Bill had us pay close attention to running meetings well; “get the 1:1 right” and “get the staff meeting right” are tops on the list of his most important management principles. He felt that these meetings are the most important tools available to executives in running the company, and that each one should be approached thoughtfully.

This is critical for effective coaching; a good coach doesn’t hide the stuff that’s hard to talk about—in fact, a good coach will draw this out. He or she gets at the hard stuff.

Who was working on the problem? Was the right team in place? Did they have what they needed to succeed? “When I became CEO of Google,” Sundar Pichai says, “Bill advised me that at that level, more than ever before, you need to bet on people. Choose your team. Think much harder about that.

If you are creating a high-performing team and building for the future, you need to hire for potential as well as experience.

As Bill described it, his job as our coach was to “see little flaws in the organization that with a little massage we can make better. I listen, observe, and fill the communication and understanding gaps between people.