Cubs Fans' Leadership Secrets: Learning to Win From a "Cursed" Team's Errors - Softcover

You don't run into a George Washington or Abraham Lincoln too often, but all of us can see something of ourselves in the Cubs' struggles to get the most out of ordinary gifts. There is no richer treasure trove of mistakes than the Cubs, who in 2008 "celebrated" 100 consecutive years without a World Series championship. It took a lot of errors to amass that unparalleled record of futility, a bumper crop of bad choices and failed experiments for leaders to learn from.

Cubs teams have "choked" in the clutch because they had not done the groundwork to become immune to pressure. If leaders fail to think about and prepare for emergencies, their organizations become very vulnerable to panic and disaster when crises do materialize. The book introduces a new concept, the Coefficient of Panic Vulnerability, and explains how leaders can influence it positively.

The Cubs traded away young future Hall of Famer Lou Brock in a misguided and shortsighted episode of leadership ineptitude that haunted them for many years. Often, teams do not recognize diamonds in the rough when they are right among them. This book demonstrates how to develop effective programs to identify and nurture future top performers in any line of work.

Organizations can become comfortable with failure, with losing ingrained in their culture. This systemic sickness is simultaneously one of the results of prolonged failure, and also fosters repetition of those unsatisfactory outcomes. Cubs Fans' Leadership Secrets explains that the proper response to failure includes an attitude that losing is not a permanent condition and that we have the power to reverse any curse.

Winning teams don't tolerate blaming other people, or "curses," or any outside factors for their own mistakes, whether individually or collectively. They own their negative experiences and learn from them. This book explores and provides a solution to the Cubs' long history of blaming their losses on billy-goat curses, black-cat bad luck, bad umpires, poor weather, their teammates, and everyone but themselves.

Leaders ensure failure when they refuse to take a hard look at themselves. There are many common Achilles' heels that cause leaders and their organizations to stumble, but they can only be corrected if they are first noticed and acknowledged as areas needing work. This self-assessment is not always a pleasant process, but it is essential, and Cubs Fans' Leadership Secrets explains how to do it.

The Cubs have given us 100 years of advanced leadership lessons from their own special brand of Ivy League--within the leafy outfield walls of beautiful Wrigley Field. They have conducted a century-long experiment in finding every possible way to fail, and now leaders can use the results to eliminate panic from their collection of strategic tools. During the current economic crisis, that could come in handy.