Pete Carroll really will mess with your head

From the USC Marshall School of Business comes an interesting look at positive psychology and how it can contribute to leadership success. Not surprisingly, the focus of the piece is SC coach Pete Carroll, who has long been admired or criticized (depending on if you like NCAA or NFL football) for showing the same - if not more - enthusiasm each week as his players. Turns out there's actually some science behind all this.

The gist of the article is that Carroll is essentially "Exhibit A" for a discipline of psychology known as Positive Organizational Scholarship. At first it reads pretty much like a school trying to use their hero football coach as an example of their curriculum. But I was interested to find out that Carroll really does have an almost obsessive root in the discipline. In fact, while getting his Masters in psych at Pacific, the guy wrote his thesis on Abraham Maslow, who is apparently the "father of POS."

As boring as it all may sound, it does actually provide a little insight into the huge winning streak, the national titles, and the constant stream of top recruits. Bonus points for the cheesy "power photo."


USC Marshall School of Business (USC)
Banishing Fear (.pdf)