Winners Dream Book Summary - Winners Dream Book explained in key points

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Winners Dream summary

Name: Winners Dream
Author: Bill McDermott

Bill McDermott

A Journey From Corner Store to Corner Office

(9 ratings)

15 mins

Table of Contents

Winners Dream
summarized in 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me? Learn how to follow your own dream, from someone who followed their own.

Few moments are as thrilling as the one where you discover exactly what you want to pursue in your life. Some people realize they want to spend their days helping people, for others the dream is to lead a successful team.

Whatever your epiphany may be, it’s rarely simple to achieve. There will be pitfalls on the way, many setbacks and long moments of indecision and doubt.

These blinks show how Bill McDermott, CEO of software giant SAP, followed his own dream from humble beginnings to financial superstardom. Reading them will help you plot – and stay on – your own course to success and fulfilment.

In these blinks you’ll discover

why you should send your best workers to Hawaii; and
which four questions you need to constantly ask to keep up your game.

There’s only one thing that all winners have in common: a big dream for which they’d sacrifice almost anything.

On what foundation do the world’s highest-achieving individuals build their success? Is it a good upbringing, full of the luxuries provided by a moneyed family? A ruthless desire to win at costs?

Actually, it’s neither of these. As you’ll see in the story of the author and hugely successful CEO Bill McDermott, success derives from something else entirely.

The author’s spectacular business career certainly wasn’t written on the wall during his early childhood in lower middle-class New Jersey. But it’s from this childhood that he draws the outstanding quality that guarantees success: the relentless pursuit of a big dream despite all obstacles.

Among the first steps on the road to achieving this dream is an early exposure to work and a willingness to take risks.

Seeing his dad getting up early every morning to work multiple difficult jobs to support the family, the author developed an unflinching work ethic at a very young age. It was then that he decided his dream was to become a successful businessman.

So, from the early age of eleven, the author began working several hard jobs himself – often more than one at a time – ranging from newspaper delivery to waiting tables and taking the nightshift at gas stations.

At the age of 17, the deli where he was working was robbed and stripped of all its wares. Confident in his ability to rebuild the deli, the author decided to take a chance, and bought it from its frustrated owner. In the end, his determination and steadfast work ethic made the deli more successful than before.

Passion and planning trump age and experience in getting your dream job.

If you want to land your dream job, you’ll need to perform better than your rivals in order to impress your prospective bosses in interviews. However, that’s easier said than done, especially if you are young and relatively inexperienced. All too often, you’ll find yourself competing against candidates who are far more knowledgeable and qualified than you.

But is this cause for worry?

The key to sales is empathizing with customers and answering their direct needs.

In the modern world, many people work in sales. But not all salespeople are equal; some are better than others. The author would prove himself to be a sales genius, always outselling his coworkers during his time at Xerox. But how? Was it his intricate knowledge of the products? No, it was his ability to empathize with the customer.

Indeed, a successful sales career depends on your ability to put yourself in your customers’ shoes and “feel” their pain. Customers will appreciate and trust someone who demonstrates that he understands what they’re going through. The best salespeople exploit this.

A leader’s primary objective is to keep her team happy, motivated and performing well.

Think back to all the jobs you’ve had that you truly hated. What was it about these jobs that you most despised? It’s a fair guess that in many of these roles, it was a bad boss who fueled your discontent. Employees don’t often quit companies. They quit managers.

A good manager cares for her subordinates and ensures they are happy and efficient. But how?

Money isn’t everything: in addition to rewards, you need to appeal to people’s intrinsic goals to motivate them.

We’ve just seen how powerful rewards like lavish holidays can be in motivating your employees to push themselves to the limit. However, if you want to motivate your staff over the long term, fancy rewards won’t be enough.

These extrinsic motivators may be important, but they don’t have the same staying power as rewards based on intrinsic factors, e.g., the personal satisfaction that comes with a job well done.

The most successful companies never stop transforming themselves to meet the changing market.

Nothing is more important for a business than its ability to constantly evolve in the face of innovations and fresh competition in the market. But how do you establish this in your work culture?

Start by constantly asking yourself four basic questions about your business model and your market.

The only way you can make effective changes in strategy is if your staff trust you to make the right decisions.

Many companies fail to successfully implement changes in their organization and often waste millions of dollars in the process. Often, these failures aren’t due to poor strategy or planning, but rather a fundamental lack of trust.

Indeed, any change within an organization requires a culture of trust. This is partly due to the nature of proactive change.

Winning isn’t about the goal; it’s about the journey.

At the end of the day, what does it mean to win? Is it the money, the luxurious corner office or the fancy car? No. These are just goals, specific outcomes that are part of a larger journey. A true dream is something much grander. In the end, winning is the journey, not the goal.

And it is the people that accompany you on this journey that make it all worthwhile.

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What is Winners Dream about?

Winners Dream offers a guide to achieving your goals by following the life and example of Bill McDermott, current CEO of SAP, the biggest software company in the world. By identifying your winning dream, you can find the motivation to overcome all obstacles in your path and help others along the way.

Best quote from Winners Dream

Never let the circumstances of a moment supersede the size of your dream. – Bill McDermott.

—Bill McDermott

Who should read Winners Dream?

Anyone who wants to make it big
Anyone who dreams of becoming a CEO or hopes to one day found his or her own company
Sales and strategic managers

About the Author

Bill McDermott is the CEO of SAP, a global leader in software with branches in over 130 countries. He is on the supervisory boards of numerous companies, such as Under Armour and ANSYS, and is also on the advisory board of the Knowledge is Power Program.

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