Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell

“The simple communications practice—getting people to share stories, to be personal with each other—was in fact a tactic to ensure better decision making and camaraderie.”

The key to successful meetings is creating an environment where everybody feels they can contribute. Studies show that a fun, relaxed work environment where employees know each other on a personal level is more productive. This way, everybody would feel comfortable giving their opinions, which in turn, will result in better decision-making and understanding among them. This sense of community also boosts employee satisfaction and improves team cohesion.

Getting people to talk about their weekend at the beginning of a meeting is a very simple way to get your team to open up and connect with each other.

“The most important thing a manager does is to help people be more effective and to grow and develop, and the one-to-one is the best opportunity to accomplish that.”

One-to-one meetings are an effective tool for coaching managers. Here, you’ll have a chance to find out which areas a manager needs help with, so you can effectively support them. However, running them effectively can be challenging as you must ensure that the conversation goes in the right direction and that all of the most important things are covered. The good news is that you can follow a basic structure for the conversation as a guide.

This structure starts with the discussion of their performance, followed by the manager’s relationships with peers, their way of managing people, and the steps they’re taking to drive innovation. By covering all these areas in a meeting, you’ll have more productive coaching conversations with any manager.

“The manager’s job is to run a decision-making process that ensures all perspectives get heard and considered, and, if necessary, to break ties and make the decision.”

Many leaders mistakenly think that democratic decision-making processes are the best option when making decisions. However, studies suggest that this often leads to ‘groupthink’ where everybody comes to a compromise, and sub-par solutions are decided on.

It’s far more effective to look at all ideas and objectively decide which is best. In cases where this is not possible, a good boss must step in and make the decision themselves.

“Perhaps the most important currency in a relationship—friendship, romantic, familial, or professional—is trust.”

Building trust is the first step in any successful relationship. If you want to lead people and coach them to be better, you must first gain their complete trust. It can be difficult to develop this trust, but you can achieve it by following a few key rules: Only coach people open to being coached, listen properly, be honest, guide people, and believe in them.

“Who was working on the problem? Was the right team in place? Did they have what they needed to succeed?”

When a business runs into a problem, the natural instinct is to begin brainstorming solutions to it. However, you will be more successful if you focus on the team first. If you have an excellent team working on a problem, any issue will be solved.

To build the right team, you have to choose the right people, ensure a diverse but functional team, and pair the right people together to work on projects and tackle problems.