HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership Lessons from Sports (featuring interviews with Sir Alex Ferguson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Andre Agassi)
HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership Lessons from Sports (featuring interviews with Sir Alex Ferguson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Andre Agassi)

Author: Harvard Business Review

Publisher: Harvard Business Press

Published: 2018-01-16

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 1633694356

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The world's elite athletes and coaches achieve high performance through inspiring leadership, mental toughness, and direction-setting strategic choices. Harvard Business Review has talked to many of these high performers throughout the years to learn how their success translates to the world of business. If you read nothing else on management lessons from the world of sports, read these 10 articles by athletes, coaches, and leadership experts. We've combed through our archive and selected the articles that will best help you drive performance. This book will inspire you to: Improve on your weaknesses, not just your strengths Take care of your body for sustained mental performance Increase your confidence and manage your energy before an important event Turn a struggling team around Understand the limits of performance metrics Focus on long-term goals to overcome setbacks Understand where the analogy of sports and business doesn't work This collection of articles includes "Ferguson's Formula," by Anita Elberse with Sir Alex Ferguson; "Life's Work: An Interview with Greg Louganis"; "The Making of a Corporate Athlete," by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz; "The Tough Work of Turning a Team Around," by Bill Parcells; "How an Olympic Gold Medalist Learned to Perform Under Pressure: An Interview with Alex Gregory"; "Mental Preparation Secrets of Top Athletes, Entertainers, and Surgeons," an interview with Daniel McGinn by Sarah Green Carmichael; "SoulCycle's CEO on Sustaining Growth in a Faddish Industry," by Melanie Whelan; "Life's Work: An Interview with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar"; "Major League Innovation," by Scott D. Anthony; "Looking Past Performance in Your Star Talent," by Mark de Rond, Adrian Moorhouse, and Matt Rogan; "Life's Work: An Interview with Mikhail Baryshnikov"; "How the Best of the Best Get Better and Better," by Graham Jones; "Life's Work: An Interview with Joe Girardi"; "Why There Is an I in Team," by Mark de Rond; "Life's Work: An Interview with Andre Agassi"; and "Why Sports Are a Terrible Metaphor for Business," by Bill Taylor.

The Best Team Wins
The Best Team Wins

Author: Adrian Gostick

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2018-02-13

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 150117987X

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The New York Times bestselling authors of The Carrot Principle and All In deliver a breakthrough, groundbreaking guide for building today’s most collaborative teams—so any organization can operate at peak performance. A massive shift is taking place in the business world. In today’s average company, up to eighty percent of employees’ days are now spent working in teams. And yet the teams most people find themselves in are nowhere near as effective as they could be. They’re often divided by tensions, if not outright dissension, and dysfunctional teams drain employees’ energy, enthusiasm, and creativity. Now Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton share the proven ways managers can build cohesive, productive teams, despite the distractions and challenges every business is facing. In The Best Team Wins, Gostick and Elton studied more than 850,000 employee engagement surveys to develop their “Five Disciplines of Team Leaders,” explaining how to recognize and motivate different generations to enhance individual engagement; ways to promote healthy discord and spark innovation; and techniques to unify customer focus and build bridges across functions, cultures, and distance. They’ve shared these disciplines with their corporate clients and have now distilled their breakthrough findings into a succinct, engaging guide for business leaders everywhere. Gostick and Elton offer practical ways to address the real challenges today’s managers are facing, such as the rise of the Millennials, the increasing speed of change, the growing number of global and virtual teams, and the friction created by working cross-functionally. This is a must-read for anyone looking to maximize performance at work, from two of the most successful corporate consultants of their generation, whom The New York Times called “creative and refreshing.”

Lead Your Team to Win
Lead Your Team to Win

Author: Maxine Attong

Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group

Published: 2014-09-30

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1632990105

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Have you, as head of your team, felt frustrated when team members seem distracted and unable to work because of personal issues? Have you, as a team member, wanted a second opinion for your big idea, but were afraid of being laughed at, or—worse—having your idea stolen? Have you been in a work situation where you felt trust was broken, and you were left with few options for repairing it? These issues stymie productivity and strain relationships in offices around the globe; professional business coach Maxine Attong offers a radical, but proven solution: the office “safe space.” Enter this space—where trust is paramount—and find your way forward, free from the worries of being judged, ridiculed, shamed, or stolen from. A safe space offers: an empathetic leader willing to listen as you share what’s preventing you from focusing on the day’s task; a fellow team member willing to help you hammer out an idea you have for streamlining an office procedure; or a team leader willing to listen to your frustrations over a coworker, yet remaining neutral and sworn to secrecy. Attong developed this “safe space” concept through more than twenty years of work with organizations in the gas and oil, financial, manufacturing, and service industries. When team members feel safe, Attong believes, they will take risks, make decisions, and put forth their best efforts despite what is happening in their personal lives. A team with all members able to perform at their peak will be a winning team—one that achieves excellence and propels its people forward to even greater victories. This book leads the way to those victories.

Teaming
Teaming

Author: Amy C. Edmondson

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2012-03-20

Total Pages: 359

ISBN-13: 1118216768

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New breakthrough thinking in organizational learning, leadership, and change Continuous improvement, understanding complex systems, and promoting innovation are all part of the landscape of learning challenges today's companies face. Amy Edmondson shows that organizations thrive, or fail to thrive, based on how well the small groups within those organizations work. In most organizations, the work that produces value for customers is carried out by teams, and increasingly, by flexible team-like entities. The pace of change and the fluidity of most work structures means that it's not really about creating effective teams anymore, but instead about leading effective teaming. Teaming shows that organizations learn when the flexible, fluid collaborations they encompass are able to learn. The problem is teams, and other dynamic groups, don't learn naturally. Edmondson outlines the factors that prevent them from doing so, such as interpersonal fear, irrational beliefs about failure, groupthink, problematic power dynamics, and information hoarding. With Teaming, leaders can shape these factors by encouraging reflection, creating psychological safety, and overcoming defensive interpersonal dynamics that inhibit the sharing of ideas. Further, they can use practical management strategies to help organizations realize the benefits inherent in both success and failure. Presents a clear explanation of practical management concepts for increasing learning capability for business results Introduces a framework that clarifies how learning processes must be altered for different kinds of work Explains how Collaborative Learning works, and gives tips for how to do it well Includes case-study research on Intermountain healthcare, Prudential, GM, Toyota, IDEO, the IRS, and both Cincinnati and Minneapolis Children's Hospitals, among others Based on years of research, this book shows how leaders can make organizational learning happen by building teams that learn.

Why Teams Win
Why Teams Win

Author: Saul L. Miller

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2009-08-26

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 047073695X

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Winning isn't easy. The world is becoming more and more competitive, with a greater need than ever for people to work together effectively in teams to make organizations successful. There is no better model for success in business than the world of sport, with its bottom-line performance culture and its relentless focus on creating winning teams. In Why Teams Win, renowned sports psychologist Dr. Saul L. Miller-the man who teaches elite athletes and top sports teams how to be successful-uses sport as a powerful metaphor for the world of business. Why Teams Win distills Dr. Miller's work with hundreds of high-performance teams-in the worlds of sport, business, healthcare, and the arts-into lessons to help business teams perform. Why Teams Win: Identified the 9 key characteristics of successful teams. Describes how to improve personal, organizational, and team performance in each of these 9 areas. Explains how and why to apply different strategies to different types of teams. Outlines how to balance the needs of the individual with the needs of the team. Helps people work together and perform to the best of their abilities. Shows how to get the maximum potential out of a group of individuals. Features advice, quotes, and interviews from high-profile athletes and coaches, as well as from business leaders. Includes self-evaluation and team-building exercises. Why Teams Win offers anyone wanting to improve their personal and team performance a proven and accessible formula for success.

You Win in the Locker Room First
You Win in the Locker Room First

Author: Jon Gordon

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2015-09-01

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 1119157870

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NFL head coach Mike Smith lead one of the most remarkable turnarounds in NFL history. In the season prior to his arrival in 2008, the Atlanta Falcons had a 4–12 record and the franchise had never before achieved back-to-back winning seasons. Under Smith’s leadership, the Falcons earned an 11–5 record in his first season and would go on to become perennial playoff and Super Bowl contenders earning Smith AP Coach of year in 2008 and voted Coach of Year by his peers in 2008, 2010 and 2012. You Win in the Locker Room First draws on the extraordinary experiences of Coach Mike Smith and Jon Gordon—consultant to numerous college and professional teams—to explore the seven powerful principles that any business, school, organization, or sports team can adopt to revitalize their organization. Step by step, the authors outline a strategy for building a thriving organization and provide a practical framework that give leaders the tools they need to create a great culture, lead with the right mindset, create strong relationships, improve teamwork, execute at a higher level, and avoid the pitfalls that sabotage far too many leaders and organizations. In addition to sharing what went right with the Falcons, Smith also transparently shares what went wrong his last two seasons and provides invaluable lessons leaders can take away from his victories, success, failures and mistakes. Whether it’s an executive leadership team of a Fortune 500 company, a sports team, an emergency room team, military team, or a school team successful leaders coach their team and develop, mentor, encourage, and guide them. This not only improves the team, it improves the leaders and their relationships, connections, and organization. You Win in the Locker Room First offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at one of the most pressure packed leadership jobs on the planet and what leaders can learn from these experiences in order to build their own winning team.

Lead Any Team to Win
Lead Any Team to Win

Author: Jason Selk

Publisher: Hachette UK

Published: 2018-03-13

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0738233978

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"One of the ten best leadership books so far this year." -- Bloomberg Following up the popular peak performance book Organize Tomorrow Today, a new plan to motivate, set priorities and lead any team to optimal achievement Watch a triumphant speech after a sports championship or business milestone and you'll almost always hear some variation of this catchphrase: "It couldn't have happened without the great team we have." It doesn't matter if you're the owner of a 10,000-employee Fortune 500 company or running a small business, you're a part of a team. With a combined 50 years of experience building, managing, advising, and troubleshooting teams in both the business and sports worlds, Jason Selk and Tom Bartow now reveal the common DNA that links the highest performing teams. In Organize Your Team Today, Selk and Bartow show how it takes collective mental toughness to win, developed only through a clear understanding of the goals, limitations, roles and personalities on your team. Great leaders respect and embrace channel capacity, Selk and Bartow explain, which means they don't overload their teams with blizzards of tasks and responsibilities. They bust the "focus" and "relationship" fallacies, as those words are meaningless for teams unless they are byproducts of activities that really matter. And Selk and Bartow teach how to manage expectations, since doing so creates a level of respect between the leader and the team -- and among the team members--that is a catalyst for peak achievement.

Everyone Deserves a Great Manager
Everyone Deserves a Great Manager

Author: Scott Jeffrey Miller

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Published: 2019-10-08

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 1982112077

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***A WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER*** From the organizational experts at FranklinCovey, an essential guide to becoming the great manager every team deserves. A practical must-read, FranklinCovey’s Everyone Deserves a Great Manager is the essential guide for the millions of people all over the world making the challenging and rewarding leap to manager. Based on nearly a decade of research on what makes managers successful—and includes new ways of thinking, tips and techniques—this volume has been field-tested with hundreds of thousands of managers all over the world. Organized under four main roles every manager is expected to fill, Everyone Deserves a Great Manager focuses on how to lead yourself, people, teams, and change. Readers can start anywhere and go everywhere with this guide—depending on their current problem or time constraint. They can pick up a helpful tip in ten minutes or glean an entire skillset with deeper reading. The goal is for the busy manager to know what to do and how to do it without interrupting their regular workflow. Each role highlights the current, authentic problems managers face and briefly explores the limiting mindsets or common mistakes that led to those problems. With skill-based chapters that cover managerial skills like one-on-ones, giving feedback, delegating, hiring, building team culture, and leading remote teams, the book also includes more than thirty unique tools, such as a prep worksheets and a list of behavioral questions for your next interview. An approachable, engaging style using real-world stories, Everyone Deserves a Great Manager provides the blueprint for becoming the great manager every team deserves.

Winning Well
Winning Well

Author: Karin Hurt

Publisher: HarperChristian + ORM

Published: 2016-04-15

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 0814437265

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To succeed in today’s hypercompetitive economy, managers must master creating a productive work environment for employees while still making numbers. Tense, overextended workplaces force managers to choose between results and relationships. Executives set aggressive goals, so managers drive their teams to deliver, resulting in burnout. Or, employees seek connection and support, so managers focus on relationships and fail to make the numbers. However, managers need to achieve both. In Winning Well, managers will learn how to: Stamp out the corrosive win-at-all-costs mentality Focus on the game, not just the score Reinforce behaviors that produce results Sustain energy and momentum Be the leader people want to work for To prevent burnout and disengagement, while still achieving the necessary success for the company, managers must learn how to get their employees productive while creating an environment that makes them want to produce even more. Winning Well offers a quick, practical action plan for making the workplace productive, rewarding, and even fun.