Why this book:  Selected by the All American Leadership Reading group to read and discuss.  Several other friends  had already recommended the book to me.

Summary in 3 sentences:  In the opening section of the book, Sam Walker explains his criteria for deciding which were the 16 most successful sports teams in history – criteria that will naturally be very controversial and contested.  Then he explores the one characteristic that all of these super-elite teams had in common – each had a strong player-captain who served as the glue and driving force that propelled these teams to stay great over a period of numerous years to become among “the Greatest Of All Time,” and break out from those which were great once, or twice.  He explores each of seven characteristics he found were common to each these team captains – and there are some surprises here – before he concludes in Part III, with what he calls “The Opposite Direction – Leadership Mistakes and Misperceptions.”

My impressions:   I liked and learned a lot from this book.  It is a book which will stimulate thinking and controversy – and in a positive way.  The Captain Class arrives at some conclusions that are not part of the conventional leadership curriculum.   Though his lessons learned are written to apply to highly competitive teams – and I would include elite Special Operations Forces in that group – they may be of less relevance to most business organizations, which are not made up of elite players, nor players who aspire to being elite.  That said, there are lessons learned that can make any team better – IF a CEO or leader is willing to find and empower the right “captain” within the organization, with the respect and moral authority to serve as a sparkplug, motivator, and disciplinarian within the team.  Walker does go to some effort to apply his criteria for excellence of team captains to settings outside of the most elite sports teams, including the corporate world.

The Best Teams: The first part of the book would be of interest to any avid professional sports fans, as he breaks down in some detail how he arrived at the criteria by which he selected the best sports teams in history.   BUT he also categorized great teams into Tier 1 (the 16 teams he designated as the elite of the elite) and Tier 2 (108 teams which were among the very best – but not fully achieving his criteria to qualify as Tier 1.  His Tier 2 list include such redoubtable teams as the New England Patriots 2001-2017, San Francisco 49ers 1981-1995, Chicago Bulls 1991-1998, NY Yankees 1936-41.  This section of the book includes a fair amount of analysis and a few stories to back up his culling and selecting – fully anticipating push back to which teams he included and excluded from elite Tier 1 status.

The teams he lists and discusses, not only Tier 1 but also many of the Tier 2 teams, include teams from all over the world and from less popular (at least in the US) sports such as field hockey, volleyball, water polo, and team handball, and he includes men and women’s teams as well. In fact, three of his Tier 1 teams are women’s teams.   His list of Tier 2 teams is included in an Appendix, broken out by sport and includes a brief description of each.

The Seven Traits. The meat of the book is in Part 2, in which he explores each of the seven qualities he found that the captains of his Tier 1 teams shared. Each chapter begins with stories of great captains exemplifying the particular characteristic of that chapter.   These stories make for compelling reading and are effective in helping him make the case for how the specific trait being addressed in the chapter is manifest in Tier 1 captains.

He writes a separate chapter for each of the Seven Traits he found were common to all of the Tier 1 team captains.  Those seven traits (p 91) were:

1. Extreme Doggedness and focus in competition (Chapter title: They Just Keep Coming)
2. Aggressive play that tests the limits of the rules (Chapter title: Intelligent Fouls)
3. A willingness to do thankless jobs in the shadows (Chapter title: Carrying Water)
4. A low-key, practical, and democratic communication style (Chapter title: Boxing Ears and Wiping Noses)
5. Motivates others with passionate nonverbal displays (Chapter title: Calculated Acts)
6. Strong convictions and the courage to stand apart (Chapter title: Uncomfortable Truths)
7. Ironclad emotional control (Chapter title: The Kill Switch)

Walker explains all the reasons why these men and women didn’t fit what he expected to be the profile of the key leaders of great teams.  These included (p 50:)

1. They lacked superstar talent;
2. The weren’t fond of the spotlight;
3. They didn’t “lead” in the traditional sense;
4. The were not angels;
5. The did potentially divisive things;
6. The weren’t the usual suspects (i.e. the well-known stars of great teams;)
7. Nobody had ever mentioned this theory (i.e., that the captain might be the team’s driving force;)
8. The captain isn’t the primary leader (i.e., not the coach or manager).

Bending/Breaking the rules: The most interesting and controversial chapter was Intelligent Fouls- Playing to the Edge of the Rules.  He  points out that all of the captains were focused on winning and would bend and stretch the rules when they could get away with it, to win. He points out (arguably) that:

“There are two activities in polite society in which it’s okay to do harmful things to other people in the pursuit of victory.  The first is war. The second is sports. Part of the deal, however, is that there are some lines not to be crossed.  (p116)

Such aggressive bending of the rules he divides into two important categories:  hostile and instrumental.  Breaking the rules out of “hostile” motivations, driven by anger or frustration in order to hurt or punish the opponent are forbidden, and the Captain Class would not go there.  Instrumental bending or breaking rules isn’t motivated by a desire to injure, rather by the determination to achieve a worthwhile goal.

Later he says that:

“The captains of the world’s sixteen greatest sports teams were not angels. They sometimes did nasty things to win, especially when the stakes were highest.  They didn’t believe that being sportsmanlike all the time was a prerequisite for being great…..

“The world puts a lot of pressure on athletes, especially captains, to be champions and paragons of virtue. But these two thing do not always correlate. It’s sometimes one or the other. The most decorated captains in history understood this.”  (p 130  131)

Walker is being descriptive, not prescriptive.  He’s saying that whether we like it or not, this is what his research has found.  In sports as in war, however, there are lines not to be crossed, and I really found his distinction between hostile and instrumental bending/breaking of the rules insightful.  I think of the battles between offensive and defensive linemen in football often as a battle for who can get away with bending or  breaking the rules in order to better get at, or protect the quarterback.

Captain Class Communications – It was interesting to me that Walker spends much of the book directly or indirectly addressing how captains communicate with their teams, noting that they communicate differently than most leaders in other contexts.  Tier 1 captains prefer not to communicate in public, often don’t do it well, and are not effective at giving motivational speeches.  They communicate best during play, or in closed circles with their team, and communicate best when coaches, managers, or outsiders (the press especially) are not around.  Their communication is practical and direct, often silently,  with gestures, or body language.  Walker devotes a whole chapter (Uncomfortable Truths) to describing how Captain Class captains were not afraid to put themselves at risk, sometimes in a shocking manner, by challenging management on behalf of the team.

My good friend Mike Lerario – author of Leadership in Balance (my review here) – noted in his review of Captain Class that the reserved approach to communicating in public  characteristic of Tier 1 captains diverges from what is necessary to succeed in most senior leadership positions.   CEOs and leaders of large organizations are required to effectively represent and “sell” their organizations to the public and audiences outside of their own.  Tier 1 team captains were uniformly poor at this.  I can only think of two successful senior military leaders I knew – one a man and one a woman – whose communication styles approximated the Captain Class formula. While adequate when called upon to communicate in public to broader audiences, they excelled so well in other aspects of their leadership that their very reserved public personas didn’t seem to matter.

Walker describes the quintessential Captain Class team captain as someone who:

• Does not want, nor seek the spotlight, nor personal stardom. Avoids the press and publicity.  Is focused on Team, first, second and third.
• Is willing to do the small, non-glorious jobs that don’t get much attention, but which s/he considers to be essential to the team’s success. Is not too big or important to do anything that needs to be done which will help the team succeed.
• Is not only willing, but chooses to be in the shadow of the star players and the most talented performers, and thereby help them better help the team;
• Though quiet in public and in front of coaches and managers, is vocal and communicates actively when among teammates.  Sees his/her role as keeping open communications within the team, and letting each team member know that they are valued and important.
• Communicates most forcefully through actions, gestures, and body language. Is not usually a dramatic or effective speech giver;
• Is willing to push limits and bend rules – to a point – to help the team win. When the rules are bent, or even broken, it is with one goal in mind – helping the team win, not to fulfill any personal agenda;
• Takes great care of individual players, in order to take care of the whole team. No one individual, including him/herself, is more important than the success of the team.
• Is all-in, all the time, and therefore has the moral authority to demand that of others on the team.
• Is passionate about the team and winning, but manages passion and emotions – especially in public – so that passion and emotion work for, and not against the goal of team – to win.

He describes Valeri Vasiliev as typical of the Captain Class:

He was dogged on the ice, carried water for others, and played to the edge of the rules.  He didn’t give speeches, but teammates say he was constantly advising the coaches and  counseling the players without ever raising his voice. “When there were no coaches around, he would talk to the players,” Tretiak told me.   “He always said the right thing in the locker room and on the ice.” (p 190)

Captain Class echoed many of the themes that James Kerr makes in his outstanding book Legacy (my review here), which describes the culture of the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team.  There are many great parallels between these two books.  Walker describes his Tier 1 captains as metaphorically “carrying water” for their teams, while Kerr describes how All Blacks team captains “sweep the sheds” with their teams, as a hallmark of All Blacks humility.    It is no coincidence that two of the Tier 1 teams, and one of the Tier 2 teams were All Blacks.

This book was a fun read with compelling stories and an original approach.  His point: If we define truly exceptional teams as those who have succeeded at the very highest levels for an extended period of time, that level of success may require a somewhat different style of leadership, than what works to be “merely” very good or great.  Walker reveals what for some may be uncomfortable truths in his analysis.

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Some other interesting and telling quotes from Captain Class (page numbers refer to 2017 hardback edition:)

<This is> ultimately a book about  a single idea – one that is simple, powerful, and can be applied to teams in many other fields, from business and politics to science and the arts… It’s the notion that the most crucial ingredient in a team that achieves and sustains historic greatness is the character of the player who leads it. p xvii

The longer he played, and the more Barcelona won, the more acutely Puyol felt the need to keep the team focused, to keep pulling hard on the rope. “Winning is difficult,” he said, “but to win again is much more difficult – because egos appear.   Most people who win once have already achieved what they wanted and don’t have any more ambition.”  p110

…most of the Tier One captains had zero interest in the trappings of fame.  They didn’t pursue the captaincy for the prestige it conveyed – if they pursued it at all.. 137

One of the great paradoxes of management is that the people who pursue leadership positions most ardently, are often the wrong people for the job.  p 141

A water carrier can improve a team by focusing on shoring up weaknesses and enforcing high standards – this much we’ve seen.  But there was still one missing piece of the puzzle.  If the chief responsibility of a team leader is to direct their players on the field, then by all rights these captains must have found ways to influence, if not control the team’s tactics.  p 145

To Deschamps, carrying water wasn’t just a servile act, it was a form of leadership – the sort of command that most of us, up in the stands, don’t appreciate or even notice. “I knew I couldn’t make a difference with a single move,” Deschamps said. “but over the long run, through hundreds of small acts of service and management, I was able to balance things out and to be come indispensable”….In other words, while the television cameras tend to focus on the players at the front, the hard work of leadership is often conducted from the rear.  p 147

I wondered if the communication style of great captains wasn’t solely a matter of how much they talked but also of the emotional energy they put behind their words through body language, facial expressions, gestures and touch.  p.164

The teams in Tier One had talkative cultures – and the person who fostered and sustained that culture was the captain.  Despite their lack of enthusiasm for talking publicly, most of these captains, inside the private confines of their teams, talked all the time and strengthened their messages with gestures, stares, touches, and the other forms of body language.  The secret to effective team communication isn’t grandiosity. It’s a stream of chatter that is practical, physical, and consistent.  p 170

What all of this research shows is that anyone who wants to change the emotional composition of a group – whether it’s a Viennese mob or a football team – can do so by tapping into an invisible network that connects all people together.  Strong leaders, if they are so inclined, can bypass the conscious minds of their followers and communicate directly with their brains.  p 178

…the difference between positive dissent and the negative, destructive variety…..teams that had high levels of conflict were often more likely to engage in open discussions that helped them arrive at novel solutions to problems. The worst outcomes came when groups engaged in thoughtless agreements….There was a difference…between teams that squabbled because the members didn’t like one another and teams that fought over their different views of how to solve a problem they were working on.  p 199

To lead effectively, Lahm believed, a captain has to speak truth not only to power but to teammates as well.  “It’s a totally romantic idea that you have to be eleven friends,” he said.  p. 201

A leader who isn’t afraid to take on the boss, or the boss’s boss, or just stand up in the middle of a team meeting and say, “Here’s what we’re doing wrong, ” is an essential component of excellence. p. 202

During their careers, the Tier One captains all faced some issue that stirred up powerful negative emotions – an injury, a rebuke, a personal tragedy, even a climate of political injustice. These captains not only continued playing through setbacks – they excelled. They walled off these destructive emotions in order to serve the interest of the team. p. 228