I am honored to have received reviews of Goal Play! from people known in their fields for judgment and integrity. I thought I would share two with you.

The first is by Professor Michael Roberto, on his blog “Musings about Leadership, Decision Making, and Competitive Strategy”. On February 15, he wrote this about Goal Play!

Levy now has written a terrific new book, which I highly recommend…. This book is not the usual fluff that we read in books that try to apply lessons from sports to business. Levy offers concrete lessons that can be applied by leaders in many different kinds of organizations. He illustrates his ideas with anecdotes from soccer, but then shows you those ideas in action in the executive suite. Along the way, he describes the effective actions of other executives too, rather than simply drawing on his personal stories.

Levy describes how you can be a supportive and transparent leader. However, he also describes how to make the tough calls required to improve organizational performance. Levy’s book and his experiences show that making tough decisions doesn’t mean simply dictating plans to the troops in your organization and ordering them to follow you. How can you be supportive and empowering, yet still move quickly and get results? That’s the question Levy seeks to answer in this book.

And Dale Ann Micalizzi at Justin’s Hope Healthcare Blog, offered this review on March 3:

I anxiously awaited for its debut. I was pleasantly pleased with the results. The lesson that was embedded in my thoughts and a bit healing in my work after reading it was, “Perhaps the lesson, though, is that you make your own luck when you stay true to your purpose.” Courage is needed to accomplish this task but so honorable in the end.

His hospital, BIDMC, stayed true to their mission of treating patients and families (and students and employees) as they would want their children and families to be treated. The book was about compassion and trust and honor and mistakes but most of all about teaching and learning and doing the right thing with your skills. I would like to see his easy read book on the curriculum for resident/nursing/pharmacy/management and education courses. Teaching is so much a part of healthcare that the focus needs to be stressed early on in training as this book will do.

Sometimes having power over thousands of people doesn’t make you a leader but having kindness for those that are most vulnerable and doing something about it, does. Thank you to the soccer players for sharing their stories as you are great teachers, too!