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Overview
Not only is Pat Riley one of pro basketball's winningest coaches, but his speeches before hundreds of corporations, from ARCO to AT&T to Toyota, have earned him the title of "America's Greatest Motivational Speaker." The Winner Within is his formula for success. It is a book about winning, leadership, mastery, change, and personal growth, based on understanding and controlling the shifting dynamics of a team - any team, whether it is a small company or a giant corporation, a family, a city, or a group of athletes. How does a struggling team form a covenant to work together instead of separately? How does a successful team battle complacency? How does any team overcome the thunderbolts that strike out of the blue? Drawing upon the great teachers and his own experiences in and out of sports, interweaving them with dozens of parallels and stories from business and society, Riley shows how to ride the cycles of team change, balance role players and stars, build solid foundations, break through self-imposed barriers, create change within continuity, and nurture cooperation within competition. "All of my contacts and experiences have proved to me, over and over again, that the complex inner rhythms of teamwork - flows of ambition, power, cooperation, and emotion - are the keys to making dreams come true," says Riley, and in The Winner Within, he provides the tools, insights, and plan of action to help master those rhythms. It is a book of universal power and scope - a new classic of the literature.Riley tells us that we are all part of a team. Whether it's a small business or a large corporation, a family or a group of athletes, all of us play a role in something larger than we realize. According to Riley, if you understand a team's shifting dynamics, you can make the most of your talents and the talents of those around you. Here, he draws upon his own experiences, in and out of sports, to develop a step-by-step philosophy for creating a winning atmosphere. By maintaining a cooperative yet competitive attitude, Riley tells us how we can break down our self-imposed barriers that stand in the way of lasting success.
Synopsis
Not only is Pat Riley one of pro basketball's winningest coaches, but his speeches before hundreds of corporations, from ARCO to AT&T to Toyota, have earned him the title of "America's Greatest Motivational Speaker." The Winner Within is his formula for success. It is a book about winning, leadership, mastery, change, and personal growth, based on understanding and controlling the shifting dynamics of a team - any team, whether it is a small company or a giant corporation, a family, a city, or a group of athletes. How does a struggling team form a covenant to work together instead of separately? How does a successful team battle complacency? How does any team overcome the thunderbolts that strike out of the blue? Drawing upon the great teachers and his own experiences in and out of sports, interweaving them with dozens of parallels and stories from business and society, Riley shows how to ride the cycles of team change, balance role players and stars, build solid foundations, break through self-imposed barriers, create change within continuity, and nurture cooperation within competition. "All of my contacts and experiences have proved to me, over and over again, that the complex inner rhythms of teamwork - flows of ambition, power, cooperation, and emotion - are the keys to making dreams come true," says Riley, and in The Winner Within, he provides the tools, insights, and plan of action to help master those rhythms. It is a book of universal power and scope - a new classic of the literature.
Publishers Weekly
In the 1940s, mathematician John von Neumann developed ``game theories'' utilizing models taken from games of strategies and chance. In the 1980s, basketball coach Riley ( Showtime ) called on these ideas and others to craft his own theories about motivation, selfishness, teamwork, complacency, winning and ``choking'' that have lead to NBA championships and ``Coach of the Decade'' honors. Here he outlines his theories, and recounts his successes and infrequent failures with the Lakers and the Knicks in a superb, candid study. Yet Riley also maintains that his concepts work in large and small businesses. He provides vivid examples of how the ``winner within'' each of us can adapt his ideas to all types of team play, whether in the sports arena, in daily life, or in the marketplace. This book should have wide appeal among sports fans, coaches and people looking for realistic managerial practices useful to non-experts. (Sept.)