A well-researched and strongly narrated biography of iconic Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi. The New Yorker’s rise to national prominence was slow, but included a playing career at then-powerful Fordham (where he was one of the ‘blocks of granite’) and coaching stints with Red Blaik’s Army and the New York Giants (alongside fellow assistant Tom Landry), such that his bloodlines were notable. Author Maraniss also notes often that Lombardi was friendly with many of the leading sportswriters / myth makers of the era — without saying whether that was product of his success or something he sought out. A stout Jesuit, Lombardi believed in presenting information at a pace so that the slowest in the group could understand, and in a menu of few plays with many options, drilled incessantly until execution was innate. The most famous of these was the sweep. At Green Bay, his success catapulted him into the realm of business leadership. The standard seven themes of his addresses: 1) pay the price, 2) the value of competition, 3) commitment to personal excellence, 4) more authority, less freedom (in reference to the tumultuous 1960s), 5) effective leaders are disciplined and impart that trait, 6) leaders are made, and most of all 7) character is a habit superimposed on temperament, and will is character in action. Maraniss cannot resist a bit of postmodern-inspired exploration of the gap between reality and popular understandings (or ‘myth’), as if this discord is not inevitably the case and indeed the very purpose of biography. A fine work on an interesting fellow.
Management
7. Fanning, From There to Here (4 May 2007)
An accessible tale of Ireland’s transition from staunchly amateur mediocrity to fourth in the world. Beginning with the disastrous Australian tour of 1994, the book revisits milestones of the next dozen years, demonstrating their resonance in the mid-2000s. Typically, each chapter treats one story as it unfolds over the course of a given season: the 1999 World Cup debacle, Eddie O’Sullivan’s rise to head, Munster’s 2006 Heineken Cup championship. Players, coaches, administrators often reflect on events in their own voice, complemented by Fanning’s vernacular. He is sympathetic to their views yet level in his evaluation, a noteworthy achievement. For the
- Sunday Independent
columnist, the real antagonists are management and administrators who haven’t thought their plans through, or don’t realize what is required. Why, for example, did the Irish union consider excluding Connacht from the program while continuing to spend hundred of thousands of pounds to send its leadership (and their wives) to away Six Nations games? Of course, most of Ireland’s hurdles have been more complicated. Fanning moves briskly, and like many journalists he is the more certain with the passage of time. The final chapters lose something of the work’s overall verve. This is a principal difference between news writers and historians, sometimes more willing to draw conclusions of events which the journalist views as still in progress. Should Ireland make an unprecedented run to the 2007 World Cup semifinals, it may be seen as the definitive account.
17. Bennett and Miles, Riding Shotgun: Role of the COO (26 Aug 2017)
An academic study of a nebulous executive role, driven by identifying commonalities surfaced through interviews. There are several common models — ‘two in a box’, mentorship, divide and conquer (outside/inside), successor planning — any of which can work provided the model is agreed. Complementary skills and mutual trust, as well as ability to resolve decisions gracefully (with the benefit belong to the executive) are vital. The operating offer must balance the executive’s vision and the corporate strategy with delivering results.