Bill Belichick was the head coach and (effective) general manager of the New England Patriots for 24 years and had previously served in the same capacity for the Cleveland Browns over the course of 5 seasons.
Coach Belichick was the head coach for 6 Super Bowl champions and served as an assistant for 2 more world champion New York Giants teams.
With New England, he instituted what has been called "The Patriot Way." Within the organization, the Pats didn't call it that, but according to long time Belichick confidant and coach Ernie Adams, if it were to be defined, the "Patriot Way" would consist of three things.
Show up every day with a smile on your face.
Check your ego at the door.
Try to get better every day.
Adams is a football savant and the first I learned of him was from David Halberstam's unique NY Times bestselling biography of Belichick called The Education of a Coach. But Belichick, for nearly 30 years, served the twin roles of GM and Head Coach.
As a GM, Belichick would not only have to negotiate with other teams, but his own players and free agents, on a regular basis. It required vision.
Jim Camp, the late negotiating specialist once considered the most feared negotiator in the world, held as a principle that "all action—all decision begins with vision. Without vision, there is no action."
What does the vision of winning football look like?
Mission and purpose drive everything.
Winning football requires preparation and hard work. Ultimately, that's the mission and purpose.
Wins and losses are not controllable, though effort and attitude are something both ballplayers and coaches can control. The Patriots under Belichick set the standard.
Belichick tied to reduce the value of his negotiations in most cases.
Jim Camp says that the value of the negotiation increases by multiples as time, energy, money, and emotion are spent.
As a negotiator, however, Belichick's job was not to be liked. It was to be respected and effective.
He achieved that in spades. Ballplayers, including Tom Brady, did not always like Belichick, but always respected the man. Coach Belichick was always effective in the way he prepared his teams.
Decisions are 100 percent emotional.
No matter how rational the decision not to call time out late in Super Bowl XLIX appeared, the decision was 100 percent emotional. It is the nature of decision-making. He used all the information at his disposable, but eventually had to act upon how he "felt."
The greatest part of that "negotiation" with his "adversary"—opposing coach Pete Carroll—was that, until this day, he
Let the adversary save face at all times.
Belichick outcoached Carroll, but didn't show up the Seahawks coach.
Tonight, Belichick is on the ESPN+ coverage of the NFL Draft as an analyst. Entirely different than his role as a GM, but the promise was that he'd be able to provide some insight on what the various NFL GMs were or are thinking as the draft continues throughout the night.
Another of Camp's 33 rules for negotiating was no talking. Coach is going to do more talking tonight than he did for most media appearances as a Pats coach.
Michael Senoff's Jim Camp Master Negotiator Interview Series features his own 7+ hours of interviews with Camp along with the PDF transcripts.
The 9 downloadable mp3 audio recordings are nothing short of life-changing. Senoff sells this package for $597 on his own website.
To get a cool $400+ off the entire package, go directly to the page Michael set up for our subscribers:
As always,
Brian
P.S. -- The Kevin Costner vehicle, Draft Day, is an interesting look at the day of the draft through the point of view of an NFL GM. Not a great flick, but gives you an idea on how to build vision within the organization.
Enjoy the draft, if you're into such things. I saw something on the twittersphere today saying that Draft Day is for people who love football but don't care about the game play. I'd put the NFL Draft in that category, too, but both the movie and the draft day coverage on television allow for football fans of all stripes to enjoy.
