howard understands that if he (and his valuable team) want a home for their company, where they can pursue their dreams then putting the company up for bid is not the answer. Either go public or get the deal that you want from the company that you want to be part of.

Bill”

The note was from Bill Campbell, legendary coach at Apple, Google, Intuit and many more companies. Silicon Valley’s elite called Bill “coach” to solve their toughest problems. Literally a coach, Campbell was a football coach turned marketing and sales exec turned executive coach. In our case, Bill Campbell was right again. Despite being pursued, it was the destiny of the special team at Yext to stay independent, go public, and put our own dent on the world.

Written from the vantage point of Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenburg, Trillion Dollar Coach lays out the lessons learned from Silicon Valley’ Coach. While many themes are covered in the book, I have one major takeaway: Every team needs a coach. Even Eric Schmidt, the seemingly omniscient technology executive, leaned on a coach during inflection points in his career at Google, and in normal operating cadence as a mediator to ensure team camraderie.

The key themes I note in the book include extraversion (Bill was clearly an E. I’m guessing Eric is ENTJ and Jonathan is ENTP, btw), direct honesty and tough love, grit and growth mindset (ala Dweck and Duckworth), teamwork and love for all humans. One of my favorite things to read was Bill looked for people capable of making “far analogies”. I personally believe far analogy is one of the greatest measures of intelligence. This connects deeply with my belief that human thought is driven by categorization, and intelligence is driven by analogy. Reading Campbell’s note on “far analogy” made me think of Job’s statement that a computer is like a bicycle for your mind and Einstein’s explanation of the theory of relativity through the lens of a beetle traversing a tree branch upside down.

Campbell also believed in minimally dwelling on negative things. Optimism, he believed is key to achieved outsized greatness. This is something I have also learned. When you’re playing a game of random chance, like gambling, believing you’re going to win is crazy. But when you’re in control of the outcome, positive thinking can make all the difference.

Small talk matters. Like Eric Schmidt at Google, I too hold the Yext executive meeting every Monday at 1:00pm. It’s tough to cold open right into the numbers. It can feel like a person being woken up in the middle of the night and asked to run 10 miles in the freezing cold while naked. To ease into a meeting, Bill Campbell had a “trip rule” where any executive who went on a trip was required to open the meeting by reporting on their trip to the whole team. The point isn’t the exchange of small talk as much as the warm up that connects people and primes people to wake up and warm up before sprinting.

A coach is a glue that holds a team together. They take the time to understand what motivates each unique person and challenge them to grow. They bridge gaps between incredible ambitious people who may otherwise be competitive so they can work together. They show up quickly when things are horrible when you don’t even have to ask. They also build trust so team members feel pyschologically safe to “let them in”. I sort of use humor to do this. Making fun of each other – and being a willing participant in being made fun of – can be a great leveler to make people more comfortable to be honest with each other.

I never met Bill Campbell. He was Apple, Google, and Intuit and I was a spec of dust. He lived on the other side of the country from me. Yet somehow, he managed to touch me with his coaching.

Every team needs a coach. Who is your coach? Read Trillion Dollar Coach to learn about the kind you want to bring on.

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The post Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell appeared first on EASY Digital Pro.

Seasoned Google executives Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg provide an insider’s guide to Google, from its business history and disruptive corporate strategy to developing a new managment philosophy and creating a corporate culture where innovation and creativity thrive.

Seasoned Google executives Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg provide an insider’s guide to Google, from its business history and disruptive corporate strategy to developing a new managment philosophy and creating a corporate culture where innovation and creativity thrive.

Google Executive Chairman and ex-CEO Eric Schmidt and former SVP of Products Jonathan Rosenberg came to Google over a decade ago as proven technology executives. At the time, the company was already well-known for doing things differently, reflecting the visionary-and frequently contrarian-principles of founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. If Eric and Jonathan were going to succeed, they realized they would have to relearn everything they thought they knew about management and business.

Today, Google is a global icon that regularly pushes the boundaries of innovation in a variety of fields. How Google Works is an entertaining, page-turning primer containing lessons that Eric and Jonathan learned as they helped build the company. The authors explain how technology has shifted the balance of power from companies to consumers, and that the only way to succeed in this ever-changing landscape is to create superior products and attract a new breed of multifaceted employees whom Eric and Jonathan dub “smart creatives.”

Covering topics including corporate culture, strategy, talent, decision-making, communication, innovation, and dealing with disruption, the authors illustrate management maxims (“Consensus requires dissension,” “Exile knaves but fight for divas,” “Think 10X, not 10%”) with numerous insider anecdotes from Google’s history, many of which are shared here for the first time.
In an era when everything is speeding up, the best way for businesses to succeed is to attract smart-creative people and give them an environment where they can thrive at scale. How Google Works explains how to do just that.

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