“In business, compassion is a key factor to suc­cess.” Bill Campbell

‘Bill’s passion for innovation and teamwork was a gift to Apple and the world’. Tim Cook, CEO, Apple

‘Bill shared his wisdom generously, expecting nothing back but the joy he got from teaching others.’ Sheryl Sandberg , COO, Facebook

Bill Campbell helped to build some of Silicon Valley’s greatest companies — including Google, Apple, and Intuit — and to create over a trillion dollars in market value. Campbell believed that teams, not individuals, are the fundamental building blocks of organizations. Leaders can help their team be more productive, more innovative, and just plain happier by leading like a coach, not just a manager.

A former college football player and coach, Bill mentored visionaries such as Steve Jobs, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt and coached dozens of leaders on both coasts. When he passed away in 2016, “the Coach” left behind a legacy of growing companies and successful people, and an abundance of respect, friendship, and love.

Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle experienced firsthand how 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 chronicled Bill Campbell’s wisdom in the guide entitled Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell.

Trillion Dollar Coach is a guide for bringing out the best in others and teams, for being simultaneously supportive and challenging, and for giving “more than lip service to the notion of putting people first”.

“A coach is someone who tells you what you don’t want to hear, who has you see what you don’t want to see, so you can be who you have always known you could be.” Tom Landry, former NFL Dallas Cowboy’s Coach

Good coaches employ encouragement, honesty, and caring to help every team member flourish. And according to Bill Campbell, business leaders should do the same, infusing their workplaces with compassion and people-first values that inspire employees to do their best work—and love their jobs.

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

“Bill was the greatest executive coach the world has ever seen,” according to the authors. He coached executive leaders and also coached entire teams as a group coach. In the technology sector, innovation and speed are paramount, according to the authors. It is high-performing teams that lead to success.

Bill cared about people. He treated everyone with respect, he learned their names, he gave them a warm greeting. He cared about their families, and his actions in this regard spoke more loudly than his words. “He cared about the whole you,” says Ruth Porat, Google’s CFO.

Bill would start meetings by asking about a colleague’s family and weekend and talking about his own. He always gave you a sense of perspective. That whatever you were doing was important, but he showed you that what really matters at the end of the day is how you live your life and the people in your life. It provided his coachees a respite in a busy day and a chance to ease their work-family conflict at least momentarily.

Bill made it okay to bring love to the workplace. He created a culture of what people who study these things call “companionate” love: feelings of affection, compassion, caring, and tenderness for others, according to the authors. He did this by genuinely caring about people and their lives outside of work, by being an enthusiastic cheerleader, by building communities, by doing favors and helping people whenever he could, and by keeping a special place in his heart for founders and entrepreneurs.

Key takeaways from Bill Campbell and The Trillion Dollar Coach:

1. Your title makes you a manager. Your people make you a leader.To be a good leader, you need to first be an excellent manager by accruing respect and not demanding it.
2. It’s the people.The top priority of any manager is the well-being and success of his/her people.
3. Start with trip reports.To build rapport and better relationships amongst team members, start team meeting with personal or non-business related topics.
4. 5 words on a whiteboard.Have a structure for one-on-one’s and take the time to prepare for them, as they are the best way to help people be more productive and to grow.
5. The best idea, not consensus.A manager’s job is to run a decision-making process that ensures that all perspectives get heard and considered. If necessary, to break ties and make a decision.
6. Lead-based on first principles.Defining the “first principles” for the situation, the unchangeable truths that are the foundation for the company or product, and help guide the decision from those principles.
7. Manage the Aberrant Genius.“Aberrant Geniuses” are high performing but difficult team members, should be tolerated and even protected as long as their behavior isn’t unethical or abusive and when their value provided outweighs the toll their behavior takes on management, colleagues and teams.
8. Money’s not just about the money.Compensating people well demonstrates love and respect, which ties them firmly to the goals of the company.
9. Innovation is where crazy people have stature.The purpose of a company is to bring a product vision to life. All the other components are in service to the product.
10. Build an envelope of trust.Listen attentively, practice complete frankness and be an evangelist for courage by believing in people more than they believe in themselves.
11. Only coach the coachable.Traits that make an individual coachable include honesty, humility, willingness to persevere, hard working and a constant openness to learning.
12. Practice free-form listening.Listen to people with your full and undivided attention without continually thinking ahead to what you’re going to say next. Instead, ask questions to get to the real issue.
13. No gaps between statements and fact.Be relentlessly honest and candid, couple negative with caring feedback. Give feedback as soon as possible, and if the feedback is negative, deliver it privately.
14. Don’t stick it in their ear.Don’t tell people what to do, instead offer stories and help guide them to the best decisions for them.
15. Full identity front and center.People are most effective when they can be completely themselves and bring their whole identity to work.
16. Team first. The team is of utmost importance; the most important thing to look for in people is a team-first attitude.
17. Work the team, then the problem. When faced with a challenge or an opportunity, the first step is to ensure the right team is in place and working on it.
18. Pick the right players.The top characteristics to look for are smarts and hearts. E.g. the ability to learn fast, a willingness to work hard, integrity, grit, empathy and a team-first attitude.
19. Pair people.Peer relationships are critical and often overlooked, so seek opportunities to pair people up on projects or decisions.
20. Get to the table.Winning often depends on having the best teams consisting of a mix of genders.
21. Solve the most significant problem first.Identify the biggest issues, bringing it to the front and tackling it first.
22. Don’t let the bitch sessions last.Air all negative issues, but don’t dwell on them. Learn to move on and move on as fast as possible.
23. Winning right.Strive to win, but always win right with commitment, teamwork and integrity.
24. Leaders lead.When the going gets tough, teams are often looking for even more loyalty, commitment and decisiveness from their leaders.
25. Fill the gaps between people.Listen, observe and fill the communication and understanding gaps between people.
26. It’s OK to love.People on your team are human beings by nature, and the group becomes stronger when you break down the walls between the professional and human personas, embracing them with love.
27. To care about people, you have to care about people.Ask about their lives outside of work, understand their families and show up.
28. Cheer demonstrably for people and their success.Don’t just sit there, stand up and show them the love for the work they are doing. Energize, motivate and inspire people to keep them moving.
29. Always build community.Build communities inside and outside of work. A place is much stronger when individuals are connected.
30. Help people.Be generous with your time, connections and other resources.
31. Love the founders.Hold a special reverence for and protect the people who are the founders of the company, often these people are the ones with the most vision and passion for the company.
32. Build relationships whenever you can. Be it when you’re in the elevator, passing someone in the hallway, or see your teammates in the cafeteria, take the time to stop and chat about their lives and share a little about yours.

What makes great companies great is not solely the culture but also the people that help to build that culture.

About the Authors

• Eric Schmidt served as Google CEO and chairman from 2001 until 2011, Google executive chairman from 2011 to 2015, and Alphabet executive chairman from 2015 to 2018.
• Jonathan Rosenberg was a Senior Vice President at Google and is an advisor to the Alphabet management team. He ran the Google product team from 2002 to 2011.
• Alan Eagle has been a director at Google since 2007. Formerly Eric and Jonathan’s speechwriter, he currently runs a set of Google’s sales programs.

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References:

1. https://trilliondollarcoach.com
2. https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/ericschmidt/trillion-dollar-coach-book-bill-campbell
3. https://trilliondollarcoach.com/static/common/images/pdf/trillion-dollar-coach_preview.pdf
4. https://www.fastcompany.com/90331367/bill-campbell-silicon-valley-trillion-dollar-coach-book
5. https://medium.com/motivationlifehacks/book-summary-trillion-dollar-coach-bill-campbell-6ad32cd607f3#:~:text=Key%20takeaways%3A,respect%20and%20not%20demanding%20it.