johnbonini's review
4.0
"The first thing the sixteen teams in Tier One teach us is that leadership matters. It's not that having a captain of a certain kind was a bonus – it was the only common denominator. As a writer, the best analogy I can think of is that captains are (like) the verb in a sentence. The verb may not be as memorable as the nouns, as evocative as the adjectives, or as expressive as the punctuation. But it's the verb that does the yeoman's work – unifying the disparate parts and creating the forward momentum. In the closed unit of a great sentence, it's the only essential component."
sdiaz's review
3.0
The hypothesis behind the book does not stand up to scrutiny at all. The author limited himself to an arbitrary group of teams and even then he cannot be consistent in his analysis, sometimes a simple counter-example is enough to discredit a theory he does not like but when he wants to prove a point he is willing to ignore all the counter-examples. In the end it does not matter because it is still a really interesting read and there are enough good examples from the chosen captains to gain some knowledge. Finally, my favorite aspect of the book was his choice to cover more obscure teams and sports.
lmdo's review
3.0
I find the intersection of sports and anything to be interesting; and the same could be said for leadership too. This was a unique take but it didn't leave me with any big takeaways and some of the topics were discussed to briefly to get into any level of depth. The most searing example of this for me was his correlation of the removal of leadership/hierarchy from organisations and how that went counter to what he learnt about captains. Lots of good content about what it means to be a selfless leader though and backed with examples from a different field.
cgreaten's review
2.0
I think the idea for this book is great, but it felt like the author had ideas he wanted to convey and then backed into them.
The selection of the Tier One teams is weird. The reason that the 1920s Yankees, 1960s Packers, and 1990s Chicago Bulls are universally considered to be among the best teams ever is, well because they are. (Spoiler alert, none of them makes the cut in this book). The author also reasons that collegiate teams turn their rosters over too much to be considered (so, no Wooden-led UCLA Bruins). And, just a nit pick. One of the rules used to exclude sports was how many players are playing at any given time. You don't have to include curling, but you should know that it is four players not three (the cutoff seemed to be five as basketball made the cut)
Overall, the author makes a few good points. None of the leaders seemed to have all of the qualities he said were important, so maybe the conclusion is leaders have different styles. No one of which is 'the best'.
Also, leadership is very important, whether you're talking about sports, business, etc. But, this book seems to attribute the success of the selected teams to the leadership. There's no doubt it had a significant impact, but so too do strategy, management, and talent.
The selection of the Tier One teams is weird. The reason that the 1920s Yankees, 1960s Packers, and 1990s Chicago Bulls are universally considered to be among the best teams ever is, well because they are. (Spoiler alert, none of them makes the cut in this book). The author also reasons that collegiate teams turn their rosters over too much to be considered (so, no Wooden-led UCLA Bruins). And, just a nit pick. One of the rules used to exclude sports was how many players are playing at any given time. You don't have to include curling, but you should know that it is four players not three (the cutoff seemed to be five as basketball made the cut)
Overall, the author makes a few good points. None of the leaders seemed to have all of the qualities he said were important, so maybe the conclusion is leaders have different styles. No one of which is 'the best'.
Also, leadership is very important, whether you're talking about sports, business, etc. But, this book seems to attribute the success of the selected teams to the leadership. There's no doubt it had a significant impact, but so too do strategy, management, and talent.
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