Cincinnati Bengals Use Book’s Lessons to Instill and Improve Leadership Skills
Carson Palmer, Heisman Trophy-winner and quarterback of the Bengals, told reporters before ESPN’s Monday Night Football broadcast about the key leadership lessons he learned from reading former Navy Captain Mike Abrashoff’s book It’s Your Ship. Lessons Carson learned from Abrashoff’s book include: “Number One: If the people around you believe you care about them, they will follow you into battle; Number Two: The leader must be above the group but of the group,” as he told ESPN’s Michele Tafoya. After interviewing Palmer, Tafoya commented that those leadership lessons must have made a difference, because Palmer’s teammates elected him to be their offensive team captain.
Earlier, in July’s Sports Illustrated, Palmer said that he gave a copy of It’s Your Ship to Bengals’ Coach Marvin Lewis and hoped they could apply its lessons to leading the entire Bengals team.
The day after the Sept. 10 game, Abrashoff’s book It’s Your Ship became a top-10 best seller on several online bookstores, including reaching the #2 spot on Amazon.com.
Building on the lessons from his book, Mike Abrashoff has helped numerous companies, including Intel, Wyeth and Fidelity, take his principles to practice through his It’s Your Ship Impact Solution. The It’s Your Ship Impact Solution was launched by Impact Channel™, a learning division of Washington Speakers Bureau, to help corporations and associations apply the lessons of Abrashoff’s book throughout their organizations. Impact Solutions use interactive learning tools, including engaging video coaching, simulations, and case studies, to cement new practices within organizations. Mike Abrashoff’s leadership strategies are integrated throughout companies via online polling, self-assessment, and idea collection and collaboration. The dynamic experience can be easily internalized and applied by every member of an organization.
About Mike Abrashoff
As a Captain in the U.S. Navy, Mike Abrashoff was assigned as commander of USS Benfold, the Navy’s worst performing ship. His response? Completely reinventing his leadership style to the culture. Without hiring, firing or offering pay incentives, Abrashoff transformed the Navy’s worst ship into its best. He draws on his experiences aboard USS Benfold—detailed in his best-selling book It’s Your Ship—to distill the techniques that revolutionize organizations from within. Abrashoff has also shared his success with publications such as Fast Company and Harvard Business Review.
About Impact Channel
Impact Channel™ (www.ImpactChannel.com), a division of Washington Speakers Bureau, delivers learning and development programs to organizations with the goal of infusing employees with the vision, passion and inspiration of world-renowned business experts to improve employee performance and advance your company’s business objectives. Impact Solutions combine the proven strategies of leading business experts—including Mike Abrashoff, Chip Bell, Tom Morris, Tom Peters, Ann Rhoades and Michael Treacy—with a unique combination of learning tools: live keynote addresses; online learning programs; idea collection and collaboration; and Impact Reports that ground and guide personal and organizational strategy.
About Washington Speakers Bureau
Washington Speakers Bureau (www.WashingtonSpeakers.com) is the world’s #1 lecture agency, exclusively representing distinguished world leaders, influential business and management experts, dynamic motivational speakers, media personalities, humorists and sports figures. WSB provides direct access to the world’s foremost experts who deliver new ideas and insights to audiences worldwide, and manages travel and event logistics for their speakers so customers don’t have to. WSB also includes the Impact Channel™, an online training division that offers a combination of learning tools featuring leading business experts.
Washington Speakers Bureau is a part of Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE:OMC) (www.OmnicomGroup.com). Omnicom is a leading global advertising, marketing and corporate communications company. Omnicom’s branded networks and numerous specialty firms provide advertising, strategic media planning and buying, interactive, direct and promotional marketing, public relations and other specialty communications services to over 5,000 clients in more than 100 countries.