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The Captain Class: The Hidden Force that Creates the World's Greatest Teams
From the founding editor of The Wall Street Journal's sports section comes a bold new theory of leadership drawn from the elite captains who inspired their teams to achieve extraordinary success.
Named one of the best business books of the year by CNBC, strategy+business, Forbes, and SI.com
The secret to winning is not what you think it is.
It's not the coach. It's not the star.
It's not money. It's not a strategy.
It's something else entirely.
Several years ago, Sam Walker set out to answer one of the most hotly debated questions in sports: What are the greatest teams of all time? He devised a formula, then applied it to thousands of teams from leagues all over the world, from the NBA to the English Premier League to Olympic field hockey. When he was done, he had a list of the sixteen most dominant teams in history. At that point, he became obsessed with another, more complicated question: What did these freak teams have in common?
As Walker dug into their stories, a pattern emerged: Each team had the same type of captain--a singular leader with an unconventional skill set who drove it to achieve sustained, historic greatness.
Fueled by a lifetime of sports spectating, twenty years of reporting, and a decade of painstaking research, The Captain Class tells the surprising story of what makes teams exceptional. Drawing on original interviews with athletes from two dozen countries, as well as general managers, coaches, executives, and others skilled at building teams, Walker identifies the seven core qualities of this Captain Class--from extreme doggedness and emotional control to a knack for nonverbal communication to tactical aggression and the courage to stand apart.
Told through riveting accounts of some of the most pressure-soaked moments in sports history--from Bill Russell's legendary "Coleman Play" in the 1957 NBA Finals to Barcelona's "Figo Game" against Real Madrid in 2000--The Captain Class doesn't just bring these events to life; it presents a fresh, counterintuitive take on leadership that can be applied to a wide spectrum of competitive disciplines.
The men and women who make up the Captain Class were never the most skilled athletes, nor were they gifted orators or paragons of sportsmanship. They were often role players who were allergic to the spotlight. In short, the seven attributes they shared challenge your assumptions of what inspired leadership looks like.
Named one of the best business books of the year by CNBC, strategy+business, Forbes, and SI.com
The secret to winning is not what you think it is.
It's not the coach. It's not the star.
It's not money. It's not a strategy.
It's something else entirely.
Several years ago, Sam Walker set out to answer one of the most hotly debated questions in sports: What are the greatest teams of all time? He devised a formula, then applied it to thousands of teams from leagues all over the world, from the NBA to the English Premier League to Olympic field hockey. When he was done, he had a list of the sixteen most dominant teams in history. At that point, he became obsessed with another, more complicated question: What did these freak teams have in common?
As Walker dug into their stories, a pattern emerged: Each team had the same type of captain--a singular leader with an unconventional skill set who drove it to achieve sustained, historic greatness.
Fueled by a lifetime of sports spectating, twenty years of reporting, and a decade of painstaking research, The Captain Class tells the surprising story of what makes teams exceptional. Drawing on original interviews with athletes from two dozen countries, as well as general managers, coaches, executives, and others skilled at building teams, Walker identifies the seven core qualities of this Captain Class--from extreme doggedness and emotional control to a knack for nonverbal communication to tactical aggression and the courage to stand apart.
Told through riveting accounts of some of the most pressure-soaked moments in sports history--from Bill Russell's legendary "Coleman Play" in the 1957 NBA Finals to Barcelona's "Figo Game" against Real Madrid in 2000--The Captain Class doesn't just bring these events to life; it presents a fresh, counterintuitive take on leadership that can be applied to a wide spectrum of competitive disciplines.
The men and women who make up the Captain Class were never the most skilled athletes, nor were they gifted orators or paragons of sportsmanship. They were often role players who were allergic to the spotlight. In short, the seven attributes they shared challenge your assumptions of what inspired leadership looks like.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published April 14, 2016
About the author
Sam Walker
2 books18 followersSam Walker is The Wall Street Journal’s deputy editor for enterprise, the unit that directs the paper’s in-depth page-one features and investigative reporting projects. A former reporter, sports columnist, and sports editor, Walker founded the Journal’s prizewinning daily sports coverage in 2009.
In addition to The Captain Class, he is the author of Fantasyland, a bestselling account of his attempt to win America’s top fantasy baseball expert competition (of which he is a two-time champion).
Walker attended the University of Michigan. He lives in New York City with his wife and two children.
In addition to The Captain Class, he is the author of Fantasyland, a bestselling account of his attempt to win America’s top fantasy baseball expert competition (of which he is a two-time champion).
Walker attended the University of Michigan. He lives in New York City with his wife and two children.
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May 17, 2017
The good: well-written, concise, thoroughly researched, contains lots of interesting stories.
The bad: the reasoning behind the core argument of the book seems flawed.
It's not that the book is necessarily wrong—I have little doubt leaders play a key role in success—but Walker tries to present his conclusions as if they are the result of careful statistical analysis, which is just not the case.
First, there is selection bias at play. Walker's choice of the top 16 sports dynasties of all time is highly subjective and based on his own arbitrary criteria. Had slightly different criteria been used, you could have come up with a very different, but still valid, list of 16 teams—except those teams, in all likelihood, would not have fit his narrative.
Second, the teams Walker focuses on in this story have as many differences between them as similarities. Walker chooses to focus on a few of the similarities—namely, certain types of leaders or captains on those teams—and ignore everything else. The captains Walker focuses on also have many traits in common and many different. Walker again picks a few particular traits and ignores the rest. Perhaps the characteristics Walker identifies explain the success of those teams, or they could be coincidences, or the success could be driven by totally different factors. Correlation does not imply causation, and ignoring everything that doesn't fit your narrative only weakens the argument.
Third, the amount of randomness in sports makes me skeptical of any narrative that boils down to "do this ONE THING well and you'll succeed!" It's never one thing. That's the case not just in sports, but any other complicated, dynamic, competitive system. If you found "one thing" that worked in the stock market, everyone else would react to it, and it would no longer work. The same is true in sports. It's never one thing. It's always a combination of factors. Leadership matters, but so do many other factors, such as coaches, superstars, owners, payroll, fans, opponents, strategy, and dumb luck. Walker does take some time to dismiss these popular counter theories, but the evidence for ignoring those items is no better or worse than the evidence for ignoring his "Captain Class" argument. There are many factors at play, and I did not find Walker's argument convincing that the type of leadership he describes is essential or in some way a more important factor than the other possibilities.
All that said, there are useful insights in this book about the type of leadership it actually takes to be successful. Walker's description of an elite captain is refreshingly different—and in my experience, more accurate—than the stereotypes we always hear about. Two of the key insights:
* Being a great leader is not about motivational speeches, good looks, charisma, fame, or doing things that make you look good. It's about doing the hard, gritty work that it takes to make your team successful. Often, this work is not glamourous. Great leaders "carry the water" for their team.
* When people work in groups, the natural tendency is to put in less effort than you would if you were working alone, as your effort becomes less identifiable when mixed with the rest of the group. The only thing that seems to fix this is to see that someone else in the group is giving it their absolute all and not holding back even a little. That "someone else" is the kind of great captain Walker describes: the type of person that goes hard every play, every practice, on and off the field, pushing themselves in every single opportunity. This sort of work ethic is contagious and can drive an entire team to greatness.
The bad: the reasoning behind the core argument of the book seems flawed.
It's not that the book is necessarily wrong—I have little doubt leaders play a key role in success—but Walker tries to present his conclusions as if they are the result of careful statistical analysis, which is just not the case.
First, there is selection bias at play. Walker's choice of the top 16 sports dynasties of all time is highly subjective and based on his own arbitrary criteria. Had slightly different criteria been used, you could have come up with a very different, but still valid, list of 16 teams—except those teams, in all likelihood, would not have fit his narrative.
Second, the teams Walker focuses on in this story have as many differences between them as similarities. Walker chooses to focus on a few of the similarities—namely, certain types of leaders or captains on those teams—and ignore everything else. The captains Walker focuses on also have many traits in common and many different. Walker again picks a few particular traits and ignores the rest. Perhaps the characteristics Walker identifies explain the success of those teams, or they could be coincidences, or the success could be driven by totally different factors. Correlation does not imply causation, and ignoring everything that doesn't fit your narrative only weakens the argument.
Third, the amount of randomness in sports makes me skeptical of any narrative that boils down to "do this ONE THING well and you'll succeed!" It's never one thing. That's the case not just in sports, but any other complicated, dynamic, competitive system. If you found "one thing" that worked in the stock market, everyone else would react to it, and it would no longer work. The same is true in sports. It's never one thing. It's always a combination of factors. Leadership matters, but so do many other factors, such as coaches, superstars, owners, payroll, fans, opponents, strategy, and dumb luck. Walker does take some time to dismiss these popular counter theories, but the evidence for ignoring those items is no better or worse than the evidence for ignoring his "Captain Class" argument. There are many factors at play, and I did not find Walker's argument convincing that the type of leadership he describes is essential or in some way a more important factor than the other possibilities.
All that said, there are useful insights in this book about the type of leadership it actually takes to be successful. Walker's description of an elite captain is refreshingly different—and in my experience, more accurate—than the stereotypes we always hear about. Two of the key insights:
* Being a great leader is not about motivational speeches, good looks, charisma, fame, or doing things that make you look good. It's about doing the hard, gritty work that it takes to make your team successful. Often, this work is not glamourous. Great leaders "carry the water" for their team.
* When people work in groups, the natural tendency is to put in less effort than you would if you were working alone, as your effort becomes less identifiable when mixed with the rest of the group. The only thing that seems to fix this is to see that someone else in the group is giving it their absolute all and not holding back even a little. That "someone else" is the kind of great captain Walker describes: the type of person that goes hard every play, every practice, on and off the field, pushing themselves in every single opportunity. This sort of work ethic is contagious and can drive an entire team to greatness.
June 4, 2017
The Captain Class is many different genres trying to fit into one book. On the one hand it is a serious and sober examination of sports dynasties and how they come to be. This is of course an impossible task undertake, but Sam Walker takes a very logical and serious look at the topic. It is also a primer for what makes something like a sports dynasty come alive and breathe and succeed. It is also a book on leadership and what makes a leader in the sports context.
Truth be told, I feel like he succeeded in all of his missions but the important part is that he did not go down some well-trod paths. For that I am eternally grateful.
Part I of the book describes the process by which he takes all the successful sports teams, from many time periods, from almost all sports, and he applies various sieves to disqualify candidates so that he has a manageable number of candidates to analyze. This alone is a large job, and a contentious one that would involve just about every denizen of every sports bar and pub the world over. I won’t get into his process, needless to say it will be the start of many a conversation, and his reasoning and explanation should be read and thought over by the reader.
The author comes up with sixteen teams. Sixteen iconic teams that the author labeled as his Tier One teams; by the way, he helpfully lists the Tier One teams and the Tier two teams in the appendix of the book, i.e. those teams that barely missed being tier one. This appendix will be well thumbed in the future by this reader.
The next daunting task is to examine at all the teams and to come to a conclusion as what made these teams Tier one, what drove them to being so salient amongst the many, which factor defined the success of that team. This is yet another impossible task, one that will also be debated ad infinitum. Once again, the author does an admirable and thoughtful job of considering a large number of factors and then writing an erudite defense of his analysis. Again, this is argument fodder amongst the denizens of the bars and pubs as well as the denizens of board rooms, think tanks, B schools, and consulting firms.
His conclusion is that what drives the bus for these teams, are the captains of these teams, a throwback position in our entitlement society, a society that disdains hierarchy and a position that serves the greater good of the team. He explains why he moved past the mythical and iconoclastic belief in the coach, or the idolatry of the superstar athlete and settled on the water carrying captain. Again, I won’t repeat his arguments from the book because he does a much better job than I ever will, since he carried the water for the book and I think his argument, the way he phrased it, is important for the reader to absorb and consider.
Part II of the book lists seven qualities that the author feel are unique and defining for a Tier one captain. He describes in depth, using anecdotes and extensive interviews with those captains, the unique and critical qualities that make these men and women so very successful and so very unique. Each chapter is a cogent explanation of each quality that the author feels is crucial for the success of each of these captains.
Part III is the counterexample. The story of the Tier 2 captains, who had all the necessary qualities, except for that one critical quality which doomed them to Tier 2 rather than Tier 1, a cautionary tale.
The well-trod path that the author did not go down is the path of the ubiquitous and trite path of the vast majority of business books. This book could very easily have become a mish mash retelling of the same points and sold as a formulaic recipe for success. The bane of the modern day business world is this formulaic grinding out of uninteresting and useless tomes detailing simplistic recitations of some Powerpoint bullets.
Sam Walker has too much respect for the subject; more importantly, he appreciates the complexity and coupled nature of the successful captaincy. He has lain out what he feels is super salient about these captains and he is smart enough to not lead the reader to believe that the results of the great captain can be duplicated simplistically. He leaves it to us to try to put the facts together, to think about the ramifications of what we can do to develop those seven qualities, either for ourselves or as a coach or teacher for a student.
As I finished the book, I was actually hoping for some pithy summation for my convenience, but in the end, I was grateful that he avoided the clichéd business school content. Now I can think deeply and critically on his arguments.
To be fair, the author does reiterate the major points that he wanted to make at the end of each chapter, but it is a re-statement of the argument and not a how-to guide.
Whether you are a sports fan, a coach, a consultant, or anyone having to do with developing people into leaders, this is an excellent and challenging addition to your library.
Truth be told, I feel like he succeeded in all of his missions but the important part is that he did not go down some well-trod paths. For that I am eternally grateful.
Part I of the book describes the process by which he takes all the successful sports teams, from many time periods, from almost all sports, and he applies various sieves to disqualify candidates so that he has a manageable number of candidates to analyze. This alone is a large job, and a contentious one that would involve just about every denizen of every sports bar and pub the world over. I won’t get into his process, needless to say it will be the start of many a conversation, and his reasoning and explanation should be read and thought over by the reader.
The author comes up with sixteen teams. Sixteen iconic teams that the author labeled as his Tier One teams; by the way, he helpfully lists the Tier One teams and the Tier two teams in the appendix of the book, i.e. those teams that barely missed being tier one. This appendix will be well thumbed in the future by this reader.
The next daunting task is to examine at all the teams and to come to a conclusion as what made these teams Tier one, what drove them to being so salient amongst the many, which factor defined the success of that team. This is yet another impossible task, one that will also be debated ad infinitum. Once again, the author does an admirable and thoughtful job of considering a large number of factors and then writing an erudite defense of his analysis. Again, this is argument fodder amongst the denizens of the bars and pubs as well as the denizens of board rooms, think tanks, B schools, and consulting firms.
His conclusion is that what drives the bus for these teams, are the captains of these teams, a throwback position in our entitlement society, a society that disdains hierarchy and a position that serves the greater good of the team. He explains why he moved past the mythical and iconoclastic belief in the coach, or the idolatry of the superstar athlete and settled on the water carrying captain. Again, I won’t repeat his arguments from the book because he does a much better job than I ever will, since he carried the water for the book and I think his argument, the way he phrased it, is important for the reader to absorb and consider.
Part II of the book lists seven qualities that the author feel are unique and defining for a Tier one captain. He describes in depth, using anecdotes and extensive interviews with those captains, the unique and critical qualities that make these men and women so very successful and so very unique. Each chapter is a cogent explanation of each quality that the author feels is crucial for the success of each of these captains.
Part III is the counterexample. The story of the Tier 2 captains, who had all the necessary qualities, except for that one critical quality which doomed them to Tier 2 rather than Tier 1, a cautionary tale.
The well-trod path that the author did not go down is the path of the ubiquitous and trite path of the vast majority of business books. This book could very easily have become a mish mash retelling of the same points and sold as a formulaic recipe for success. The bane of the modern day business world is this formulaic grinding out of uninteresting and useless tomes detailing simplistic recitations of some Powerpoint bullets.
Sam Walker has too much respect for the subject; more importantly, he appreciates the complexity and coupled nature of the successful captaincy. He has lain out what he feels is super salient about these captains and he is smart enough to not lead the reader to believe that the results of the great captain can be duplicated simplistically. He leaves it to us to try to put the facts together, to think about the ramifications of what we can do to develop those seven qualities, either for ourselves or as a coach or teacher for a student.
As I finished the book, I was actually hoping for some pithy summation for my convenience, but in the end, I was grateful that he avoided the clichéd business school content. Now I can think deeply and critically on his arguments.
To be fair, the author does reiterate the major points that he wanted to make at the end of each chapter, but it is a re-statement of the argument and not a how-to guide.
Whether you are a sports fan, a coach, a consultant, or anyone having to do with developing people into leaders, this is an excellent and challenging addition to your library.
Read
August 3, 2026tough book to rate, so i’m taking the easy way out and just choosing not to. here are some of my thoughts & pondering, nonetheless….
Disclaimer that this book isn’t written from a christian perspective. These are just the thoughts of a christian after engaging with it.
- I think what we look for in a leader as Christians in the Kingdom MUST look different than what this world looks for in a leader. That said, I don’t often see the word “leader” in scripture - at least not defined the way 21st century America defines it. So are we looking at the wrong thing ? Are we so wrapped up in finding the right leader or being the right leader that we miss God Himself ?
- In what ways do you surrender to what is orthodox (normal, expected) rather than exploring in freedom?
- Is your view of the truth impacted by who you perceive has status and ability ?
- Why are we so obsessed with the impressive ?
Disclaimer that this book isn’t written from a christian perspective. These are just the thoughts of a christian after engaging with it.
- I think what we look for in a leader as Christians in the Kingdom MUST look different than what this world looks for in a leader. That said, I don’t often see the word “leader” in scripture - at least not defined the way 21st century America defines it. So are we looking at the wrong thing ? Are we so wrapped up in finding the right leader or being the right leader that we miss God Himself ?
- In what ways do you surrender to what is orthodox (normal, expected) rather than exploring in freedom?
- Is your view of the truth impacted by who you perceive has status and ability ?
- Why are we so obsessed with the impressive ?
April 4, 2017
I received this book from Good Reads.
Well written, fun reading, excellent non fiction. As a Pittsburgh Steelers fan since I was born (I think anyone born in Pgh. is born a Steelers fan LOL) I found Walker's claim that the captain "makes" a great team totally correct.
A great gift for sports oriented men, for sure.
Well written, fun reading, excellent non fiction. As a Pittsburgh Steelers fan since I was born (I think anyone born in Pgh. is born a Steelers fan LOL) I found Walker's claim that the captain "makes" a great team totally correct.
A great gift for sports oriented men, for sure.
January 26, 2018
A sports book that doubles as a leadership book - not a bad combo. What I appreciated is that it was more narrative driven and diagnostic than prescriptive and motivational. All in all a thoroughly enjoyable and insightful book.
March 16, 2017
Every so often, I come across a non-fiction book that is so well written that is becomes as impossible to put down as a first-rate spy thriller. The Captain Class meets that rare standard. After reading a few pages, I cast aside a pretty good novel I was half-way through so I could focus on what Sam Walker had to say. His theory, distilled from painstaking research on the most successful teams in the history of sports, is startling in its simplicity. Walker came away from his research convinced that these freakishly successful teams shared one, and only one common factor: each team included a captain who displayed a rare set of character qualities that transformed the team into something extraordinary.
What's really surprising is that this "Captain Class" includes few athletes who received public recognition as superstars, and in the rare cases when they did receive media attention, invariably shunned it. Indeed these captains often displayed characteristics that many would consider antisocial, often content to serve unglamorous supporting roles on their teams and prone toward stubborn, opportunistic behavior that furthered their one goal: a winning team.
Despite the convincing case that Walker makes for selecting the right captain, it appears that many of today's teams are discarding captaincy as a purposeless relic and putting all of their resources into attracting star players and high-profile coaches. If more owners and general managers read this book, it may cause them to pay attention to this special class of overlooked leader. As Walker observes, businesses also benefit from having a captain in their midst who is willing to champion unpopular positions and take bold actions for the greater good of the organization.
All in all, a terrific read, chock full of important leadership lessons for any organization that strives to be the best.
What's really surprising is that this "Captain Class" includes few athletes who received public recognition as superstars, and in the rare cases when they did receive media attention, invariably shunned it. Indeed these captains often displayed characteristics that many would consider antisocial, often content to serve unglamorous supporting roles on their teams and prone toward stubborn, opportunistic behavior that furthered their one goal: a winning team.
Despite the convincing case that Walker makes for selecting the right captain, it appears that many of today's teams are discarding captaincy as a purposeless relic and putting all of their resources into attracting star players and high-profile coaches. If more owners and general managers read this book, it may cause them to pay attention to this special class of overlooked leader. As Walker observes, businesses also benefit from having a captain in their midst who is willing to champion unpopular positions and take bold actions for the greater good of the organization.
All in all, a terrific read, chock full of important leadership lessons for any organization that strives to be the best.
April 10, 2017
This book was astonishingly good for such an intuitive concept. It is amazing this book was not written years ago. I want to send it to every athlete I have ever admired. I also want to throw it at Kevin Durant's head.
May 26, 2017
Book: The Captain Class
Author: Sam Walker
When I got this book, I had no idea what to expect. When I started reading the Prologue, I began to understand what I was going to be getting in to. Over many years, Sam Walker put in hours and hours of research to find the world’s greatest sports teams and what caused them to achieve greatness.
In order for him to find the greatest sports teams of all time, he had to put every single team, of every single year, to a series of tests. He put in days of work and research and eventually came up with a list of 13 teams that he thought belonged in the G.O.A.T. category.
He then set out to find what made these teams so great. He had a couple theories on what he thought, but he quickly learned that none of them matched up with a majority of the 13 teams. He eventually found the one thing that every team had in common: a great captain. But, it’s not the captains that you would expect.
Overall, I thought this book was very well written and a good book to read. This book may come off as just a sports book to many, but it is also a leadership book. Anyone could read this book to learn about the leadership skills that the greatest captains in history have used, and apply them to their own lives in order to try to become a better leader.
Author: Sam Walker
When I got this book, I had no idea what to expect. When I started reading the Prologue, I began to understand what I was going to be getting in to. Over many years, Sam Walker put in hours and hours of research to find the world’s greatest sports teams and what caused them to achieve greatness.
In order for him to find the greatest sports teams of all time, he had to put every single team, of every single year, to a series of tests. He put in days of work and research and eventually came up with a list of 13 teams that he thought belonged in the G.O.A.T. category.
He then set out to find what made these teams so great. He had a couple theories on what he thought, but he quickly learned that none of them matched up with a majority of the 13 teams. He eventually found the one thing that every team had in common: a great captain. But, it’s not the captains that you would expect.
Overall, I thought this book was very well written and a good book to read. This book may come off as just a sports book to many, but it is also a leadership book. Anyone could read this book to learn about the leadership skills that the greatest captains in history have used, and apply them to their own lives in order to try to become a better leader.
May 25, 2017
I loved this book - definitely my favorite so far this year. It’s a great blend of in-depth sports analysis and team dynamics/management theory (and full disclosure, I dislike and rarely read business books). As a lifelong sports fan (and a recent convert to soccer fandom) I absolutely loved the rational/empirical approach to assessing the greatest teams in history, and the incredibly wide (and global) net the author cast to make his assessment. What is particularly fascinating is that the author did not set out to write a book about captains per se, but uncovered this undeniable link in his analysis of these great teams. And the stories behind these captains that came from all walks of life (most of whom I was not aware of) are incredibly entertaining and extremely well told. And on a personal/selfish level, knowing that it’s OK to shun the spotlight, avoid big speeches, and be a “water carrier” while still being a leader was kind of a relief. Thanks for such a great read!
August 5, 2017
Sam Walker didn't start off looking to examine team captains. He started off looking at the most dominant teams - and that led him to his thesis that team captains (a particular type of that breed) are what drives the best teams forward.
First, he had to figure out what were the most dominant teams. He started off casting his net widely, looking at all sorts of team sports from around the world over the last 100 years. He decided to focus on teams that had at least five people in the field of play at all times, and who had a sizable following at least somewhere in the world. That culled a lot. Then he decided it must be clubs that stood alone in their sport (more on that later on), played the highest available competition (so he nixed the Vince Lombardi Packers, because of the AFL-NFL divide, even though the AFL was the inferior league), and had to last at least four years.
Based on this, he was left was 17 clubs. Yeah, there's an NHL team (Montreal Canadians), a baseball teams (Stengel's Yankees), an NFL club (Steel Curtain), and two NBA teams (Spurs and Bill Russell's Celtics). There's also some soccer teams, a handball team, a women's soccer club, a women's volleyball national team, the Soviet hockey team, an Australian rules football squad, a women's field hockey team, and two rugby squads. It's a pretty diverse batch. And Walker says all these teams have one thing in common: they all had the same type of team captain. And Walker argues that team captain wasn't usually the best player on the team, let alone any sort of all-time great. Some are stars (Yogi Berra, Bill Russell, Tim Duncan), but most weren't. One soccer captain was derided as a "water carrier" when he became captain, but he embraced that description.
Walker says the captains had seven common characteristics: 1) they were incredibly dogged and never gave up, 2) they played to the edge of the rules to see how much they could get away with (and that meant taking some occasional fouls), 3) they "led from behind" and led by serving the team instead of themselves (this is where Walker discusses the water-carrier soccer captain), 4) they engaged in practical communication - they were rarely big speech-givers and they generally hated being in the public eye, but they could help facilitate team-wide communication behind closed doors and on the field of play. 5) They were good at non-verbal displays of communication, which is kind of an extension of the previous point, but Walker notes that not all communication is verbal. 6) They were willing to cause some controversy - but only if they saw it as being in the good of the team. If they made any controversial statements, it wasn't about any personal petty issues. And 7) They were good at regulating their emotions.
Everyone of his captains gets profiled in the course, and you can see some general similarities as he does it (though Walker is clearly picking his spots when to profile Captain A or Captain B). And Walker does a good job highlighting a series of studies on psychology, group dynamics, and leadership that back up his points on how people like his captains can help raise the level of play and effort of their teammates so everyone maxes out at their level.
While it is an interesting book with a nice premise, there are some problems. For example, no matter what criteria he uses there will always be some gray areas on the in/out lines for what clubs get selected - but that doesn't mean some of the choices are bewildering. He tries to explain it in an appendix, but it's still bewildering. Why aren't the 1936-39 Yankees in his cut? Well, they didn't win as many consecutive titles as the 1949-53 Yankees. Well, then why are their two different NBA teams involved? The Bill Russell Celtics, sure - but why the Tim Duncan Spurs? Walker says the 1990s Bulls didn't make the cut because of their pair of playoff losses in the mid-1990s, but .....six titles is still more than the Spurs won, and in fewer years. If the Spurs qualify, why not the Tom Brady Patriots? It's a similar record - extended greatness for well over a decade with multiple titles. Really, that Spurs one just messes up a lot of his standards.
Also, his later chapters on the decline of the position of captaincy in modern times really seems a bit like cherry-picking. He notes that the position of captain in the 21st century has become more about giving it to the biggest star, or not having it at all. And money has begun to influence things in pro sports. Ummmm... how are any of those things new? Look at the Yankees- they once had Babe Ruth as their captain. They were also captain-less for over 30 years during some of their best years ever. (Walker calls Yogi Berra the captain of the Stengel Yankees, in a frankly arbitrary decision). Money's influence isn't new. It sounds like he's holding up all modern captains to the standards of the best captains in history, ignoring that there were always some inferior captains - that's now new.
He has a nice chapter at the end going over flawed captains. He has an interesting extended critical take on Michael Jordan, who Walker sees as NOT what a leader should be like. He argues that Jordan was all about Jordan, which explains why he often belittled his teammates, how they didn't become a dynasty until Bill Cartwright was named co-captain (and Cartwright was both a guy who had stood up to Jordan, and had been nicknamed "Teach" for his willingness to help young players). Also, Walker argues that Jordan's weird mid-career retirement shows how he doesn't fit the mold. He was just an adrenelin junkie who always wanted to prove himself in competition, but he'd already proven himself in basketball so he left his team. Walker makes an interesting case, though he does overdue it. (As self-centered as Jordan is/was, he was willing to feed John Paxson with the ball at key points in the 1991 finals and Steve Kerr in '97).
In general, it's a very interesting book. Added bonus: it even has a glowing blurb from Theo Epstein on the back cover.
First, he had to figure out what were the most dominant teams. He started off casting his net widely, looking at all sorts of team sports from around the world over the last 100 years. He decided to focus on teams that had at least five people in the field of play at all times, and who had a sizable following at least somewhere in the world. That culled a lot. Then he decided it must be clubs that stood alone in their sport (more on that later on), played the highest available competition (so he nixed the Vince Lombardi Packers, because of the AFL-NFL divide, even though the AFL was the inferior league), and had to last at least four years.
Based on this, he was left was 17 clubs. Yeah, there's an NHL team (Montreal Canadians), a baseball teams (Stengel's Yankees), an NFL club (Steel Curtain), and two NBA teams (Spurs and Bill Russell's Celtics). There's also some soccer teams, a handball team, a women's soccer club, a women's volleyball national team, the Soviet hockey team, an Australian rules football squad, a women's field hockey team, and two rugby squads. It's a pretty diverse batch. And Walker says all these teams have one thing in common: they all had the same type of team captain. And Walker argues that team captain wasn't usually the best player on the team, let alone any sort of all-time great. Some are stars (Yogi Berra, Bill Russell, Tim Duncan), but most weren't. One soccer captain was derided as a "water carrier" when he became captain, but he embraced that description.
Walker says the captains had seven common characteristics: 1) they were incredibly dogged and never gave up, 2) they played to the edge of the rules to see how much they could get away with (and that meant taking some occasional fouls), 3) they "led from behind" and led by serving the team instead of themselves (this is where Walker discusses the water-carrier soccer captain), 4) they engaged in practical communication - they were rarely big speech-givers and they generally hated being in the public eye, but they could help facilitate team-wide communication behind closed doors and on the field of play. 5) They were good at non-verbal displays of communication, which is kind of an extension of the previous point, but Walker notes that not all communication is verbal. 6) They were willing to cause some controversy - but only if they saw it as being in the good of the team. If they made any controversial statements, it wasn't about any personal petty issues. And 7) They were good at regulating their emotions.
Everyone of his captains gets profiled in the course, and you can see some general similarities as he does it (though Walker is clearly picking his spots when to profile Captain A or Captain B). And Walker does a good job highlighting a series of studies on psychology, group dynamics, and leadership that back up his points on how people like his captains can help raise the level of play and effort of their teammates so everyone maxes out at their level.
While it is an interesting book with a nice premise, there are some problems. For example, no matter what criteria he uses there will always be some gray areas on the in/out lines for what clubs get selected - but that doesn't mean some of the choices are bewildering. He tries to explain it in an appendix, but it's still bewildering. Why aren't the 1936-39 Yankees in his cut? Well, they didn't win as many consecutive titles as the 1949-53 Yankees. Well, then why are their two different NBA teams involved? The Bill Russell Celtics, sure - but why the Tim Duncan Spurs? Walker says the 1990s Bulls didn't make the cut because of their pair of playoff losses in the mid-1990s, but .....six titles is still more than the Spurs won, and in fewer years. If the Spurs qualify, why not the Tom Brady Patriots? It's a similar record - extended greatness for well over a decade with multiple titles. Really, that Spurs one just messes up a lot of his standards.
Also, his later chapters on the decline of the position of captaincy in modern times really seems a bit like cherry-picking. He notes that the position of captain in the 21st century has become more about giving it to the biggest star, or not having it at all. And money has begun to influence things in pro sports. Ummmm... how are any of those things new? Look at the Yankees- they once had Babe Ruth as their captain. They were also captain-less for over 30 years during some of their best years ever. (Walker calls Yogi Berra the captain of the Stengel Yankees, in a frankly arbitrary decision). Money's influence isn't new. It sounds like he's holding up all modern captains to the standards of the best captains in history, ignoring that there were always some inferior captains - that's now new.
He has a nice chapter at the end going over flawed captains. He has an interesting extended critical take on Michael Jordan, who Walker sees as NOT what a leader should be like. He argues that Jordan was all about Jordan, which explains why he often belittled his teammates, how they didn't become a dynasty until Bill Cartwright was named co-captain (and Cartwright was both a guy who had stood up to Jordan, and had been nicknamed "Teach" for his willingness to help young players). Also, Walker argues that Jordan's weird mid-career retirement shows how he doesn't fit the mold. He was just an adrenelin junkie who always wanted to prove himself in competition, but he'd already proven himself in basketball so he left his team. Walker makes an interesting case, though he does overdue it. (As self-centered as Jordan is/was, he was willing to feed John Paxson with the ball at key points in the 1991 finals and Steve Kerr in '97).
In general, it's a very interesting book. Added bonus: it even has a glowing blurb from Theo Epstein on the back cover.
November 3, 2021
No groundbreaking info but I enjoyed the sports narratives! Felt like reading a 30 for 30
September 28, 2017
I'm very torn about this book. I love sports. I love analytics. The teams in this book that I already knew a lot about I can't get enough good stories about, and I was really excited to learn more about other incredible teams. I had really high expectations going in.
The central concept ruined my enjoyment of the great stories there are in the book however. The book has a pretence of objectivity that rings completely false - his choices he makes in narrowing the teams down are completely subjective, his list of qualities that these captains all supposedly have in common is similarly completely subjective
Apart the initial whittling down of the teams and list of qualities these captain's share the book is structure to go through each quality individually . The author doesn't convince in each chapter that these characteristics are actually shared by all 16 as usually only 2-3 are mentioned for each chapter, and even in those narrow choices the way he describes the captain's behaviour seems contradictory. For the sports I am more familiar with also, some of the examples to show how exceptional these captains are seemed quite banal characteristics shared by many players.
It's also completely glosses over that one of the chosen 16 (Brazil's 58-70 soccer teams) actually had 3 different captains, even though his initial reasoning in the book is that the captains are the one factor that these dynasties have in common. Once I hit that chapter I was pretty much done taking this conceit remotely seriously.
I would have really enjoyed this book if it has just focused on the stories of the 16 teams. The constant attempts to shoehorn these stories into his framework made it frustrating to read. I have some great new stories to pass on (particularly that of Buck Shelford!) so it wasn't totally a wasted read.
The central concept ruined my enjoyment of the great stories there are in the book however. The book has a pretence of objectivity that rings completely false - his choices he makes in narrowing the teams down are completely subjective, his list of qualities that these captains all supposedly have in common is similarly completely subjective
Apart the initial whittling down of the teams and list of qualities these captain's share the book is structure to go through each quality individually . The author doesn't convince in each chapter that these characteristics are actually shared by all 16 as usually only 2-3 are mentioned for each chapter, and even in those narrow choices the way he describes the captain's behaviour seems contradictory. For the sports I am more familiar with also, some of the examples to show how exceptional these captains are seemed quite banal characteristics shared by many players.
It's also completely glosses over that one of the chosen 16 (Brazil's 58-70 soccer teams) actually had 3 different captains, even though his initial reasoning in the book is that the captains are the one factor that these dynasties have in common. Once I hit that chapter I was pretty much done taking this conceit remotely seriously.
I would have really enjoyed this book if it has just focused on the stories of the 16 teams. The constant attempts to shoehorn these stories into his framework made it frustrating to read. I have some great new stories to pass on (particularly that of Buck Shelford!) so it wasn't totally a wasted read.
September 20, 2017
This isn't the kind of book I would normally read, but I got it from the library for my husband, who is a big baseball fan. He enjoyed it, so I gave it a go. My comment on reading this: to really enjoy it fully and give it five stars, you might need to be a die-hard sports fan to enjoy all the asides about his analysis. I am not that fan. HOWEVER, there was much to enjoy, even for a layperson who likes sports but isn't a fanatic.
What is the special sauce that makes some sports teams better than any others? According to Walker's exhaustive analysis, it has a lot to do with a sense of team cohesion, communication, grit and selflessness -- and the 'glue' that often provides this cohesion is the captain, not the coach.
Unlike what you'd expect, the captain in most of these cases is not the superstar player on the team -- it's usually someone introverted whose whole essence is focused on getting the best out of his teammates. The captain works his ass off, but he's usually passing the ball rather than shooting, motivating and helping to facilitate the stars to do their thing, and he or she is often content to stay out of the spotlight once they've won the game.
This is an interesting read, recommended for team sports fans. Walker goes through a lot of explanation of what went into his final selection of Tier 1 teams, but for me the reading gets very interesting when he breaks down the winning ways of these teams/captains into 7 attributes, highlighted by some amazing stories. I finished with a sense of true appreciation for players like Bill Russell of the Celtics, Yogi Berra of the Yankees and Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs.
What is the special sauce that makes some sports teams better than any others? According to Walker's exhaustive analysis, it has a lot to do with a sense of team cohesion, communication, grit and selflessness -- and the 'glue' that often provides this cohesion is the captain, not the coach.
Unlike what you'd expect, the captain in most of these cases is not the superstar player on the team -- it's usually someone introverted whose whole essence is focused on getting the best out of his teammates. The captain works his ass off, but he's usually passing the ball rather than shooting, motivating and helping to facilitate the stars to do their thing, and he or she is often content to stay out of the spotlight once they've won the game.
This is an interesting read, recommended for team sports fans. Walker goes through a lot of explanation of what went into his final selection of Tier 1 teams, but for me the reading gets very interesting when he breaks down the winning ways of these teams/captains into 7 attributes, highlighted by some amazing stories. I finished with a sense of true appreciation for players like Bill Russell of the Celtics, Yogi Berra of the Yankees and Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs.
July 2, 2017
What are the greatest teams of all time across all sports? What do those elite teams have in common?
Sam Walker spent countless hours researching winning teams and setting criteria to narrow it down to the 16 greatest teams of all time. He shares his criteria and thought process in chapter 1. In the next few chapters, he looks at captains, talent, money, culture, and coaches. Then he looks at the seven methods of elite leaders and leadership mistakes and misperceptions.
It was a fascinating read. I enjoyed reading through his thought process and the examples from teams that he shared.
Sam Walker spent countless hours researching winning teams and setting criteria to narrow it down to the 16 greatest teams of all time. He shares his criteria and thought process in chapter 1. In the next few chapters, he looks at captains, talent, money, culture, and coaches. Then he looks at the seven methods of elite leaders and leadership mistakes and misperceptions.
It was a fascinating read. I enjoyed reading through his thought process and the examples from teams that he shared.
September 20, 2017
I loved this book mainly for challenging the conventional wisdom of what makes a great leader with concise methodology and statistics. Borrowing heavily from behavioral psychology and its use of conscientious data-driven approach, I loved how the author reaches the conclusions that a truly great leader is not particularly the kind of "leader" illustrated by mainstream business / leadership books and that having a Michael Jordan in the team doesn't necessarily guarantee dominance. This was a fascinating read.
May 22, 2018
I loathe leadership books. They are poorly written, pragmatic, formulaic, and generally the worst genre of writing in the world. There is more good writing and ideas in a sappy Christian romance novel than a leadership book...
Until The Captain Class. Sam Walker delivers a well written, clear, engaging leadership book that doesn’t fall into the tropes of its genre. The thesis: The character of the captain is the key to a teams success.
I loved this book and it will be my de facto book on leadership going forward. Exceptional.
Until The Captain Class. Sam Walker delivers a well written, clear, engaging leadership book that doesn’t fall into the tropes of its genre. The thesis: The character of the captain is the key to a teams success.
I loved this book and it will be my de facto book on leadership going forward. Exceptional.
May 15, 2020
Ever thought of becoming a captain of your sport club, company or any other activity? - It’s not about being loud or having motivational speeches. It’s about knowing what each and every individual needs and put your ego aside. You don’t need to be the glorious front player but be a supporter of the teams vision by passing the ball to the right person at the right moment.
August 13, 2017
Loved this book - I can't believe it wasn't written earlier! Excited to share with my team
July 29, 2020
Debo empezar diciendo que el libro es muy entrenido. Primero identifica lo que a su juicio son los mejores equipos en el mundo de los deportes. Utiliza una metolodogía "empírica" para determinar los mejores 16 equipos de la historia y su objetivo es entender que tenían en común esos 16 equipos, si se trataba del: capitán, entrenador, número de estrellas, poder económico y cultura del equipo.
Concluye que el rasgo en común de todos esos 16 equipos es el capitán y su rol de "líder" en el equipo, como una figura que casi pasa desapercibida, que no es el que tiene más carisma y latento en el equipo, que habla poco y que se comunica eficazmante no necesariamente hablando (como en el caso de Tim Duncan) pero que es capaz de inspirar tomando riesgos desmedidos pero también sin un afán de tomar el rol protagónico casi nunca, sino de servicio al equipo, de tomar el asiento de atrás y de hacer la labor de "aguatero" las veces que sea necesario.
Me parece que para ser más concluyente le faltó ir por uno sobre las 16 capitanes de los mejores equipos de la historia y desarrollar su personalidad. Sólo desarrolla unos 5 o 6 casos y con eso concluye, y es más está el caso de Brasil del 1958-1962 que tuvo hasta 3 capitanes, lo cual desbarataría un poco su argumento.
Sin embargo, el libro te deja excelentes ideas y para mi debe ser un libro de lectura obligatoria no sólo para aquellos que estén involucrados en el deporte sino también es aplicable al mundo de los negocios.
Mi reflexión final y algo en lo que estoy totalmente de acuerdo con el autor es que en la actualidad el rol del capitán se ha trastocado y hoy es más una figura de marketing que recae normalmente en la estrella del equipo y no en el líder natural del equipo, el mejor ejemplo de esto es Messi, y eso es un error garrafal en el manejo de grupos.
Concluye que el rasgo en común de todos esos 16 equipos es el capitán y su rol de "líder" en el equipo, como una figura que casi pasa desapercibida, que no es el que tiene más carisma y latento en el equipo, que habla poco y que se comunica eficazmante no necesariamente hablando (como en el caso de Tim Duncan) pero que es capaz de inspirar tomando riesgos desmedidos pero también sin un afán de tomar el rol protagónico casi nunca, sino de servicio al equipo, de tomar el asiento de atrás y de hacer la labor de "aguatero" las veces que sea necesario.
Me parece que para ser más concluyente le faltó ir por uno sobre las 16 capitanes de los mejores equipos de la historia y desarrollar su personalidad. Sólo desarrolla unos 5 o 6 casos y con eso concluye, y es más está el caso de Brasil del 1958-1962 que tuvo hasta 3 capitanes, lo cual desbarataría un poco su argumento.
Sin embargo, el libro te deja excelentes ideas y para mi debe ser un libro de lectura obligatoria no sólo para aquellos que estén involucrados en el deporte sino también es aplicable al mundo de los negocios.
Mi reflexión final y algo en lo que estoy totalmente de acuerdo con el autor es que en la actualidad el rol del capitán se ha trastocado y hoy es más una figura de marketing que recae normalmente en la estrella del equipo y no en el líder natural del equipo, el mejor ejemplo de esto es Messi, y eso es un error garrafal en el manejo de grupos.
January 1, 2019
This is better than a lot of sports books, as it’s got a clear premise and goes beyond the level of stringing together anecdotes in support of an argument. The author’s premise is essentially that the factor binding together truly exceptional teams - across all sports- is the quality of captaincy, and that captains of these teams share similar traits. It’s obviously possible to argue over whether the 16 teams he identifies as defining their sport are the right ones (eg whether the Hungarian men’s football team of the late 1950s are better than the Spanish team of 2008-2012), but his methodology is good enough to be arguable, and the traits that he identifies as making exceptional captains do recur across different sports. Overall the most interesting generalisable chapters are in the second half - where he pulls together examples of how different traits recur across different sports, and how great captains shaped their teams and responded to vastly different circumstances in ways that nevertheless displayed similar approaches.
August 8, 2026
Erstklassig recherchiertes Buch auf der einen Seite. Zu rational bewertet auf der anderen Seite!
Die Aussage dass „Coaching statistisch irrelevant“ sei, ist aus meiner Sicht reiner Bullshit. Nichtsdestotrotz ist der Blick auf den Captain einer Mannschaft und die damit verbundene Wichtigkeit etwas dass mir vorher nicht bewusst war. (Eigentlich würde ich 3,5 Sterne geben, aber heute runde ich mal auf :) )
Die Aussage dass „Coaching statistisch irrelevant“ sei, ist aus meiner Sicht reiner Bullshit. Nichtsdestotrotz ist der Blick auf den Captain einer Mannschaft und die damit verbundene Wichtigkeit etwas dass mir vorher nicht bewusst war. (Eigentlich würde ich 3,5 Sterne geben, aber heute runde ich mal auf :) )
January 9, 2019
There were a few interesting points, and I do believe in the importance of captains in sports and generally strong leaders in everyday endeavours, but overall I am highly dubious that the "Tier One" leaders had anything different to innumerable other sports captains who were in slightly less talented teams. Sure, I think there are some characteristics of successful leaders that we can learn from, but trying to contrive captainship as the critical X-factor devalues all the other effort that world conquering sports people put into being so successful.
April 14, 2024
I read this for my work book club lmao
October 2, 2024
Sam walker did an excellent job in his study of great team captains. He brings up a lot of points that actually contradict society’s preconceived notions of what makes a great captain. This is one of those books that I believe everyone should be required to read at some point in their life.
Read
August 9, 2026Rachel and lily didn’t rate so I’m choosing not to either. Read for soccer. Wouldn’t want to read it again but I’m glad I read it.
October 16, 2017
I was skeptical coming in but it turned out to be a fascinating book, with relevancy not just for sports but for leadership in general. Walker looks at the absolute best sports teams in history (with ridiculously high standards - i.e. the Jordan-era Bulls, any-era Lakers and Walsh-era 49ers don't make the list) across literally all team sports (e.g. women's volleyball and men's handball) to try to see if there's any commonality. He finds that there is, but it's not what most people think makes a legendary team - it's the qualities of the team captain. Not the organizational structure. Not the coach or GM. Not even pure talent. The captains of the history's greatest teams have very similar qualities.
Furthermore, they're not the qualities most think of when it comes to a great captain. It's not talent, it's not motivational speaking. The common qualities of legendary team captains were:
1/ Extreme doggedness in competition
2/ Aggressive play up to the very edge of the rules
3/ A willingness to do thankless jobs in the shadows
4/ A low-key democratic communication style
5/ Non-verbal motivation
6/ Conviction and willingness to defy authority for the good of the team
7/ Emotional control
It's mostly compelling, and provocative. For example, he claims that MJ and Derek Jeter were not great captains, nor were their teams legendary - MJ needed Cartright and Pippen as co-captains before he found success, and Walker considers MJ walking away for 2 years a strike against his greatness. Jeter only one 1 championship under his many years as captain. People praised his leadership skills but Walker thinks he had the wrong ones for true team greatness.
It's not a perfect book - the main flaw is that it's inconsistent. At times he shows how captains of these teams just below the very best tier display these qualities to show that they're important; at other times he shows how captains of teams just below the best don't display these qualities to argue that it kept them out of legendary status (e.g. Roy Keane and Manchester United). It strikes one as selective. Furthermore, I'm not convinced that every single captain on his list displayed all of these qualities. For example, I don't think Tim Duncan ever pushed the boundaries of the rules. So I'm not certain how universal these rules are.
Furthermore, his standards are so high, it's not clear how useful they are - being below legendary status, like winning 6 championships in 8 years, strikes me as being pretty incredible. And if these qualities aren't required for that, how universally useful are they?
That said - it's pretty compelling, and odd to see these commonalities between disparate great teams. He explicitly draws leadership parallels to the business world as well, and that's where it's most thought-provoking. I'm inclined to agree - I think the qualities that make great team leaders aren't necessarily those that are most recognized. The common theme around these qualities is a humility around one's self and focus on the team. More than charisma or genius, it's these I think that make a great team leader.
Furthermore, they're not the qualities most think of when it comes to a great captain. It's not talent, it's not motivational speaking. The common qualities of legendary team captains were:
1/ Extreme doggedness in competition
2/ Aggressive play up to the very edge of the rules
3/ A willingness to do thankless jobs in the shadows
4/ A low-key democratic communication style
5/ Non-verbal motivation
6/ Conviction and willingness to defy authority for the good of the team
7/ Emotional control
It's mostly compelling, and provocative. For example, he claims that MJ and Derek Jeter were not great captains, nor were their teams legendary - MJ needed Cartright and Pippen as co-captains before he found success, and Walker considers MJ walking away for 2 years a strike against his greatness. Jeter only one 1 championship under his many years as captain. People praised his leadership skills but Walker thinks he had the wrong ones for true team greatness.
It's not a perfect book - the main flaw is that it's inconsistent. At times he shows how captains of these teams just below the very best tier display these qualities to show that they're important; at other times he shows how captains of teams just below the best don't display these qualities to argue that it kept them out of legendary status (e.g. Roy Keane and Manchester United). It strikes one as selective. Furthermore, I'm not convinced that every single captain on his list displayed all of these qualities. For example, I don't think Tim Duncan ever pushed the boundaries of the rules. So I'm not certain how universal these rules are.
Furthermore, his standards are so high, it's not clear how useful they are - being below legendary status, like winning 6 championships in 8 years, strikes me as being pretty incredible. And if these qualities aren't required for that, how universally useful are they?
That said - it's pretty compelling, and odd to see these commonalities between disparate great teams. He explicitly draws leadership parallels to the business world as well, and that's where it's most thought-provoking. I'm inclined to agree - I think the qualities that make great team leaders aren't necessarily those that are most recognized. The common theme around these qualities is a humility around one's self and focus on the team. More than charisma or genius, it's these I think that make a great team leader.
March 19, 2018
Interesting book and premise about the characteristics that set apart the 16 greatest sports teams of all time. As the title suggests, after looking at dozens of variables, the author finds that it is their captains - and that the most effective captains are more often the "water carrier" than the star player. The book has a lot of applicability to modern sports teams, which, the author argues, tend to choose captains based on the "wrong" characteristics. I think the lessons of the book are harder to apply to workplace environments, but this is something I'm still pondering and this would be a great book club read to discuss that question more. Also, the author only focuses on the 16 teams, or "Tier One" teams, throughout the book. This sample was chosen out an initial pool of thousands of teams across all major sports, countries, etc. over the last century. The author also identified a "Tier Two" consisting of about 100 sports teams. Based on the the total universe of sports teams, these Tier Two teams could also be considered to be remarkable in sports history. The author doesn't discuss the characteristics of the Tier Two teams in the book but I found myself wondering about them throughout and whether the characteristics are similar to the Tier One teams, or if there are any lessons that the Tier Two teams could offer that might be more widely generalizable or achievable than what set apart Tier One.
May 2, 2018
What an interesting read! Hearing the stories and the research that Sam Walker puts in this book is so interesting. Sam talks about the particular kind of 'captain' that helped these dynastic teams become so extraordinarily successful. These days, we have an idea of what that kind of leader looks like- but Sam's book shows us that the kind of leaders we have fallen in love with are NOT the kind of leaders that have been able to lead their teams to this kind of excellence. He shows us that the kind of person that brings their teams to success- they have attributes that we don't seem to truly value these days- as we have grown to become more enamored with those who are more 'beautiful', loud, rich, famous...etc. The leaders who bring their teams to extraordinary success are the ones that serve their teammates, that constantly communicate the culture and direction of the team, ones that are disciplined to control their emotions, ones that passionately work and train, and also ones that make strategic calculations to push the boundaries of what is considered 'fair' for the success of the team.
April 13, 2017
I was provided an advanced copy of this book via NetGalley for my honest review. This is my honest review.
This is a book about sports on the surface, but about leadership and determination at its core. You do not have to be the captain of a team or even an athlete to gain some value from this book. Understanding how these successful teams and individuals are wired is quite beneficial to everyone. Just because these captains excel in sports does not lessen the reasons why they excel and how others can excel as well These individuals would be successful and influential regardless of the field in which they have chosen. This book could have been about successful businessmen and women, and the underlying truths would have remained constant. Sports serve as a effective conduit to the reader and learner on how to lead and improve, and as such, this book is able to portray its intended thesis in a significant manner.
This is a book about sports on the surface, but about leadership and determination at its core. You do not have to be the captain of a team or even an athlete to gain some value from this book. Understanding how these successful teams and individuals are wired is quite beneficial to everyone. Just because these captains excel in sports does not lessen the reasons why they excel and how others can excel as well These individuals would be successful and influential regardless of the field in which they have chosen. This book could have been about successful businessmen and women, and the underlying truths would have remained constant. Sports serve as a effective conduit to the reader and learner on how to lead and improve, and as such, this book is able to portray its intended thesis in a significant manner.
August 21, 2017
A focused, insightful look into leadership through the lens of team captaincy. Unlike some projects that tie together research and anecdotes, Walker doesn't get sidetracked or lose his main thread. His book is well organized, outlined, and executed. Nowhere along the way does his thesis get muddled, and the teams/captains he chose to showcase were fascinating to study.
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