Gridiron Genius: A Master Class In Winning Championships And Building Dynasties In The NFL is one of the Top 25 leadership books I have ever read, regardless of the industry. It just happens to focus on football. If you are a leader in business, non-profit, education, or sports, this is a must-have resource.
The book’s author is Michael Lombardi and contains his lessons learned from working for Bill Walsh, Al Davis, and Bill Belichick. He also worked with Nick Saban while at the Cleveland Browns. How many people have that resume?
If you are interested in building a winning culture, hiring the best leaders, team building, innovation, or strategy, buy this book TODAY by clicking HERE or on my picture to the left. Here is what Pastor Rusty George tweeted after I recommend it to him:
@mlombardiNFL #gridirongenius came highly recommended by @BrianKDodd and for good reason! It’s amazing! Thank you!
— Rusty George (@rustylgeorge) September 23, 2018
To give you a sampling of what you would learn, the following are 30 Leadership Quotes from the brilliant book Gridiron Genius. All quotes are from Lombardi unless otherwise noted.
- Practice doesn’t make perfect, it gets you closer to perfection each time you do it.
- “The world gets out of the way for people who know where they are going.” – unknown
- Football is ultimately a business, and as in any successful business the most important ingredients are a sound culture, a realistic plan, strong leadership, and a talented workforce.”
- “Champions behave like champions before they’re champions.” – Walsh
- “If we are all thinking alike, no one is thinking.” – Walsh
- He (Walsh) hired guys who were intelligent before they were anything else, guys who were not typical products of the football industry.
- Walsh wanted men he could mold and develop. He firmly believed that coaches with too much experience in other systems would have a hard time clearing their heads of old ideas to make room for new ones. Over time philosophies become rigid. Methods and styles take root in one’s DNA, making it harder to change direction or adapt to another way.
- It is the creator alone who understands just what the dish is trying to accomplish, and so he’s the only one who knows just how to make the ingredients work together.
- Walsh always believed that general managers of losing organizations survived because they were “firmly in the owner’s comfort zone.”
- Coaches are first and foremost great leaders. Good coaches may be clever play callers or demanding drill sergeants or organized middle managers. But in the ultimate team sport, real success doesn’t depend on tactics or discipline or order. It always comes down to how well a coach leads.
- Whether you use metaphors or game film, delivery isn’t as important as meaning. Players can’t accomplish anything unless they can visualize the path.
- Personal accountability is the ultimate sign of strength. When a leader admits mistakes, it shows the team that he expects as much from himself as he does his players.
- In his play Antigone, Sophocles sums it up best: “All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.” Ego is the leading cause of unemployment in the coaching world. Those who thrive in this profession don’t place their needs ahed of the team’s.
- The right kind of ego demands perfection, not praise.
- The biggest lesson Belichick learned in Cleveland was that he would take another head coaching only if the right owner offered it.
- When rules don’t apply to everyone, the ensuing chaos collapses whatever foundation a leader has tried so hard to build.
- “The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non obvious.” – Marcus Aurelius
- “We are not collecting talent; we are building a team.” – Belichick
- The game of football might be ruled by perfectionists, but at its core, success in the NFL comes down to managing the maddening, inexact science of talent evaluation and team building. And when it comes to predicting human performance on a football field, the only thing for certain is that nothing is ever for certain.
- A draft day crash won’t necessarily destroy a team. But sticking to a plan because of that disaster always will.
- Coach Herb Brooks (of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team) didn’t collect the best hockey players in America for his squad. Rather, he found the right players. To help put together the roster, Brooks, a psychology major, gave each prospect a lengthy test in which he was looking for high scores in three areas: open-mindedness, willingness to learn, and coachability.
- All the best, most competitive players I’ve been around are exactly the same, willing to do whatever it takes.
- The key to success in the passing era of the NFL was to marry the right quarterback to the right scheme.
- “The measure of who are is how we react to something that does not go our way.” – Gregg Popovich
- “Your best player has to set a tone for intolerance for anything that gets in the way of winning.” – Jeff Van Gundy
- Success on Sunday comes from time spent Monday through Saturday preparing yourself to think and play faster. A quick mind comes with preparation. You prepare so well that you don’t have to think; you just react.
- Belichick might not be much for change, but he’s a big believer in adaptation.
- The greatest scheme in the world is only as good as the coaches teaching it.
- “Luck is often the residue of design.” – Branch Rickey
- Warren Buffett admits to spending several hours of his day just reading (mostly company annual reports). He’s pushing 90 years and $90 billion, yet he still strives to be better by trying to learn a bit more each and every day. Reading and research is the best remedy for boredom. But it also guarantees that your thinking will continue to evolve.
- ***BONUS*** – To live in the past is to die in the present.
As you see, the lessons in this book are transformative and I have only scratched the surface of all the information it has. Once again, click HERE to order your copy today. You can thank me later!
For the record, Gridiron Genius is one of the Top 3 football leadership books I have ever read. The others are The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership by Bill Walsh and Coaching Confidential: Inside the Fraternity of NFL Coaches by Gary Myers.
To receive more leadership insights from Alabama head coach Nick Saban, someone else Michael Lombardi worked, click HERE or on the image to the left for my new ebook The Leadership Of Nick Saban: Timeless Truths From The Incomparable Head Coach Of The Alabama Crimson Tide. Enjoy!