Customer Reviews

The WINNER WITHIN: A Life Plan for Team Players

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When I am asked by business counterparts to describe my favorite business philosophy, I give them a copy of Mr. Riley's book. When applied to Sports, it obviously works. When applied to business, it profoundly works. We live in a day and age when the word "I" is used to exhaustion. This book allows one to feel honor in teamwork -- in promoting and supporting the efforts of the entire business group, and shows us how personally rewarding the dynamics of being on a great business team can be. Excellent!

This book has made the biggest impact in my ability to produce a successful high school volleyball program. Simply put,I had '0' State Championships before reading it and I have had '6'State Championships(in 8 years) since reading and applying Pat Riley's team philosphy.It is required reading of all team members and required of the seniors to teach it. Coach Riley will bring you through all the challenges a team will face in any sport and supply you with the foundation to build a championship program. In closing,if you are in business and you have not read this book you are losing money...if you are a coach and you have not read this book you are not winning as many games as you could.Tom Turco Head Volleyball Coach Barnstable High School Hyannis Ma.

He is the ultimate strategist, always thinking ahead and planning every act of inspiration and conversation he might use to channel more out of his players than they were currently giving. In 'The Winner Within', Pat Riley shares his tactics for converting his basketball teams into units with an emphasis on the greater good. The highlights of this book came for me in the following:

* Pat Riley's acceptance of being in the right place at the right time when the Lakers needed a head coach and how preparation added to his own confidence that he could succeed at a high level.

* Riley's view on the strengthening process of one's mentality and how being thrown the wolves can be a very healthy experience.

* Making the LA Lakers a team instead a collection of self-serving, finger-pointing superstars. He mentions tactics he employed on each of his different leaders, including ways to use Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's moody eccentricities as a leadership tool.

* How embracing success hurt the Lakers in the mid-eighties and the ways Riley developed a plan to combat complacency on the team.

* How leaders in any profession must be willing to confront cancerous team members swiftly and thoroughly.

* Riley's methods of using strategic moments of temporary insanity and how this can be highly beneficial to the overall good of the team.

* When to know your time is done and move on, as he did when he left LA for New York in 1990.

* Setting reasonable goals that are both attainable and difficult. For example, his 1992 New York Knicks set the goals of being the most hated team in the league, the most conditioned team in the league, and the most professional team in the league. To a T, they succeeded in meeting all their goals.

Riley is very open and honest in this book. He admits that he knew his Knicks would have zero chance of beating the Bulls in a do-or-die game seven in 1992. He had predicted Jordan would get calls and go to the line, and that Ewing would get into foul trouble quickly. Both of his predictions became eerily true. He admits that you must know your place in the pecking order and follow this format:

#1. From nobody to upstart

#2. From upstart to contender

#3. From contender to winner

#4. From winner to champion

#5. From champion to dynasty

Riley's book is also filled with numerous quotes from histories great minds and leaders. Each quote helps highlight what Riley is trying to emphasize.

I recommend this book to anyone who is or hopes to be a manager in any avenue in life. Riley gives a clear-cut format to achieving goals as a leader.

As a MBA student I have learned the need to work well in teams, this book is excellent. You don't have to like basketball to enjoy it. I will admit, I hate the Lakers (GO SACRAMENTO KINGS!), but the analogies of teamwork and life go hand-in-hand with business and any setting where hardwork and teamwork materialize. Read this book with a highlighter handy, you will want to identify sections, quotes, and sayings that you will use in the future. Well worth the price and the time to read it. This is one of my favorite all-time business books.

The Winner Within actually gets 4.5 stars from me. If you like team sports, not even basketball, this book will get to you. When you're in business and are strongly dependent on good teamwork, his lessons can be transformed to business life.

Riley's success is known throughout the US. Being European and less familiar with the person itself it gives me good fundamentals for judging without strings attached. I think his methods work. His methods work, but they may not last or can be implemented in any situation. You have to take the best 60% of his method and mix it with your own beliefs and culture. This last 40% will be your adaptability withing your own situation.

I have learned a great deal reading this book, as I was soon to become a business owner with a team of programmers. Riley's methods definitly helped me in creating my own team and, as important, my own style.

Read it, absorb it, use it. Do not copy it.

I am reading this book again.. prob the 5 time and I have used about 3 different colors of hi-liter so far. I recommend it and even used the lesson and guidance to help me with my addiction issues this time around.

First time it was family issues, then 2nd time was work issues, third time was deaths in family and fourth time was post college work issues. Its been there for me everytime and this time along with Tx, I am using it again.

This is a book about how Pat Riley coaches to get out of the individual the Winner Within. There are 12 short chapters in this 271 page book with many quotes from many great individuals throughout history including this one from Sir Winston Churchill: "Success is never final."

Shaq has stated the Riley is the most motivating speaker he has ever heard and after reading this book I think you will get a feel for what he meant. Most of the book focuses on Basketball and the Lakers. But there are some good business principles scattered throughout the book that will inspire you to be the best. Riley lets you into his mind so you can see his thoughts and how he worked to get the most out of his team to bring home the championship. It's a great book that will prove a quick read.

Pat Riley, one of the NBA's all-time great coaches, presents his game plan for winning and consciously creating success. Riley sometimes gets a little preachy, but he is an extremely focused individual, and explains how his principles and team motivation methods have made him a winner.

A very good book with good ideas that can be used in the business world as well as with accomplishing personal issues. Pat's examples have been an inspiration to many others. It seems to me that Pat Riley has the vision and the plan to be successful in almost any line of business he chooses in spite of some criticism from the way he handled leaving the New York Knicks.

I've listend to Pat Riley speak on Charlie Rose's show on PBS and have been impressed with his ability to discuss the concepts of teamwork and leadership and obviously his winning record with different teams speaks for itself but somehow this book was unsatisfying. Oh, I think he has identified a number of significant areas in regard to team play like the "Disease of Me" (selfishness that ruins team play), the team's Core Covenant (which can be both good and bad -- how many of us work in environments whose only core covenant is "cover your a#$"), and complacency (when teams begin to taste success) but what got me was his use of the Lakers of the 80s to illustrate his points. What I couldn't help thinking was that Riley wasn't using his theories (The Egg) to shape his leadership of the Lakers but rather he used his experience with the Lakers (The Chicken) to create his theories. So which came first? Everything he outlines in his theory is matched by an experience he has had with his team. Doesn't this sound a bit too much like revisionist history? I particularly found it hard to swallow when he rationalized his leaving of the Lakers as a moment when a "team player" must go solo (Moving On). I had the sense that had he stayed with the Lakers his book would have added another chapter on perservering rather than leaving. A good theory informs and influences our practices. I think Mr. Riley has gone in the opposite direction and used a good practice (experience) to inform his theory. Unfortunately, I think this makes his book MUCH LESS APPLICABLE to all of us who want to learn how to lead teams and become winners. Just maybe, Pat, you won because of guys named Magic, Jabbar and Worhy rather than any theories about winning . . . What do you think?
Maybe if I am going to coach the Lakers , I'll pick this book up again. Then again maybe not. I don't even like the Lakers and Magic isn't coming back again. Or is he?. You know, I have Phil Jackson's Sacred Hoops book on my shelf and I am afraid to begin it because it might be just like this one.