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Are the people who report to you giving you their best? Is your team--whether a group of employees, a classroom of students, or your family--performing at it is fullest potential? NFL coaching legend Don Shula and famous business consultant Ken Blanchard team up in Everyone's a Coach to portion their mysteries for inspiring others to greatness. At the heart of their book is a simple acronym that describes the calibers of an effective leader: -Conviction-driven--never compromise your beliefs. - Overlearning--practice until it's perfect. - Audible-ready--know when to change. - Consistency--respond predictably to performance. - Honesty-based--walk your talk. Using an effective 'tag-team' approach, Shula and Blanchard personally 'unpack' the five leadership mysteries behind this acronym. First, Shula tells you how each coaching conception worked on the field. Then, Blanchard explains how to utilise that conception to your leadership situation. Complete with a self-test for measuring your personal coaching effectiveness, Everyone's a Coach will help you unleash the excellency in anyone.

Consistency: The same reactions in similar circumstances may not seem a lot to ask of a leader - but numerous bosses let their moods, their "toughness," or their need to be liked get in the way when it comes to supplying suitable praise or reprimands. For Shula and Blanchard, the rule is simple: "You can't let poor performance go unnoticed - even from a superstar. The same goes for good performance - performance is all-important; that's what you need to respond to on a consistent basis."

Honesty-based: Effective leaders, Shula and Blanchard maintain, are always straightforward in their dealings with other people. Shula sets out to win reasonable and square and makes sure his team does the same: It's no coincidence that for the duration of Shula's seasons with Miami the Dolphins have been the least penalized team in the NFL. Though penalties in the corporate sector are less prompt than those in a stadium, studies show that the decline of ethics and integrity in a business inevitably lead to the decline of that business. Business leaders who tell it straight, who are open and honorable even regarding bad news, fabricate the trust necessary for strong long-term relationships - inside and outside of the company.

Featuring vignettes drawn from Shula's training sessions and actual Dolphin games, and from the corporate offices where Blanchard has came across the best - and the worst - of management coaches, Everyone's a Coach sends leaders well on their way to creating a championship team.

From BooklistExamples from the game of football are ofttimes employed to illustrate determination, overcoming adversity and long odds, competition, and success; and our each day language is filled with gridiron metaphors and unforgettable quotes. It is only natural, then, that Shula, the coach with more wins in professional football than any other, must write regarding inspiring others to win. He provided similar guidance with The Winning Edge (1973), his account of his success in turning around the ineffectual Miami Dolphins. He now teams up with Blanchard, author of the best-selling One Minute Manager (1982) and it is frequent sequels. Alternately, the two dispense their counsel using key points based on the somewhat forced mnemonic COACH (conviction-driven, overlearning, audible ready, consistency, and honesty). Shula, a deeply religious person, includes general references to his faith and God. Blanchard, meanwhile, sings the praises of Shula and offers up business apps of Shula's playing-field tactics. David Rouse

ReviewWinning schemes for scoring big - in any game.

From the playing fields of the National Football League to the corridors of corporate America, smart leaders part the same goals intended to be attained - putting together a cohesive, hardworking team and tallying up more points than the competition. In business, as in sports, the focus is on creating the winning edge by training and inspiring players to reach their best performance levels. In the face of fierce global contest and decreasing occupation security, the rules of the game in American business are changing: the pressure to carry out has escalated and the need for effective coaching is dandier than ever. In Everyone's a Coach: Five Business Secrets for High-Performance Coaching two of America's most remarkable leaders - Don Shula, the winningest coach in pro football, and Ken Blanchard, the globally known management consultant who has guided hundreds of corporations and organizations toward performance excellency - lay out a game plan for head coaches in all occupations.

In alternating chapters, passing the ball with championship finesse, Shula reveals his mysteries of successful coaching and Blanchard pinpoints how they employ to any leadership position. Combining what Shula has been practicing and Blanchard has been instructing for more than three decades into the acronym COACH, they explore five necessary strategies:

Conviction-driven: Shula's imaginativeness of winning each football game - and his faith that he may do it - underlies each decision and move he makes for the duration of exercise and games alike. In 1972, his resourcefulness became a reality when the Miami Dolphins went the extra mile to emerge unbeaten for the season - and topped it off with a Super Bowl triumph. Ample proof, as Blanchard points out, that believing in your goal and doing the right thing for the right reasons provide the boundaries and direction that humans need and want in order to carry out well.

Overlearning: Great leaders pay attention to the details - whether they're supervising a hard-driving football team or the software section of a computer company. By insisting on over-preparation all around the season, Shula arms his players with the skill and selfconfidence they need to make the big play; his expected values for them are never in doubt. In business, leaders who give hope or courage to workers to master each assignment exhaustively and monitor their progression each step of the way will discover, as Shula has year after year, that high expected values reap high productivity. -- From the Publisher

Most helpful client reviews

13 of 14 humans found the following review helpful.
Excellent use of examples.
By A
Of the 1000's of books written on leadership in the past 100 years, this one presents a very real picture of world we live in. Too numerous of the books I've read lately give us the magic formulas to follow, galore leading us through a veritable mathematical maze to tell us what kind of leader we are. "Principle-Centered Leadership" by Covey and "The Platinum Rule" fall into this category. What Blanchard and Shula have done, and done rather with great success is to comprise theory with actual examples. While I don't agree with everything that Shula has done, I do applaud his efforts. I do perfectly believe in his system of belief of "Lead by example," and the requisite of manufacturing trust. Both Shula and Blanchard emphasize this aspect of leadership as critical. There are too galore so-called leaders in the corporate world who do not lead by example. They are rather more than willing to demand of you what they are unwilling to do themselves. On top of the quality of the reading, the book is very easy to read. I hi

3 of 3 persons found the following review helpful.
Hits the Spot!
By Dr. W. G. Covington, Jr.
What makes this book so effective is that the counsel offered is not only solid, but it may be applied immeditely. It's a "hands on" doer's guide. The strength Ken Blanchard brings is his strong Christian influence. Shula's credentials consist of his long term track record as an NFL coach. In this book Shula describes how he leads by example and exhaustive preparation.

One place this book separtes itself from books of this genre is that it emphasizes "follow through" as contrasted with goal-setting. That's an action focus. It puts the spotlight on doing something.

2 of 2 persons found the following review helpful.
A Coaching Legend's Leadership Lessons
By Matthew Dodd
Don Shula, the National Football League's all-time winningest coach, teamed up with Ken Blanchard, the globally known and multiple award-winning author, educator, and management and leadership consultant, and together they co-wrote an outstanding book with regards to leaders getting the best performance from the persons and organizations they are privileged to lead. Whether you are responsible for the performance of multiple organizations, or for just one other individual, the leadership wisdom and perceptivenesses in this book may help you maximize your coaching and leadership effectiveness.

The winning combining of the two separately distinguished leaders in their respective fields, and the complementary structure of the book were brilliant. Organized around the acronym C.O.A.C.H., the five coaching "secrets" that Shula had practiced and Blanchard has been instructing for over 30 years, the book alternated synergistic passages from Shula then Blanchard to explore and explain the acronym in theory and exercise from the football gridiron to innovative business situations, and at last to the game of life.

Here's how Shula and Blanchard define and think when it comes to the acronym C.O.A.C.H.:

Conviction-Driven: Effective leaders stand for something.

Overlearning: Effective leaders aid their teams achieve exercise perfection.

Audible-Ready: Effective leaders, and the persons and teams they coach, are ready to alter their game plan when the circumstance demands it.

Consistency: Effective leaders are predictable in their response to performance.

Honesty-Based: Effective leaders have high integrity and are clear and straightforward in their interactions with others.

Conviction-Driven: "Someone has said that a river without banks is a puddle. When I employ that saying to humane interactions, it reminds me of the occupation of a coach. Like those river-banks, a good coach provides the direction and concentration for performers' energies, helping channel all their attempts toward a single desired outcome. Without that critical influence, the best achievements of the most gifted performers may lack the momentum and drive that make a group of people into champions."

Overlearning: "To me a game doesn't end when the clock in the end runs out. It ends on Monday, after we've analyzed each play and learned all we cana from it...Failure is with great success finding out what you don't want to repeat...Learning is specified as a alter in behavior. You haven't learned a thing until you may take action and use it."

Audible-Ready: "Preparation means everything to me. I'm ardent with regards to my players being ready for anything. Now, portion of being ready is being competent to shift your game plan at will. I see myself as a battlefield commander who has the guts to make the right moves to win. I want to be prepared with a plan - and then to suppose the unexpected and be ready to modify this plan. I ought to preserve the right to change - even to change at the last moment - as circumstances demand...Audibles aren't surprises - just new ways of doing what you already know how to do. Business persons need to learn to call audibles, because in today's world, not one thing stays the same."

Consistency: "Your team will soon learn what your standards are and carry out accordingly. I not only insist on exercise perfection, I'm there to see that it takes place. I don't miss practices. I need to be out there smelling out whatsoever isn't working. Even the slightest deviation from perfection needs to be noticed and corrected on the spot. Correcting and redirecting performance is strategically crucial - it's where we outstrip the competition. Some coaches will let little things go. Right there is where the divergence is made. To me, it's not a matter of how some times we've done it or how late it is or how tired the players are. We'll do it until we get it right. Then we won't deviate from it in the game. I'd rather throw out a play or formation for the duration of exercise than find out it can't be done correctly in the ball game. We seldom try anything on game day that we haven't been competent to perfective in practice. If I'm asking our players to do something they can't do, I want to recognise with regards to it now."

Honesty-Based: "I have a straight-up approach. I don't know how to go around corners or how to finesse. My players know this and they suppose candor from me. Congruence is necessary to me. What you see with Don Shula is what you get. I don't play games. Effective coaches confront their people, praise them sincerely, redirect or reprimand them without apology, and above all are honorable with them. Integrity pays, and integrity means being honorable with yourself and others. This is a key ingredient in my coaching philosophy."

In his introduction to the book, Blanchard stated that he is on a search for simple truths to help leaders and managing directors be their best. With Shula's proven long-term coaching effectiveness as the foundation for this book, Blanchard has found and shared a good deal of simple leadership truths and complexities. This book would be a welcome addition to anyone's coaching or leadership collection.

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