Winners Dream, Bill McDermott
Winners Dream, Bill McDermott
8 Rating(s)
List: $25.99 | Sale: $18.20
Club: $12.99

Winners Dream
A Journey from Corner Store to Corner Office

Author: Bill McDermott, Joanne Gordon

Narrator: Bill McDermott

Unabridged: 10 hr 21 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/14/2014


Synopsis

A leadership and career manifesto told through the narrative of one of today’s most inspiring, admired, and successful global leaders.

In Winners Dream, Bill McDermott—the CEO of the world’s largest business software company, SAP—chronicles how relentless optimism, hard work, and disciplined execution embolden people and equip organizations to achieve audacious goals.

Growing up in working-class Long Island, a sixteen-year-old Bill traded three hourly wage jobs to buy a small deli, which he ran by instinctively applying ideas that would be the seeds for his future success. After paying for and graduating college, Bill talked his way into a job selling copiers door-to-door for Xerox, where he went on to rank number one in every sales position he held and eventually became the company’s youngest-ever corporate officer. Eventually, Bill left Xerox and in 2002 became the unlikely president of SAP’s flailing American business unit. There, he injected enthusiasm and accountability into the demoralized culture by scaling his deli, sales, and management strategies. In 2010, Bill was named co-CEO, and in May 2014 became SAP’s sole, and first non-European, CEO.

Colorful and fast-paced, Bill’s anecdotes contain effective takeaways: gutsy career moves; empathetic sales strategies; incentives that yield exceptional team performance; and proof of the competitive advantages of optimism and hard work. At the heart of Bill’s story is a blueprint for success and the knowledge that the real dream is the journey, not a preconceived destination.

About Bill McDermott

Bill McDermott is the CEO of SAP, the world’s largest business software company. Before joining SAP in 2002, McDermott served as executive vice president of Worldwide Sales and Operations at Siebel Systems and president of Gartner, Inc., where he led the company’s core operations. He spent seventeen years at Xerox Corporation, where he rose from a sales professional to become the company’s youngest corporate officer and division president. McDermott holds an MBA in business management from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and he completed the Executive Development Program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Misha on January 30, 2021

I met Bill during the time I worked at SAP. It was my fifth day and we had an all hands meeting where I posed him a question. In addition to answering my question, he invited me to the stage, congratulated me on my new job and hugged me. He is the kind of leader every employee dreams of. A beautiful......more

Goodreads review by Laurel on September 27, 2018

The narrator of this book is very irritating and practically the definition of a humble brag. He surely has self-serving bias where he attributes all success to his own hard work and any mistakes or failures to external factors. His story is very generic and not worth the time. Some chapters are wri......more

Goodreads review by Bill on December 05, 2018

I saw Bill speak this year at Marketo Summit. He owned the stage and his presence was so calm but impactful. Something I strive to be one day. I had to buy and read the book. His work ethic and background resonate with my mindset so I enjoyed the story 👌......more

Goodreads review by Kirtikumar on January 03, 2019

As I was reading through the book, I was living the story that Bill has to share with us. The narrative is compelling and you will get hooked onto it. The journey from a paperboy to leading the world's largest business software provider, is fascinating. A must read for established and budding leader......more

Goodreads review by Arun on April 01, 2019

This book is partly motivational and partly about how to climb the corporate ladder. It is an excellent "road map" for any salesperson or account manager. It has excellent examples of how Bill got his bosses, colleagues, and customers to trust him. Bill exemplifies a model sales leader. Once a sales......more