At his press conference Sunday afternoon, Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielema talked about reading the influential business book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don't, by Jim Collins.
"A lot of people settle for being good and get complacent and accept being at a level that's better than everybody else," Bielema said, summarizing the book. "But to get to an elite status, to get to the great level, you have to continue researching within yourself what you can do better. It was a new way for me to think about, hey, we're at a good level right now, but where can we go from here?"
Coach, I know you weren't expecting a grade on that oral book report, but that's D- work. You could have gleaned that much from the dust jacket! To make up for it, here's your reading list for the rest of summer:
- The New New Thing, by Michael Lewis. Can acquiring something new, like an accomplished senior quarterback transferring in for one season, derail you from your path to building something truly revolutionary? This one's better than Lewis' football book, The Blind Side.
- Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell. The pop sociologist looks at how we make snap judgments and learn to make better ones. For example: When you're up by 25 with six minutes left in a game against an overmatched rival, going for two might be considered a violation of...
- The No Asshole Rule, by Robert Sutton. Sutton conveys the idea that businesses work better when people are respectful. On second thought, after I had several polite, enlightening and downright friendly conversations with your team's star players at media day on Sunday, I think you can probably skip this one, Coach.
