Book Review: Top 10 Takeaways from "Trillion Dollar Coach"

Written by: Tom Murray | Managing Director, Agency

I was unlucky enough to have a plane with no Wi-Fi on my way to Google Marketing Live in San Francisco, but it did mean that I was lucky enough to be able to read a book from cover to cover. The book I picked up in the airport was called Trillion Dollar Coach – a story about Bill Campbell, a mentor and coach for the top Silicon Valley executives through the years at Google, Facebook, Apple, and more.

I took plenty of notes – 12 pages and 5,000+ words worth, but that would be much too long of a blog post, so I wanted to share the top 10 quick takeaways from the book in an easy to digest form. A lot of the things he shares can stand alone and don’t need much explaining to understand how important these things are to succeeding in business.

1. It’s amazing what great things can get accomplished when you** don’t care who gets the credit.
   **
2. Your title makes you a** manager. **Your people make you a leader.
3. Leaders lead. You can’t afford to doubt, you need to commit. You can make mistakes, but you can’t have one foot in and one foot out, because if you aren’t fully committed, then the people around you won’t be either.
4. Believe in** people more** than they** believe** in**** themselves.****
5. Push people to be more courageous.
6. Strive for the **best ideas, **not consensus.
7. The** most important currency** in any** relationship** is** trust.
   **
8. Praise publicly, criticize privately.
9. The team outcome is just as important as the deliverable.
10. Focus on positive energy geared towards solutions, not negative energy towards problems.

I can’t emphasize how much I recommend this book. It is a quick read, but it might be the most important book you’ll ever read. Don’t believe me? Just ask the 50+ Silicon Valley executives mentioned at the end of the book that say that their success can be directly attributed to Bill’s mentoring and coaching.