I love being at the beach. It gives me lots of time to catch up on non-technical reading. This year, I brought along The Carolina Way: Leadership Lessons from a Life in Coaching, by Dean Smith and Gerald Bell. A little disclosure here; I'm a Carolina fan and if Dean Smith said he made kids practice in bare feet, I'd think it was a good idea.
This book is more than your typical sports book. Sure, it's filled with stories about games, seasons, and individual players. Each chapter starts out with Coach Smith explaining a particular aspect of his coaching methodology. A Player's Perspective follows outlining how the particular aspect and Dr. Bell relates the aspect to the modern workplace. This book is all about building teams.
The Carolina Way can be summed up by these words: Play Hard; Play Together; Play Smart. For example, Coach Smith talks about recruiting players that will fit into his system. Dr. Bell then takes those ideas one step further and relates the recruiting to hiring workers. Another example is Dean Smith held regular one-on-one meetings with each of his players to discover their goals in life as well as basketball. Dr. Bell then outlines how you can pattern employee reviews around these same principals.
I personally got a lot out of this book and plan on implementing some of the strategies in my own team.
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I also had some good summer reading on vacation up in Canada. I read Iron Council by China Melville and Illium by Dan Simmons. We are thinking about going back to North Carolina next summer (early like July before Hurrican season starts) we did this a couple of years in a row in the Nagshead area (near Kitty Hawk).
"I personally got a lot out of this book and plan on implementing some of the strategies in my own team."
You gonna pass out hugs too? :p
Thank you for reminding me about being a team player and how I sh'd appreciate the team. I am learning so much from observing.
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