Comments on: Coach Lombardi to Yahoo!: Success ain’t no annuity.

By: FoundLINKS: Feb 17 - Feb 23 « FoundRead

FoundLINKS: Feb 17 - Feb 23 « FoundRead — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 08:20:21 +0000

[...] A hyperactive Charlie talks about how you can never get complacent with your success (recall our Lombardi post on the same) and his tricks for spotting future leaders in 10-minute job interviews. (See also [...]

By: stone

stone — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:12:16 +0000

I hate to sound obnoxious but when someone achieves a certain level of success and they are worth tens of millions or even billions I’m not sure they care to hear platitudes from coach Lombardi. They have done something that few in the world can understand, and they are not people that are open to being lectured. If Google’s best days are behind them — and i’m not suggesting they are — Eric Schmidt woiuld still be *proudly* worth billions and would never look back.

By: Alan Wilensky

Alan Wilensky — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 02:14:11 +0000

OK, I’m finished! I’m a little tired of the subject, actually, but there was one nugget by a Yahoo insider (who actually took a buyout before the furball exploded). http://bizcast.typepad.com

By: Alan Wilensky

Alan Wilensky — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 18:51:46 +0000

It may take longer than the weekend. I’ve never seen such a look of fear and uncertainty in what were otherwise the most competent and confident core of the Yahoo corps; and one can’t blame them for being reticent. I will come back here and leave a link when the article is done.

By: Carleen Hawn

Carleen Hawn — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 23:21:07 +0000

Alan, I’d look forward to that post. Especially as the insights of those insiders will inform our readers on how to nurture and maintain morale inside their own orgs in the future. Please let us link to it?
best,
carleen

By: Alan Wilensky

Alan Wilensky — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 20:07:23 +0000

It was Yahoo’s game to lose all along. They had the twinkle, they had the talent, they even up to the present had the vision, though technically it was executed with a complete lack of focus. So many good ideas and insightful small web20 acquisitions gone to seed. They needed to pull together all of those threads of innovation, but infighting and egos got in the way.

Can you imagine a bigger clash of cultures?

I have contacted a few mid level management people at Yahoo who could be described as, ‘Yahoo Purple Lifers”. They have intimated that they will stay and work to make any cultural changes to the organization, and I quote, “as painful as possible for the new Microsoft directors and division Veeps, short of insurrection”.

I’ll try and write something up on this attitude that seems pervasive, on my blog, over the weekend. There has been plenty of bitterness over the layoff’s already.

They are very different companies; although one could reason that this acquisition is the lawful and logical harvest of equity for Yahoo’s long term investors and employees with stock. But it takes more than a mere decision to make such a gargantuan move work.

They are Very Different cultures.

By: arh

arh — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:28:56 +0000

Well said. Here are two other Vince Lombardi quotes that apply to founders:

“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will.”

“Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.”

Another quote I like is:
“There is no such thing as a free kick, it’s just a question of who pays”
Unfortunately I’ve no clue who to credit for this. The most immediate sports image is a soccer field but it’s application to business and beyond is obvious.