Biz Book on Teams a Favorite for NFL Footballers

Biz Books aren't just for executives anymore. Football coaches and quarterbacks are reading the Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. Here's what a Nov. 27th article in USA Today says about the phenomenon:

Why is a business book catching on in the NFL? Partly because these are times when head coaches and CEOs are similarly struggling to maximize teamwork in a world of A-players, rainmakers and would-be hall-of-famers. But it may also be because coaches are closet fans of business leadership/management books, just as executives have long been fans of leadership books written by successful athletes and coaches, such as Wooden on Leadership by former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden.

Corporate leaders have traditionally borrowed from successful sports strategies to run their companies. But lately McCown and others in the NFL are learning a thing or two from a business book about winning tactics in the workplace.

Five Dysfunctions was written for business executives and managers. A football audience was so far from the mind of author Patrick Lencioni that the parable's heroine is a 57-year-old, female CEO named Kathryn who talks about such sappy things as fear of conflict.

Lencioni says he is stunned his book is becoming a must-read for NFL head coaches.

To read the full article and an excerpt from the book Five Dysfunctions of a Team, read further.