What do you think?
Rate this book
Here It Is: Coaching, Leadership and Life
Paul Roos is a leader, a legend, an AFL icon who transcends the game itself. As a first-rate player, a premiership-winning coach and an in-demand commentator, Roos has achieved extraordinary success on and off the field over more than thirty years in footy.
320 pages, Hardcover
Published December 1, 2017
13 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 24, 2019
This is an excellent blueprint for coaching, for management and for life. I enjoyed the story of Paul’s thoughts and success. I am now looking as to how I can implement his theory into my life.
October 28, 2017
A year after calling time on his AFL coaching career, Paul Roos has produced a book that is far from your typical sporting memoir. Here it is tells the story of Roos' coaching career, but it is told through the prism of him describing the management principles that he developed and applied, and how they worked out in practice.
At the end of his playing career, Roos sat down and noted 25 things that he liked and didn't like about the way that he had been coached. These notes have formed the core of his team and personnel management philosophy ever since. As he explains each principle, he highlights how it was applied at the Sydney Swans and later the Melbourne Demons.
At the heart of Roos' thinking is that club and team success is rooted in improving relationships. Roos came into coaching at the dawn of the professional era, and he was one of the first to realise that, if AFL was to be a player's full time job, the workplace needed to be somewhere they wanted to come to and were happy to be part of. So yelling at players, punishing them for basic errors and treating them as inferiors were out. Roos tried to foster a culture where players' insights were valued, they decided what the desirable team behaviours would be and they took responsibility for enforcing the desirable behaviours. Roos could still be hard on a player, but it would only be on players who were not living up to the team's behaviours and the required commitment.
Having seen Roos' teams play, this book made a lot of sense, particularly looking at how he managed Melbourne in the depths of record failure. In a way, the latter team was a better test of his philosophy than his first use of it at Sydney, because they were already a pretty good side. Roos' account suggests that his methods worked just as well at a club at the bottom and in despair as they did at a club that was travelling fairly well and needed fine-tuning.
I really enjoyed this book, but the last few pages left a sour taste in the mouth as Roos uses them to spruik his new management consultancy rather than end on a more dignified note. That blatant plug cheapens what had gone before and should have been cut.
At the end of his playing career, Roos sat down and noted 25 things that he liked and didn't like about the way that he had been coached. These notes have formed the core of his team and personnel management philosophy ever since. As he explains each principle, he highlights how it was applied at the Sydney Swans and later the Melbourne Demons.
At the heart of Roos' thinking is that club and team success is rooted in improving relationships. Roos came into coaching at the dawn of the professional era, and he was one of the first to realise that, if AFL was to be a player's full time job, the workplace needed to be somewhere they wanted to come to and were happy to be part of. So yelling at players, punishing them for basic errors and treating them as inferiors were out. Roos tried to foster a culture where players' insights were valued, they decided what the desirable team behaviours would be and they took responsibility for enforcing the desirable behaviours. Roos could still be hard on a player, but it would only be on players who were not living up to the team's behaviours and the required commitment.
Having seen Roos' teams play, this book made a lot of sense, particularly looking at how he managed Melbourne in the depths of record failure. In a way, the latter team was a better test of his philosophy than his first use of it at Sydney, because they were already a pretty good side. Roos' account suggests that his methods worked just as well at a club at the bottom and in despair as they did at a club that was travelling fairly well and needed fine-tuning.
I really enjoyed this book, but the last few pages left a sour taste in the mouth as Roos uses them to spruik his new management consultancy rather than end on a more dignified note. That blatant plug cheapens what had gone before and should have been cut.
September 5, 2017
4 1/2 stars.
A great insight into the coaching/management methods that went into his career at the Sydney Swans and why he chose the Melbourne job.
He described the culture he helped create at the Swans and how it was created, bought into by all members and that not everything can and needs to be rushed into. Creating a culture and building relationships take time and that theme is evident throughout the book.
Very informative in terms of what his basis of management would be and why, whether it be through experience or how he chose what aspects could and would work.
The book could be used by someone who is in a managerial position but also shows the reader that in a team environment, whether it is sporting or not, that every member of that team, including the background members, are all important and play a role.
A great insight into the coaching/management methods that went into his career at the Sydney Swans and why he chose the Melbourne job.
He described the culture he helped create at the Swans and how it was created, bought into by all members and that not everything can and needs to be rushed into. Creating a culture and building relationships take time and that theme is evident throughout the book.
Very informative in terms of what his basis of management would be and why, whether it be through experience or how he chose what aspects could and would work.
The book could be used by someone who is in a managerial position but also shows the reader that in a team environment, whether it is sporting or not, that every member of that team, including the background members, are all important and play a role.
January 23, 2018
This isn’t a book I would have chosen for myself, but I loved it. I am a Melbourne football club supporter and massive Paul Roos fan (hence why my boyfriend bought it for me), however sporting biographies are not really my thing. This was so much more than a sporting bio. The leadership and culture information teamed with the footy facts made this book a really enjoyable read.
December 29, 2017
A really interesting insight into the coaching style of one of the best afl coaches of the past decade
February 23, 2018
The approach Paul Roos applied to his coaching career could not have been more clearly explained, and more enjoyable to read. Absolute must read for any AFL fan!
October 9, 2017
I found this an extremely helpful book in terms of leadership. I was relating it to my context all the way through but was also interested in the way Roosy coaches and approaches it. Excellent.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews