What Sports Can Teach Your Team

  Leadership   Lessons Learned   Talent Management   Teams   ProjectsAtWork  

A former Sports Illustrated editor interviewed 120 leaders in sports and business, from the head men's basketball coach at Duke to the CEO of Southwest Airlines. The resulting book distills 16 habits that organizations do differently to build and support high-performing teams.

There is no dearth of sports references in corporate conversation, but rarely do they rise to the level of insight needed to transform team performance.

But what if there was more to the story?

Don Yaeger believes there is. The prolific author (more than 20 books and eight times on The New York Times bestseller list), former Sports Illustrated editor and sought-after speaker argues persuasively in his latest book that today’s business leaders can learn plenty from successful sports franchises.

“Great Teams: 16 Things High Performing Organizations Do Differently” (HarperCollins July 2016) isn’t about coaches screaming from the sidelines. The teams and leaders Yaeger introduces here are thoughtful, focused and battle-tested. In these teams, success flows from trust and communication. Or, as Yaeger framed it in a recent interview with ProjectsAtWork: “I don’t think you can lead people you don’t know.”

Yaeger distills 16 habits that drive high-performing teams and explains how to apply them in any organization, from how great teams allow culture to…

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