Trillion Dollar Coach
Eric Schmidt
Summary
We often underestimate the value of coaching. This is a fantastic book from Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, who talked about the story of Bill Campbell, who was a coach to some of the biggest names in technology and helped generate over a trillion dollars in value. Great management book for anyone that's leading others.
Rating: 4/5
Notes
The higher you climb, the more your success depends on making other people successful
Build safety, clarity, meaning, dependability and impact into teams
The smart creative: someone who combines technical depth w business savy and creative flair
Teams acting as communities is critical to success
The path to success is to form high performing teams and give them the resources and freedom to do great things
Your title makes you a manager, your people make you a leader
Great managers listen and pay attention. Make sure they feel valued by you
People are the foundation of a company’s success
The top priority of any manager is the well-being and success of his/her people
Institute an informal trip report: let everyone talk about their lives when you have meetings start
Have a structure for 1-1s and take time to prepare for them, as they are the best way to help people be more effective and grow
Believe in striving for the best idea, not consensus
When the best idea doesn’t emerge, it’s the managers job to make the decision
Do something, even if it’s wrong. Make the best decision for the company and move on
Lead based on first principles, the truths that are the foundation for the company or product and help guide the decisions from there
Do not tolerate an aberrant genius putting himself always above the team
Compensation isn’t just about economic value of money but emotional value
Compensating well demonstrates love and respect and ties people strongly to the goals of the company
If you have the right product, for the right market at the right time, go as fast as you can
Innovation is where the crazy people have stature
If you have to let people go, be generous, treat them well and celebrate their accomplishments
Send out financial and operational details of board meetings prior to the meeting and expect questions
Share the good and the bad with the board
Trust in your team and CEO. Keep your word, be loyal, act with integrity and discretion
Only coach the coachable
Build trust with those around you and never break it
If people feel secure and that they can trust you, they won’t leave
‘A coach is someone who tells you what you don’t want to heard, who has you see what you don’t want to see so you can be who you have always known you be’ - Tom Landry
Honesty, humility, willingness to persevere and work hard and a constant openness to learning are what makes a person coachable
Listen to people with your full and undivided attention and ask questions to get to the real issue
Be relentlessly honest and candid, couple negative feedback with caring.
Give feedback ASAP and if the feedback is negative, do it privately
Don’t tell people what to do, offer stories and help guide their decisions
Believe in people more than they believe in themselves and push them to be courageous
People are most effective when they’re completely themselves
Work the team, then the problem: ensure the right team is in place to work on it
When assessing people, look for smarts, hard work, integrity and grit, empathy, a team-first attitude and the ability to learn fast
Peer relationships are critical so seek opportunities to pair people up
Winning depends on having the best team and the best teams have more women
Identify the biggest problem, bring it front and centre and solve it
Always win right, with commitment, teamwork and integrity
When things are going bad, teams look for even more loyalty, commitment and decisiveness from their leaders
Listen, observe and fill the communication gaps b/w people
Teams are better when you know and care about the people
To care about people, you have to care about people
Ask the questions about the family, learn people’s names then ask more questions, look at the pictures and above all else, care
Cheer demonstrably for people and their success
Be generous with your time, connections and other resources
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How the World Works
Noam Chomsky
Summary
A combination of books Chomsky wrote in the 80s and 90s about America and it's role in the world. Fascinating read and insight into one of the great thinkers of the 21st century
Rating: 5/5
Notes
The US invaded Greece in 1947 and supported a horrendous war which led to 160k Greek deaths. This was the model for Vietnam and allowed American business to gain and thrive
US policies in the 3rd world consistently opposed democracies if they couldn’t be controlled as real democracies believe government should respond to the needs of their own population rather than those of US investors
US-run contra forces in the 3rd world isn’t ordering killing - it’s brutal sadistic torture (Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala)
From the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 till the collapse of the communist governments in eastern europe in the 80s, it was possible to justify every US attack as defense against the Soviets
If you want a global system that’s subordinated to the needs of US investors, you can’t let pieces of it wander off. It’s clearly stated in the documents of record
The US wants ‘stability’ meaning security for the upper classes and large foreign businesses
Solid case for impeaching every American president since World War 2 either outright as war criminals or involved in serious war crimes
El Salvador and Nicaragua were not covered by the US media in the 70s when US-supported brutal torture and murder were taking place
In the early 80s, America’s friends slaughtered 10s of thousands of Guatemalans with countless others tortured and raped
After Vietnam, the major US policy goal has been to maximize repression and suffering of countries demonstrated by their violence - blocked other countries from seeking aid
The US regularly carries out or supports aggression
For most of the 20th century, the US was the dominant economic power and used economic warfare as a weapon ranging from illegal embargoes to enforcement of weak IMF rules with their military becoming pre-eminent
The US tries to avoid negotiations with countries as the US fears it will lose and other countries will be better off
When a state has huge debts, it must divert the population from what’s happening and they do this by inspiring fear of our enemies (Russia in Europe)
The real enemy of the US has always been ‘the poor who seek to plunder the rich’. In America, it’s the opposite and has been for generations
‘The war on drugs’ was a manufactured media blitz by the US leadership to distract the population, increase repression in inner cities and build support for attack on civil liberties
The US government blocks international effort to seek peace (Russia and Ukraine)
Major media are large companies owned and interlinked with even larger conglomerates. The market is the advertisers and the product is audiences
The power in the US lies in the hands of people who determine investment decisions as they determine production, distribution and staff the government. They want a passive, quiescent population
The struggle of freedom is never over and requires active and sustained efforts
One important consequence of globalization is it extends the third world model to industrial nations where the average person has their jobs shipped away while the rich and elite continue to amass massive amounts of wealth
We’ve moved to an international state with the IMF, World Bank, G7 & EU, WEF where the general population doesn’t know what’s happening and it doesn’t know it doesn’t know
If the borrowing the US has done was used for constructive purposes like investment or infrastructure, the US would be better off, but it was used to enrich the rich - for consumption, financial manipulation and speculation which are all harmful
The class warfare of the last few decades has successfully weakened popular organizations leaving people to feel isolated
The US is so deeply in debt to the international financial community because of debt that they have a lock on US policy
Many of the large number of security council resolutions vetoed by the US have to do with Israeli aggression or atrocities
Invaders typically use local collaborators to run things for them by playing upon existing rivalries to get onne group to work for them against another
European wars were wars of extermination. If we were to be honest about history, we would simply describe it as barbarian invasion
There has always been racism but it developed as a leading principle of thought in the context of colonialism.
A standard technique of belief formation goes along with oppression
In the US, you’re not allowed to talk about the class differences, which is the real issue
When the US establishment talks about jobs, it means profits for its corporations
The elite are masters and they follow what Adam Smith said about ‘the vile maxim’ - all for ourselves and nothing for anyone else
People who aren’t owners and investors have nothing much to say in the US
Jefferson warned against banking institutions and corporations and said if they grow, aristocrats would’ve won and the revolution would’ve been lost
The ‘Free market’ is for the poor. We have a dual system - protection for the rich and market discipline for everyone else
There’s been a considerable increase in inequality and has the American society moving towards a third world model, thereby seeing increased crime and signs of social disintegration
A huge area of the media is dedicated to diverting people and making them more stupid and passive
There’s nothing individualistic about corporations who are totalitarian in nature
Free trade agreements result in reduced wages for local employees while predominantly benefiting the rich consumer while also destroying unions
Operation Paper Clip imported large number of known Nazi criminals
The American army’s counter-insurgency literature begins with an analysis of the German experience in Europe written with the co-operation of Naxi officials (instruments of statecraft - book)
US involvement in Chile with the coup in 1973 to reduce social democracy
The threat of a good empire is what the US worried about with reforms on uncontrolled capitalism
The US killed a few million people and destoryed 3 countries during the Vietnam war
A huge amount of business propaganda is to create wants
The answers to solve all these issues is to organize. Being alone you can’t do anything but if you join with other people, you can make changes
Under capitalism, investment is supposed to be as risk free as possible. No competition wants free markets - what they want is power
The government subsidizes corporations’ costs, protects them from market risks and lets them keep the profits
There’s never been much difference between the 2 business parties and the differences are disappearing
The CIA has been involved in drug running for generations (the politics of heroin book)
You need something to frighten people with, to prevent them from paying attention to what’s really happening to them. You have to engender fear and hatred
The first world lives in a highly indoctrinated society
Neoliberalism is nothing more than the imperial formula: free markets for you and plenty of protection for me. The rich would never accept it but they’re happy to impose it on the poor
The UN does mostly what US business wants
‘Politics is the shadow cast on society by big business’ - John Devery
If people dedicate themselves to organizing and activism, we’ll gain access to broader audiences
If you extrapolate to the future, it’s very ugly but the point is it’s not inevitable. It can be changed but we can’t change things till we understand them.
***
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