The Leadership Playbook: Creating a Coaching Culture to Build Winning Business Teams

by Nathan Jamail

The successful self-published author of The Sales Leaders Playbook writes his first mainstream leadership book There are enormous differences between managing and coaching. Yet many companies and organizations encourage their leaders to coach teams without ever teaching them how and without creating a culture that supports coaching.Nathan Jamail—a leading consultant, professional speaker, and the president of his own group of businesses—trains coaches at several Fortune 500 companies and learned that it takes not only different skills to achieve success, but a truly effective coach needs an organizational culture that creates and multiplies the success of every motivated team member. The Leadership Playbook shows leaders the skills necessary to be an effective coach and to build effective teams Fostering employees’ belief in the culture of a companyResolving issues proactively rather than reactively and creating an involvement that constantly pushes employees to be their bestFocusing on the more humane principles of leadership—gratitude, positivity, and recognition—that keep morale highHolding teams and individuals accountableConstantly recruiting talent ("building the bench") rather than filling positions only when they are emptyCombining research, interviews, and inspiring stories with the lessons that have earned Jamail the respect of the world’s foremost corporations including CISCO, FedEx, Sprint, the U.S. Army, and State Farm; The Leadership Playbook will dominate the category for years to come.

Genres: Leadership, Management, Self Help, Business, Nonfiction

223 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 31, 2014

Reviews

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little aggressive in his approach, but certainly some valuable ideas and takeaways.

5 principles of coaching:

1. Make the team more important than any individual
2. Don't avoid conflict - use it
3. Act before a response is needed
4. Pay attention to top performers and make more of them
5. Mandate everybody to prctice

Chapters:

1. Mandate skill practice and player development
2. Build genuine, earned recognition for top performers
3. Have quarterly game plans and peer presentations
4. Set logical goals based on what is possible, dream big, and see them as a challenge
5. Create regular motivation through knowledge , learning and confidence, setting an example, and issuing challenges
6. Identify talent before you need it, focused on enthusiasm and skills > hard skills
7. Make tough decisions: it is never the right decision to keep a person in a job who is not the best fit
8. Treat the victim disease: obstacles are facts, excuses or solutions are results.
9. Get involved: coaching best players to better performance is not micromanagement - coach skills not tasks, focus on roots not fruits
10. Demand accountability: a coach's job is to hire good people and constantly make them better
11. Get in the field and see what is happening IN the business

[Lino Matteo · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Leadership Playbook
Nathan Jamail
2014

This book is an eye opener. You think you know about coaching; you think you know about management but did you know how to coach your managers, staff and top performers. Nathan Jamail shares some excellent insights.

Always been a fan of setting goals. Use the WARM approach.
• Written
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Measurable
But perhaps goals should not be realistic but LOGICAL. People are often scared to soar, so they go sailing but do not leave the sight of land. In business (and in life) sometimes you have to let go. That is how birds learn to fly – but it takes practise!
Take the power out of the past and strive for what can be done, not what has been done. ~ Nathan Jamail
When a client approaches and is looking for success, should you help him with a million dollar plan or show him a billion dollar plan? At a certain point it becomes scale. Scale requires expertise but why limit the passion and drive?

Notes:
1:Winning is not just about results; their desire to win as a team was much more important than the result of the game.
Lose with confidence; win with modesty.
12/13: Most companies have leaders who are managers in management cultures. Most companies need leaders who are coaches in coaching cultures.
Most companies have workers stumbling as managers in an entrepreneurial culture; they strive to convert these leaders into managers, but what they should be achieving is the conversation of these leaders into coaches ~ @Linosversion
14: Coaching doesn’t change who we are as leaders; it changes what we do.

Aside: EMyth defined the roles as: The three business personalities: Entrepreneur, Manager, Technician
LVs
• Doers
• Managers
• Coaches
o The new C-Level: CEO = Coaching Executive Officer
o So should the successful entrepreneur not only have a coach but become a coach? We think YES

15: The five crucial ways managing differs from coaching:
1. Belief in the team
2. Conflict management – coaches make use of conflict to move team members up in the organization or out
3. Involvement – coaches get involved before action is needed
4. Employee focus – pay attention to top performers and focus on making more of them
5. Team building – EVERYONE practices

23: Complacency can be just as dangerous to the team’s morale as negativity.
26: It’s easy to be a bad parent, a bad coach, or a bad leader. It’s hard to make up for it.
29: Managers react. Coaches get involved.
Good managers set up systems so when they have to get involved, it is on an exception basis and they have the time for it. ~ @LinosVersion
33: Managers spend too much time with the people who need the attention instead of those who deserve the attention
37: The way to move the middle up is to chop off the bottom and grow the top.
40: Coaches never think they know it all, and don’t expect their teams to know it all either.

47: Simply put, leaders must make skill practice mandatory for everyone. No excuses
Aside: How do you this in a small business, be it accounting, restaurant or grocery store? Cases? Demo? Staging?
46: Scrimmaging starts with “hello”
Aside: SRS – they are hiding from the telephone and they were a call center!
51/55: Practice leads to better results – period. Without practice, all skills start to fall off- for the player and the team.
Coaches have to make practicing exciting and fun
58: Takeaways: Skill practice and player development
• Coaches must mandate practice and understand the difference between practice and training
• What makes a business person a great asset is not experience but skill
• Scrimmaging is the key to successful practice
• Take the advice we give kids in sports: “Practice like you play.”
• Keep scrimmaging fun, stay focused (especially on top performers)< ad don’t give in to the urge to stop

>>>Keep learning. There are 2 Billion people on Facebook. If you know more than 98% that still leaves 40 million people that know more than you. You can make a good living with 1000 to 100,000 clients. Think BIG and bootstrap your way up! ~ LV
Chapter 2:
61: Competition is good and healthy when done right.
64: The right recognition creates healthy energy
65: If the intent is real, then the value will be real: Genuinely celebrate the small victories.
Have the right system and keep it real.
70: Takeaways: Game Balls and MVPs
• Winning matters: don’t be afraid to recognize those who win and to appreciate the top performers
• Reward and recognition show appreciation for those who do great things and motivate others to strive for great things
• Don’t hurt those who give you everything to please those who give you very little
• Implement regard and recognition to charge behaviour positively and sustain it – for leaders and the team
• Be genuine in our appreciation and recognition, or don’t do it at all.
Chapter 3: Have quarterly game plans and peer presentations
Write down you plan: Without a game plan, all leaders end up doing is reacting.
78: We will only do what we are held accountable to do.
Takeaways: Quarterly game plans and peer presentations
• The only thing worse than an ignored or bad game plan is no game plan – if it is not written down, it’s a thought not a plan.
• Game plans can be a time-consuming beat-down, so while they are extremely important, they get done only when a leader or coach mandates them.
• Don’t stop reviewing your plans, no matter how busy your team becomes or how repetitive the reviews
• Poor presentations are tough, time-consuming, and sometimes inconvenient, but the rewards are HUGE for presentation skills, focus, best-practice sharing, accountability, and success
Chapter 4: Set logical, not realistic, goals
Action speaks louder than words
The biggest difference between crazy and genius is success
Don’t use experience to predict the future
Just because it has never been done doesn’t mean it can’t be done
Takeaways: Set logical, not realistic, goals
• Realistic goals are based on our past and are limited by our experiences; logical goals are based on what can be done based on time, capacity and commitment.
• Make it important and it will be important; goal setting is a benefit. Everyone agrees, yet most of us keep talking about it, and don’t do it, so just do it!
• Logical thinking and dreaming big is not just for kids and sales teams trying to make their numbers – they are for every leader and team that desires to get the most out of work and life!
• We believe our kids can be anything they want to be in life and yet we think we can’t change carers or be number one in business because we haven’t done it before. Whom are we lying to?

Chapter 5: Take responsibility for motivation and morale
102: Motivation is easy to start, hard to sustain.
104: Knowledge + Learning + Confidence = Motivation
105: Challenges make you go bigger
…leaders must remember that their positive attitudes and the energy that comes from them can motivate the team to find solutions to overcome obstacles.

109: Coaches let players lead players on the field, which is a step to making more coaches.
110: Create leaders motivated to coach, not managers motivated to manage
To change does not always mean to get better
Help the team see the blessings they have – the job itself, for one.
113: Always think about and speak to your team the right way
Takeaways: Motivation and morale
• Motivation is like food o our bodies! If you did not eat for three days, we would say we are hungry, not that food doesn’t work. Motivation is the same; we must refill daily
• Knowledge creates confidence, and when we are confident, we are more motivated
• Motivated players with talent and skill will always outperform those without motivation
• Morale is not about action, it is about feelings, and it requires a coach to direct the team members to change their perspective and feel gratitude when the feelings are bad.
Chapter 6: Build your bench; Recruit the best players
Getting better does not always come from hiring those with experience
118: Hire the right people, not the right experience
122: E very company is complicated, different, and specialized, and therefore they are all uniquely the same
124: What makes you great is not what you’ve been doing for fifteen years – what makes you great is you.
126: Teach rookies everything you would want them to know, even if you think they already know it

Takeaways: Building the bench
• Identify talent before you need them so you get what you want and not what you will settle for
• Hire the enthusiasm and skill, and teach the industry knowledge – stop shooting for hitting the ground running and start focusing on practicing with passion
• Recruit and interview as a weekly task: Good employees are hard to find
• Commit and invest time in the new hires immediately

Chapter 7: Make Tough Decisions
If you’ve got someone not doing the job, on any level and with any time served, you need to coach them up or remove them from the position.
Those are three kinds of underperformers we’re likely to encounter in our businesses:
• Complacent long-timers
• Life suckers
• Good guys
Stop confusing tenure with loyalty: We don’t owe people anything for just showing up
Allowing an employee to remain complacent is the coach’s choice
It is impossible to be a great employee and have a bad attitude
Have the right people doing the right things at the right time

Takeaways: Make Tough Decisions
• It is never the right decision to keep a person who is not the best fit in the job
• Once you know a person is not a good fit for a job, your job as a leader is not to be selfish and avoid conflict but to make a move
• Remember: All great long-term rewards require short-term work and pain
• Complacency can kill results, morale, and success faster than the competition in any industry or market
• If someone has a bad attitude, it is their fault, but if you pay them, it is your fault!

Chapter 8: Treat the victim disease
A lot of people behave like victims because we allow them to be victims
150: Simply put, victims do not take responsibility for their actions or failures.
Victims never make anyone feel special, except those who enable them
Change the victim to victor or change the player

Takeaways: Treat the victim disease
• Like so much in coaching, the easy part is identifying this problem, the hard part is addressing it and fixing it
• Most victims do not know they are victims or don’t see themselves as victims
• Recognize the disease and make people aware they have it, then remove the victim disease from the person or remove the person from the team
• Know that leaders who are victims can create more victims because they sympathize with them and they enable them to remain victims
• Look for the blame game when interviewing prospective new hires.

Chapter 9: Avoid the biggest management traps
The five biggest management traps
1) Coaching id difficult and redundant
2) My team is already great
3) Checking the box – or going through the motions
4) Allowing bottom performers to leave on their own timeline
5) Not believing
Takeaways: Avoid the biggest management traps
• Always mandate coaching activities and skills of coaching for your team and yourself
• Sustain the coaching activities and actions you have put in place
• Be proud of your tem and have an idealized vision of them
• Hire fast, fire faster
• Always believe in what you preach and do
Part Three: Create a Coaching Culture

>>>Is a coaching culture different from a learning Culture? We would say, yes, as learning can be done at an individual pace, with coaching you are building a team to do it as a team and practicing as a team to do it better and better! ~ LV
Chapter 10: The desire to win
To succeed as coaches, leaders need a culture that supports the activities of coaching
>>>How to support a coaching culture in a business environment that needs to get things done? Build it into the work? ~ LV
170: Leaders expect only what we inspect, if we don’t insect it, don’t expect it.
The desire to win starts with a desire to get involved
173: Coaches get involved in the beginning and micromanagers get involved in the end.
174: To win, coach skills, not tasks
Understanding how to get involved comes from knowing what to coach
Construction is more than just building
176: Focus on the roots, not the fruits.
Coaches don’t have to have better skills than the team.

>>> Focus on the roots, not the fruits. Harvesting versus mining. Review & Reflect on what the Bible says about roots and fruits: Luke 6:43-45; Galatians 5:16-26; John 15:1-11; Psalm 1.
180: Experience is a negative when it limits you from believing what you can achieve
Takeaways: The desire to win
• The desire to win and the belief in winning is essential for a coach to succeed
• Inspect what you expect
• Coach skills, not tasks
• Leaders get paid to coach and develop their people regardless of tile, department or industry
• A coach does not have to be better than the player to make the player better.

Chapter 11: A culture of accountability
By not holding our people accountable, we selfishly say to them, “You’re not worth the trouble.”
185: Demanding accountability in everything that we do and ask the team to do as leaders is essential to our success
188: Inspect what you expect: grow the flowers
189: Inspect what you expect: pull the weeds
…it is our job to coach them to become bigger than the obstacles
Takeaways: Accountability
• Don’t be selfish: If a person has a bad attitude, that is their problem. It we are paying them and not holding them accountable, that is our fault!
• A coach’s job is to hire good people and constantly make them better
• Getting involved is NOT micromanaging – it cannot be unwanted, happen only when things go wrong, and it must happen with the intent of helping a ream member get better
• Inspect what you expect: you can’t have accountability by just letting people do their jobs
Chapter 12: Get on the field
We can’t coach from our desks
Leaders can’t fully inspect what we expect from behind our desks and the doors of our offices
Make the time to be out there – prioritize coaching
199: Coaching means never having to go under cover
201: coaches need to see the plays up close
203: Remember: Be proud, not prideful
Takeaways: Get on the field
• Stop turning obstacles into excuses; get out of your office several times a week
• Working with and developing your team on the field must become the core of a coach’s priorities – anything else is just checking off tasks

• Don’t wait for a TV show to come calling to reconnect and understand how your team performs
• Being on the field does not take way others’ authority; it gives them power.
205: Post-Game Wrap-up
Too often in business the power of G.L.A.D. (Gratitude, Love, Attitude and Desire) is lost, because it is intangible.
It is our gratitude that will give us great fortitude

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[Jamie HB · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this book, Nathan Jamail focuses on the importance of rewarding top-performers while motivating bottom-performers to want to become top-performers. This focus on top-performers better motivates them to continue performing well, and encourages those who are not performing as well, to strive to do better. I strive to use positive reinforcement in my own leadership practices, and like the idea of rewarding those who are doing well, and how Nathan outlines that you shouldn't feel like you're being unfair by rewarding those who have earned it. Rather than being perceived as being unfair to those who are not being rewarded, this will actually help motivate other team members to bring themselves up to the top-performers level. It is important for the team to see that there is a benefit of doing tasks well. I gave this book three stars because it is a quick read so it doesn't have as much detail as I was hoping for. He introduces the concept of coaching, but doesn't go into too much depth about coaching and leadership compared to other books I have been reading. Overall, it was worth the read as it helped motivate me to change my perception a bit regarding how to motivate people.

[Nicole Smith]

I've read a number of books on this topic lately looking for something that has great examples and presents them in an accessible way, this was probably the best. While perhaps a little heavy on the sports analogy (which shouldn't be surprising given the title), the examples are useful and accessible.

There are principles I have already started putting in practice, and more that I am looking forward to implementing soon.

[Leah Sciabarrasi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book is well written and presents some appealing and approachable ideas for creating a coaching culture using sporting principles. I actually really love this analogy - team members make the best team right now, and they will always be able to contribute in the same way. How do we change the culture of followership to reflect this important point? Maybe employees are meant to evolve, in different organizations, throughout their career.

I'm stuck on the followership piece of this book, however: employees have to be willing and excited (to a degree) to work. When they aren't or are causing issues politically, Jamail would probably recommend that one let's them go. As he says,
"We can legally fire someone for having a bad attitude because a bad attitude is bad performance. Employees don't need to be racist, sexist, or any other "ist" and create hostile work environments for leaders to act. We just need to be clear about what the bad attitude is, communicate it to the employee, and document it with verbal and written warnings. P. 21
AND
"I fired dozens of people with good results but bad attitudes when I was in corporate America, and I rarely had an HR issue, because I made sure the employees knew they needed to step up or step out, and I documented everything." P. 21

Though some organizational cultures have a fire fast mentality, there are others, like higher education, that do not. This has led to lawsuits when organizations do finally take action. In what ways do leaders/managers document issues to prevent lawsuits in the future? I'd love to see Jamail write a follow up to cover these points more concretely.

[Tiffani Alisha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read!

As a coach and mentor, this book was like a bucket of cold water being poured on me on a hot summer day. It shocks you at first but then you realize it’s just what you need!

Great examples and action items to propel any coach to a better position and as a result the people they are responsible for coaching!

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excelent book about leadership and Coaching. A must Read Book to any Manager.

[Visa o · Rating 5 out of 5]

Certainly a book I will go back reading throughout my career.

[Rebecca Moore · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good leadership book. Read for work. Biggest takeaways for me: 1) get involved with your team as a means to participate--not to micromanage, and 2) make your presence a positive and rewarding one for high performers, vs. making your presence about negative reinforcement. Also, scrimmage with your teams--practice the hard stuff, coach, coach, coach.

[Matt]

The business book genre does not have any inherent appeal to me. Since the default rating for the genre would be three stars at best, it's not really fair to the author for me to give this rating. Jamail introduced me to some helpful concepts and what seemed like potentially good advice. However, he seemed keen to fire people, which has some limitations, especially for those who work in places with more employee protections.

[Jessyca505 · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Even Superman can be coached to fly higher." ~ Jamill
Not that I agree with everything in this book..as it is a bit rigid at times, there were still some great takeaways. Every team can be a winner. Coached to be better than we were yesterday.

[Ning-Jia Ong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very "meh" book with a lot of generic statements, little to no references to other sources than his own experiences, no case studies.

On the bright side, if you're looking for a light read. This book does very well in highlighting main points, quotes and is structured well.

[Candace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me angry in a way. It made me realize I lost my job due to laziness in management.