You cannot avoid falling in love with Bill Campbell when you read this book, which is not surprising as this book is essentially 240 pages of praise for that person. I cannot recall yet a single mild criticism of, or reservation from, anything he was, or ever said or did. The praise is still all warranted; the guy was really very clever and sensitive, perhaps with the maximum EQ one person can have.

Yet aside from praise of Bill himself, my hope was to learn more on his insights in coaching Google leads and other high profile executives. I got those insights, and they are neatly arranged in the book with clear one-sentence summaries. Those lessons all seem very true and useful, but two points bothered me still.

First, the insights were not as enlightening and groundbreaking as I expected. Of course, also “trivial” hints and tips are worth presenting with such clear evidences and such good stories, but those could come from lower profile coaches just as well. I could sense that having Bill around was way more influential than reading the same observations in a book.

Second, I was disappointed with the amount of contextual information provided as the background of those lessons. The backgrounds presented, the complete stories, were full of details on the circumstances of the interaction with Bill, but not as much of the problem itself. I realize that much more cannot be shared, because the details are mostly confidential, but I was surprised by the lack of details presented on the problems raised to Bill, making it difficult to get the full picture that is necessary to put those lessons to use.

In summary, I liked the book, and I grew to like and appreciate Bill Campbell a lot, but it often felt like that was the primary objective of the book. The lessons from Bill’s coaching are well explained and well summarized, and they are all sensible and worth keeping in mind every day, but when you realize that you read the lessons that Google’s and other high profile execs learned from their master coach, you expect to be shown more of the intricacies of the situations rather than a high level recap followed by the advice given.