NEW FROM BOB GRAHAM
The management book that helps you put good advice to work.
Management Lessons From Lacrosse turns proven business principles into your plan, one practical idea at a time, for managers at every level.
Most managers already know what good management looks like. The hard part is actually doing it.
Drawing on a career in sales and marketing at Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola and nearly 30 years training managers, Bob Graham uses lessons from the lacrosse field to make practical ideas about leadership, communication, and building strong teams easy to understand and apply.
This isn’t a book of career war stories or complicated theory. Each chapter ends with a Key Point Summary of the core concepts and why they matter, followed by a page for your own notes: your key points, your application ideas, and the first step you’ll take. Bob calls these turning pebbles into diamonds: finding the one or two ideas in each chapter that fit your situation and putting them to work.
Read it straight through or jump to the topics you need. It’s written for managers at every level, from first-time supervisors to the C-suite. No lacrosse experience is required.
Details
Paperback, 152 pages
Published 2026
ISBN 978-1-959508-64-9
Also available on Kindle
Ordering for your team or company? Contact Bob directly at bgraham.usa@gmail.com or (919) 271-6780 about bulk orders.
Prefer to read digitally? Get the ebook on Amazon.
For bulk purchases (6+) contact Bob Graham at: (919) 271-6780 or bgraham.usa@gmail.com
Plenty of books give you ideas. This one is built to get you to use them.
I played lacrosse at UMass, then spent nearly 30 years officiating the game, from middle school to Division I. Off the field, I started in sales at Procter & Gamble, moved into marketing at Coca-Cola, and nearly 30 years ago founded my own firm focused on staff development and management training.
On the field and in the office, I’ve seen the same thing: the teams that win are the ones that execute consistently and flawlessly. Clear communication, the right people in the right positions, and execution when it counts.
This book won’t bore you with epic stories of my career. It gives you strategies, tactics and ideas to drive your business forward. You may already know many of them but, for some reason, aren’t using them. Now is your chance to put them to use.
Most managers already know what good management looks like. The hard part is actually doing it.
Drawing on a career in sales and marketing at Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola and nearly 30 years training managers, Bob Graham uses lessons from the lacrosse field to make practical ideas about leadership, communication, and building strong teams easy to understand and apply.
This isn’t a book of career war stories or complicated theory. Each chapter ends with a Key Point Summary of the core concepts and why they matter, followed by a page for your own notes: your key points, your application ideas, and the first step you’ll take. Bob calls these turning pebbles into diamonds: finding the one or two ideas in each chapter that fit your situation and putting them to work.
Read it straight through or jump to the topics you need. It’s written for managers at every level, from first-time supervisors to the C-suite. No lacrosse experience is required.
Details
Paperback, 152 pages
Published 2026
ISBN 978-1-959508-64-9
Also available on Kindle
Ordering for your team or company? Contact Bob directly at bgraham.usa@gmail.com or (919) 271-6780 about bulk orders.
You know what good management looks like. Getting it to happen is another story.
In management, there is often a gap between the principles you know and what actually happens day-to-day at the business. Here are three examples:
Communication
What you know: “Clear expectations matter.”
What happens anyway: You announce a new process in Monday's meeting. By Friday, half the team is doing it the old way and the other half has invented its own.
Staffing
What you know: “Put people where they’re strongest.”
What happens anyway: Your best salesperson earns a promotion to manager. Six months later, you've lost a top performer and gained a struggling supervisor.
Execution
What you know: “Priorities need follow-through.”
What happens anyway: The plan looks great in January. By March, urgent work has crowded it out, and no one is sure who owns what.
The missing gap?
Executing what you know, consistently.
Most managers already know what good management looks like. The hard part is actually doing it.
Drawing on a career in sales and marketing at Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola and nearly 30 years training managers, Bob Graham uses lessons from the lacrosse field to make practical ideas about leadership, communication, and building strong teams easy to understand and apply.
This isn’t a book of career war stories or complicated theory. Each chapter ends with a Key Point Summary of the core concepts and why they matter, followed by a page for your own notes: your key points, your application ideas, and the first step you’ll take. Bob calls these turning pebbles into diamonds: finding the one or two ideas in each chapter that fit your situation and putting them to work.
Read it straight through or jump to the topics you need. It’s written for managers at every level, from first-time supervisors to the C-suite. No lacrosse experience is required.
Details
Paperback, 152 pages
Published 2026
ISBN 978-1-959508-64-9
Also available on Kindle
Ordering for your team or company? Contact Bob directly at bgraham.usa@gmail.com or (919) 271-6780 about bulk orders.
A simple plan to put each lesson to work:
1
Read a chapter
Each one covers a single, practical idea. Read them in any order.
2
Identify your next best action
Use the guide at the end of each chapter to choose a realistic action step for your team.
3
Lead a team that actually gets things done
Lessons become habits. Your people communicate clearly, play to their strengths and follow through.
Most managers already know what good management looks like. The hard part is actually doing it.
Drawing on a career in sales and marketing at Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola and nearly 30 years training managers, Bob Graham uses lessons from the lacrosse field to make practical ideas about leadership, communication, and building strong teams easy to understand and apply.
This isn’t a book of career war stories or complicated theory. Each chapter ends with a Key Point Summary of the core concepts and why they matter, followed by a page for your own notes: your key points, your application ideas, and the first step you’ll take. Bob calls these turning pebbles into diamonds: finding the one or two ideas in each chapter that fit your situation and putting them to work.
Read it straight through or jump to the topics you need. It’s written for managers at every level, from first-time supervisors to the C-suite. No lacrosse experience is required.
Details
Paperback, 152 pages
Published 2026
ISBN 978-1-959508-64-9
Also available on Kindle
Ordering for your team or company? Contact Bob directly at bgraham.usa@gmail.com or (919) 271-6780 about bulk orders.
Picture a team that accomplishes the extraordinary.
Communication lands, from the top of the organization to the front line
The right people are in the right roles, playing to their strengths.
Work gets done, efficiently and on purpose.
The manager continually becomes more valuable to the organization
Most managers already know what good management looks like. The hard part is actually doing it.
Drawing on a career in sales and marketing at Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola and nearly 30 years training managers, Bob Graham uses lessons from the lacrosse field to make practical ideas about leadership, communication, and building strong teams easy to understand and apply.
This isn’t a book of career war stories or complicated theory. Each chapter ends with a Key Point Summary of the core concepts and why they matter, followed by a page for your own notes: your key points, your application ideas, and the first step you’ll take. Bob calls these turning pebbles into diamonds: finding the one or two ideas in each chapter that fit your situation and putting them to work.
Read it straight through or jump to the topics you need. It’s written for managers at every level, from first-time supervisors to the C-suite. No lacrosse experience is required.
Details
Paperback, 152 pages
Published 2026
ISBN 978-1-959508-64-9
Also available on Kindle
Ordering for your team or company? Contact Bob directly at bgraham.usa@gmail.com or (919) 271-6780 about bulk orders.
Without a plan
Another management book read, then shelved
The same problems come back next quarter
Good ideas stay ideas
With a plan
A written plan for the ideas that fit your team
A first step you can take this week
Lessons that become how you lead
Let me teach you how to turn pebbles into diamonds…
While walking home, a young man notices bright, shiny pebbles in the stream beside the sidewalk. He picks up a few and drops them in his pocket. The next morning, he reaches into that pocket and finds the pebbles have turned to diamonds. He’s glad, and he’s sad. Glad they turned to diamonds. Sad he didn’t pick up more.
The ideas in each chapter are the pebbles. They become diamonds when you put them to use with your team. Find one or two in each chapter, take an easy first step right away, and you’ll wish you’d picked up more.
Every chapter contains valuable information to help you manage your: people, department, company. At the end of each chapter, you’ll find a Key Point Summary and an outline to help you identify how you will turn your pebbles into diamonds by applying your ideas.
Most managers already know what good management looks like. The hard part is actually doing it.
Drawing on a career in sales and marketing at Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola and nearly 30 years training managers, Bob Graham uses lessons from the lacrosse field to make practical ideas about leadership, communication, and building strong teams easy to understand and apply.
This isn’t a book of career war stories or complicated theory. Each chapter ends with a Key Point Summary of the core concepts and why they matter, followed by a page for your own notes: your key points, your application ideas, and the first step you’ll take. Bob calls these turning pebbles into diamonds: finding the one or two ideas in each chapter that fit your situation and putting them to work.
Read it straight through or jump to the topics you need. It’s written for managers at every level, from first-time supervisors to the C-suite. No lacrosse experience is required.
Details
Paperback, 152 pages
Published 2026
ISBN 978-1-959508-64-9
Also available on Kindle
Ordering for your team or company? Contact Bob directly at bgraham.usa@gmail.com or (919) 271-6780 about bulk orders.
Put proven principles to work with your team.
Management advice is only as good as what you do with it. Read a chapter, apply it to your business, and experience real results.
Most managers already know what good management looks like. The hard part is actually doing it.
Drawing on a career in sales and marketing at Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola and nearly 30 years training managers, Bob Graham uses lessons from the lacrosse field to make practical ideas about leadership, communication, and building strong teams easy to understand and apply.
This isn’t a book of career war stories or complicated theory. Each chapter ends with a Key Point Summary of the core concepts and why they matter, followed by a page for your own notes: your key points, your application ideas, and the first step you’ll take. Bob calls these turning pebbles into diamonds: finding the one or two ideas in each chapter that fit your situation and putting them to work.
Read it straight through or jump to the topics you need. It’s written for managers at every level, from first-time supervisors to the C-suite. No lacrosse experience is required.
Details
Paperback, 152 pages
Published 2026
ISBN 978-1-959508-64-9
Also available on Kindle
Ordering for your team or company? Contact Bob directly at bgraham.usa@gmail.com or (919) 271-6780 about bulk orders.