Bill Belichick on Leadership
Bill Belichick, head coach for the New England Patriots, is an interesting guy. William Stephen “Bill” Belichick (/ˈbɛlɨtʃɪk/; born April 16, 1952) is an American football head coach for the New England Patriots of the National Football League. He also has extensive authority over the Patriots’ football operations, effectively making him the team’s general manager as well. Coaching continuously in various roles in the NFL since 1975, Belichick earned his first head coaching job with the Cleveland Browns in 1991. Following his firing in 1995, he did not serve as a head coach again until 2000 with the Patriots. Since then, Belichick has coached the Patriots to five Super Bowl appearances: victories in Super Bowls XXXVI, XXXVIII, and XXXIX, and subsequent losses in Super Bowl XLII and Super Bowl XLVI. He was named the AP NFL Coach of the Year for the 2003, 2007 and 2010 seasons. Belichick is the NFL’s longest tenured active head coach.
And of course he is a master manipulator of the media. His personality is just effervescent 
But he is an awesome leader. Here is what Belichick said on leadership while delivering the keynote address at a sports medicine symposium in May.
“What I’ve always told our team, and what I thoroughly believe in, is that every member of our team — players, coaches, support staff and so forth – is a shareholder. They have a share in the team. Are they all exactly equal? Of course not, but they’re all shareholders. Every member of the team has an opportunity to show positive leadership or negative leadership. That’s really what it comes to. The question for that person is ‘How are they going to do that? How are they going to control that?’”
A winning approach I would say
And now some tuneage from The Killers in honor of Mr. Brightside, Bill Belichick
Enjoy the day.
Webman
Leadership Made Simple
One of the greatest leaders of our time was Peter Drucker. Peter Ferdinand Drucker (November 19, 1909 – November 11, 2005) was an Austrian-born American management consultant, educator, and author, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of the modern business corporation. He was also a leader in the development of management education, and he invented the concept known as management by objectives.
Drucker’s books and scholarly and popular articles explored how humans are organized across the business, government, and nonprofit sectors of society. He is one of the best-known and most widely influential thinkers and writers on the subject of management theory and practice. His writings have predicted many of the major developments of the late twentieth century, including privatization and decentralization; the rise of Japan to economic world power; the decisive importance of marketing; and the emergence of the information society with its necessity of lifelong learning. In 1959, Drucker coined the term “knowledge worker” and later in his life considered knowledge worker productivity to be the next frontier of management.
Here is what Peter Drucker believed about leadership:
- A leader is someone who has followers
- Popularity is not leadership, results are
- Leaders are highly visible, they set examples
- Leadership is not rank, privilege, titles or money; it is responsibility
Leaders do not hide behind issues; they confront and resolve them. Leaders do not avoid conflict; they embrace it and learn from it. Leaders don’t sit in their offices all day; they interact and work closely with their co-workers. Leaders don’t need control; they know how to get things done by understanding the business issues clearly and resolving them through collaboration. Leaders listen. Leaders change and embrace change. Leaders lead change.
Do you work for a great leader? Are you a great leader? Do you have what it takes?
Don’t follow, lead.
A classic tune from the 80′s to begin your day today.
Thanks to Wikipedia www.wikipedia.org for the brief overview of Mr. Drucker.
Webman
Ah, Fresh Air!
Been raining this week. Makes me long for taking the top off the jeep and rolling the windows down. Dogs really like it when the windows are down. The smell of the road, the wind through their hair, the joy of freedom.
And with the windows down, you can just crank the music up really loud, rest your arm on the window, put your sunglasses on and sing. Works for me because no one can hear me
Enjoy the weekend.
Webman
Your iPhone Just Got Better
In case you missed it yesterday, Apple had a few new products to share with you yesterday. As usual, the company continues to just crush it and will be providing you with new and more productive ways to leverage and use all of the Apple technology that you have. Apple announced a major iOS 7 redesign, with countless iOS 7 features that are rolling out in the iOS 7 beta today. They are also going directly after Pandora with their new iRadio service and killed a few competitive apps by just including these capabilities in the operating system, like the flashlight.
So in case you missed the announcements yesterday, here are a few nuggets for you. Change is good. But remember, as Woodrow Wilson once said “If you want to make enemies, try to change something.” So this will identify the positives around the announcements. Someone else can write about what they hate about Apple. Not me.
- Control Center – In iOS 7 Apple adds a Control Center, which allows users to swipe up from the bottom of any screen for access to toggling WiFi, Do Not Disturb, Brightness, controlling music playback, AirPlay and more. There’s also a flashlight built-in and shortcuts to apps.
- Swipe to Go Back - When in Safari or other apps, if you need to go back, don’t bother looking for the back button, swiping in from the left will go back.
- Scrolling App Folders - The new app folders in iOS 7 aren’t limited to a few apps. If you want to put all your games into a folder you can now do that and scroll through apps in a folder.
- Better Sharing Menu - The new iOS 7 sharing menu includes a scrollable list of apps and other iPhones to make sharing photos and more simpler.
- Great New Look - Apple changed the look of IOS, from the font and dock up to the status bar at the top of the iPhone. This is a brand new look that many users are already excited to try out.
- New Multitasking With Previews – The new iOS 7 multitasking uses the full size of the iPhone 5 display to let users see what’s going on in apps. Users can also swipe up to kill an app, instead of long pressing on it.
- Siri Voice Options – In iOS 7 Siri offers a new female voice and a male voice for the first time.
- More Control of iPhone with Siri – Siri can now control more of the iPhone. In the demo Siri on iOS 7 controlled brightness, returning calls and controlling iRadio.
- iOS 7 Looks Change to Match Your Background – When you change the background of the home screen, elements of the IOS system will change to match the colors. This includes the dialer and other parts of iOS 7.
- New Camera App – iOS 7 features a new Camera app that includes faster access to panorama, a new look and much more.
These are just 10 of the great new things developed by Apple and announced yesterday. Thanks to the folks at Gottabemobile for the summary. An additional 40 new items can be found at
http://www.gottabemobile.com/2013/06/10/50-ios-7-features-youll-actually-care-about/
And the hits just keep on coming. Speaking about hits, here is one of my favorite summer songs from The Alarm:
Webman
Ain’t Wastin Time No More
Had a chance to see the Red Sox vs Angels game yesterday. What is it about a live baseball game that I love? Everything
Looking around the ball park, it is easy to observe just how many people are on their smartphones. We see it at work everyday, but when you see 37,000 people in one place, it provides an interesting perspective. Did you know, on average, people check their smartphones or feature phones 150 times per day. My favorite yesterday at Fenway, was people taking pictures of themselves when their faces appeared on the jumbotron in center field. Sweet Caroline indeed! So good, so good, so good….
In 2010, Nokia found 150 to be the number of times the average individual views their phone on a daily basis, which includes both smartphones and feature phones. U.S. carrier T-Mobile, meanwhile, confirmed the same figure for the American market in its own study conducted during 2012. In the United Kingdom, meanwhile, the figure is claimed to have reached 200.
Well, one thing you should not do is walk and text. Fort Lee, N.J. police said they will begin issuing $85 jaywalking tickets to pedestrians who are caught texting while walking. “It’s a big distraction. Pedestrians aren’t watching where they are going and they are not aware,” said Thomas Ripoli, chief of the Fort Lee Police Department.
Tough to stay focused, isn’t it. Well, when we are at work there are a number of things that get in our way during the course of the day. Check out this cool infographic.
So, stay focused and stop wasting time. So many good things for you to focus on
And now a little Allman Brothers to start your Monday – Classic indeed!
Enjoy the day.
Webman
Glory Days
My favorite sport is baseball. Can’t get enough of the game. Love all of the strategy and yes, all of the statistics. They measure everything now. With all that data, they are finding new ways to win ballgames by understanding player tendencies, deploying new defensive shifts, throwing certain pitches in certain counts and of course looking for clues/any advantage they can by “stealing” insights. Does a pitcher move his glove in a certain way before he throws the curveball? Look, he sticks his tongue out when he throws the circle change? It is the smallest of details that continue to separate the winners from the losers.
A little Boss to start your day.
Changing sports to football, check out the great infographic on all NFL team logo’s over the years. Really cool.
Enjoy the day.
Webman
Window Shopping with Friends
Started my day in NYC yesterday with a business meeting near Herald Square. I love NYC. The people, the buzz, the energy; all good from my perspective. And then of course there is the never ending stream of places to eat and shop. And yes, NYC is very expensive, no doubt about that. Brought lunch yesterday for $13.50. This consisted of a nice sandwich, chips and an ice tea. $13.50? Really?
Later in the day, I walked over to Grand Central Station to catch a train to Greenwich, CT. More on that in a bit. This is the 100 year anniversary of GCT. Happens to be one of the most magnificent train stations in the world.
An amazing place. And also now a destination site for retail and commerce. All sorts of stores there now including Apple’s unique location right in the terminal. On my walk to GCT, I also noticed so many retail stores that were just buzzing with activity, sales, entertainment outside to get you inside; innovative retailers doing what it takes to get us to spend a buck.
Next I hopped a train and headed to Greenwich to meet up with some old friends. Took a stroll up Greenwich Avenue, which to say the least is a high end place to shop with many of the highest end retailers such as Tiffany’s and Saks being open for business. Spent a few hours with my friends Maria, Fred and Terry. (Maria, if you are reading this today, thanks for making it happen) Shared some stories, got caught up on the last 15 years, laughed really hard before everyone headed back home. When you get a chance to work with great people and share successes, the bond that you create lives in infamy. It does not matter how much time passes between visits; once the ball gets rolling it is like no time past at all
One of the many challenges for retailers is the rental/ownership cost of these physical store locations as well as the size of the stores themselves, where inventory and choices may be limited due to space constraints, store layout and other restraining forces. So every store owner has to deal with making sure they are turning their inventory at that physical location to cover there overhead and make a buck. Today, most retailers also have webstores that are open 24/7 and they use a variety of different techniques to incent you to visit and buy. The commerce evolution continues as savvy retailers blur the line between physical and on-line stores, making your shopping experience even more compelling and creating loyalty through differentiating technology. Well, that is about to change again.
EBay Inc is launching virtual stores called “shoppable windows” this month that the e-commerce company hopes will help retailers generate more sales from their existing physical store networks. The first four of these screens will open from June 8 through July 7 in busy parts of New York City, such as the lower east side and Soho. They will sell 30 items from Kate Spade Saturday, a new fashion brand launched this year by apparel retailer Fifth & Pacific Companies Inc.
The new screens measure about 9 feet across and 2 feet (0.6 meter) high and will appear on the front windows of closed stores. Shoppers will be able to touch the screens to order and have products delivered to them within an hour via courier. Payment will be accepted by the couriers through PayPal Here, a mobile payment service developed by eBay.
This is the latest effort by eBay to work more closely with large retailers that are looking to reach more online and mobile shoppers. The company has attracted some large retailers, such as Target Corp, to its online marketplace, while developing mobile shopping technology for other retailers such as Macy’s Inc.
EBay’s “shoppable windows” are an extension of the shift to mobile shopping. For Fifth & Pacific, the windows will help launch its new Kate Spade Saturday brand without opening new physical stores, at least initially, according to Chief Executive William McComb.
“This gives us the ability to produce more from our retail space,” McComb said. “My nickname for it is the Wall as a Mall.” McComb said he is considering putting shoppable windows in small Juicy Couture stores that will offer about 200 different shoes to buy. The company may also use the windows in Kate Spade New York stores to sell home furnishings, bedding, linens and towels.
“We would never be able to fit all those products in a store in the traditional way,” McComb said. “These things would typically require an extra 10,000 square feet of store space. But through partnerships like this eBay one we could do this through stores that are 2,000 square feet.”
Full article can be found at
http://www.businessinsider.com/ebay-launches-shoppable-windows-in-stores-2013-6
Amazing stuff on an amazing day.
Webman
Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay
As summer is now upon us here in New England , there are a number of great tunes that just capture the moment. Wanted to share a few with you.
Have an awesome weekend!
“(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” is a song co-written by soul singer Otis Redding and guitarist Steve Cropper. It was first recorded by Otis Redding in 1967, just days before his death. It was released posthumously on Stax Records‘ Volt label in 1968, becoming the first posthumous single to top the charts in the US. It charted at number 3 on the UK Singles Chart.
A modern version of the song goes global – Awesome.
The Grass Roots is an American rock band that charted between 1966 and 1975 that was originally the brainchild of songwriting duo P. F. Sloan and Steve Barri. The Grass Roots achieved two gold albums, one gold single and charted singles a total of 21 times. Among their charting singles, they achieved Top 10 three times, Top 20 three times and Top 40 eight times. They have sold over twenty million records worldwide.
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey (lead vocals, guitar, harmonica), Pete Townshend (guitar, vocals, keyboards) and John Entwistle (bass, brass, vocals), and joined shortly after by Keith Moon (drums, vocals). They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction.The Who have sold about 100 million records and have charted 27 top forty singles in the United Kingdom and United States, as well as 17 top ten albums, with 18 Gold, 12 Platinum and 5 Multi-Platinum album awards in the United States alone.
Best band I ever saw live in concert. And I have seen all the great ones except for the greatest band of all, The Beatles.
And one from the 70′s.
Mungo Jerry is a British rock group whose greatest success was in the early 1970s, though they have continued throughout the years with an ever-changing line-up, always fronted by Ray Dorset. They are remembered above all for their hit “In the Summertime“. It remains their most successful and most instantly recognizable song, and their only hit outside of the UK
Ah, the summer classics.
Webman
Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way
With all of the talk, books, seminars, training and discussion about leadership, why is it so hard to find? Do you work for a leader? Someone that has passion, curiosity, compassion, daring, generosity, accountability and grit? Or do you work for someone that is just looking out for numero uno, protecting his or her ass at all times? No really, who do you work for?
Do you think about the person that you work for as a leader? Do you come into work everyday and wonder what you will learn today? Or think, I hope he/she spends some time with me today, because I want to learn something new? I want to develop skills like them. Well do you?
Who do you look up to in your company, in your life? Who do you admire? Where do you get your inspiration? Is anyone out there that stirs your mind, your intellect, your curiosity, your passion?
A brief musical interlude………..
You might work for the greatest leader in the world, someone you respect and admire. I hope you do. Most of you do not. You are subjected to bosses (Not leaders) that merely sit in the spot above you in the organization chart. Someone that might have a bit more experience, someone who is resting on their accomplishments from years before, someone that has figured out how to work the system, someone that never does anything proactive for the business, you, your career or anyone other than themselves. Maybe you work for the dreaded “Insecure Manager”. (Blog on that next week)
Well if you are blessed with a great leader, what are you doing to learn the most you can? If you are working for Sluggo, what are you doing to change it? A recent Harvard Business Review article mentions the following attributes as true signs of a modern leader. The leader that does not need authority to make a difference. Do these describe you?
Seers — individuals who are living in the future, who possess a compelling vision of “what could be.” As human beings, we’re constantly looking forward, and we love to sign on with individuals who are already working on “the next big thing.”
Contrarians — free of the shackles of conventional wisdom and eager to help others stage a jailbreak. It’s exciting to be around these free-spirited thinkers who liberate us from the status quo and open our minds to new possibilities.
Architects — adept at building systems that elicit contribution and facilitate collaboration. They leverage social technologies in ways that amplify dissident voices, coalesce communities of passion and unleash the forces of change.
Mentors — rather than hoarding power, they give it away. They believe the primary job of a leader is to create more leaders. To this end, they coach, tutor, challenge and encourage.
Connectors — with a gift for spotting the “combinational chemistry” between ideas and individuals. They help others achieve their dreams by connecting them with sponsors, like-minded peers, and complementary resources.
Bushwhackers — they clear the trail for new ideas and initiatives by chopping away at the undergrowth of bureaucracy. They’re more committed to doing the right thing than to doing things right.
Guardians — vigilant defenders of core values and enemies of expediency. Their unflinching commitment to a higher purpose inspires others and encourages them to stand tall for their beliefs.
Citizens — true activists, their courage to challenge the status quo comes from their abiding commitment to doing as much good as possible for as many as possible. They are other-centered, not self-centered.
So who are you and what are you doing about leadership or lack there-of.
More details can be found at
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/05/how_to_lead_when_youre_not_in.html?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews
Get moving.
Webman
