The blueprint of Bill Walsh’s philosophy

“The Score Takes Care of Itself” by Bill Walsh with Steve Jamison and Craig Walsh

Bill Walsh is up there among the legendary coaches in NFL history. He managed to transform the 49ers from the worst team in the league to be the best team in just 2 seasons, from the most chaotic organizationally to get praises from the Harvard Business Review for organizational excellence.

And he would end up achieving what really matters in NFL, winning 5 Super Bowl championships in 14 years with the 49ers, as well as transforming the game with his West Coast Offense that has since been wildly imitated by other teams.

This book is about his blue print on doing that transformation. It is his philosophy, or what he called the Standard of Performance, broken down into easily digestible chapters that was revealed through extensive conversations with best-selling author Steve Jamison.

As Walsh remarks, “my Standard of Performance required not only maximum mental and physical effort, sacrifice, and commitment but also attention to such seemingly incidental requirements as “no shirttails out,” “positive attitude,” “promptness,” “good sportsmanship (no strutting, no posturing, no cheap shots),” “never sit down while on the practice field,” “no tank tops in the dining area,” “control of profanity,” “no fighting,” “treat fans with respect and exhibit a professional demeanor,” and many more, including “no smoking on premises,” which applied to all of us. Much of this may seem trivial to you, but it adds up and changes the environment.”

As a result, the 49er increasingly became famous for their businesslike and professional behaviour, even when they’re losing. And thus, Standard of Performance started to become appealing beyond the world of football and was attested by the many CEOs in Silicon Valley and elsewhere that sought for Walsh’s advice and invited him to speak about leadership.

This book also caters that angle from the business point of view. A little too much, in fact. In a bizarre way Steve Jamison, as the writer of the book, decided that it would be a great idea to turn Walsh’s footballing philosophy into a business book format, with all the corporate angles of leadership, teamwork, innovation, etc, complete with all those top 10 checklist of business cliches, which somewhat diluted Walsh’s core focus and stories on football.

Nevertheless, to be fair the many gems coming out of this book don’t take away the key messages from Walsh’s philosophy, regardless of the poor positioning to business genre. And they are indeed applicable in sports, business, and any other walks of life.

The followings are my favourites out of the whole bunch:

To succeed you must experience failure, and more importantly develop the ability to bounce back from failures. “I’ve observed that if individuals who prevail in a highly competitive environment have any one thing in common besides success, it is failure—and their ability to overcome it. “Crash and burn” is part of it; so are recovery and reward.”
Have a grand unifying principle, have a philosophy.
Before you can win the fight, you’ve got to be in the fight.
You’re part of the team, and everyone have their own roles in the team. Your role won’t succeed if it’s not supported by other roles.
Be professional in mannerism. “For example, how the players dressed at practice and the appearance they gave to others when taking the field was very important to me. I wanted our football team to look truly professional—impeccable. Thus, shirttails tucked in, socks up tight, and more were requirements.”
It takes time to rebuild, it’s not an overnight success. Achieving success takes time, patience and fortitude.
Focus on what you do best, be the master of it, until you’re comfortable even with the pressure. Thorough preparation and the training for it can only get you so far, and trying harder has its limits. Walsh cannot do what he’s done in football in other sports like tennis or golf.
Have a clear plan with meticulous details. “Meetings were held, and he would take an hour or two with every employee so they knew exactly what he expected of them, what he wanted them to do and how he wanted them to do it. He made it very clear. There was no confusion in their minds as to what he expected.”
Communication is very important. “Communication within the organization was extremely important to Bill, especially between coaches and players. Even though our headquarters at 711 Nevada Street in Redwood City, California, weren’t so good, he saw the cramped offices where we were almost sitting on top of each other as an asset. When somebody was talking on the phone or having a conversation, everybody could hear what was going on. In a strange way, it meant that everybody on the staff was in the loop.”
The importance of having the ability of making the most out of the situation or the hands you’d been dealt with. “Creating gold from dross is alchemy; making lemonade when you’re given lemons is leadership; making lemonade when you don’t have any lemons is great leadership.”
Get creative with your limitations, to turn it into a strength. “Instead of looking for reasons we couldn’t make it work, I sought solutions that would make it succeed.”
Respect the past but don’t cling to it.
Give credit where credit is due.
Always have a contingency plan. “Having a well-thought-out plan ready to go in advance of a change in the weather is the key to success.”
About 20% of all things we cannot control, such us luck, weather, etc. But we can control 80% of the things, and we should focus on what we can control.
Respect is earned and should be justified. “Declaring, “I am the leader!” has no value unless you also have the command skills necessary to be the leader.”
“There is no one perfect or even preferable style of leadership, just as there is no perfect politician or parent.” “Some leaders are volatile, some voluble; some stoic, others exuberant; but all successful leaders know where we want to go, figure out a way we believe will get the organization there (after careful consideration of relevant available information), and then move forward with absolute determination.”
Know when to quit, when to admit the plan is not working, and cut loss. Sunk-cost fallacy is a worse burden. “A leader must be keen and alert to what drives a decision, a plan of action. If it was based on good logic, sound principles, and strong belief, I felt comfortable in being unswerving in moving toward my goal. Any other reason (or reasons) for persisting were examined carefully. Among the most common faulty reasons are (1) trying to prove you are right and (2) trying to prove someone else is wrong. Of course, they amount to about the same thing and often lead to the same place: defeat.”
Stood your ground and protect your turf when your position or authority is being challenged. “Leaders who don’t understand what their territory is and how to protect it will soon find themselves with no turf to protect.”
Be prepared, be detail oriented, be organized, be accountable, keep everything in perspective while simultaneously focused fully on the task at hand, be fair, be firm, be flexible.
Sweat the right small stuff.
Beat em’ to the punch! Hurt your opponents before they hurt you. Strike first.
A leader needs to have a very hard edge inside. “It has to lurk in there somewhere and come out on occasion. You must be able to make and carry out harsh and, at times, ruthless decisions in a manner that is fast, firm, and fair. Applied correctly, this hard edge will not only solve the immediate difficulty, but also prevent future problems by sending out this important message: Cross my line and you can expect severe consequences. This will have ongoing benefits for your organization.”
Inner voice is more influential than outer voice. “The true inspiration, expertise, and ability to execute that employees take with them into their work is most often the result of their inner voice talking, not some outer voice shouting, and not some leader giving a pep talk. For members of your team, you determine what their inner voice says.”
“you don’t need to shout, stomp, or strut to be a great leader—just do the job and treat people right.”
Blend honesty and “diplomacy.”
Produce clear instructions and battle plan. “Use every means before and after combat to tell troops what they are going to do and what they have done.”
Be careful with flattery, don’t get it into your head and make you lose focus.
Don’t get influenced by outside opinion. “Believing your own press clippings – good or bad – is self defeating. You are allowing others, oftentimes uninformed others, to tell you who you are.”
Positive words work better than negative ones. “You demonstrate a lack of assuredness when you talk constantly in negatives. When attempting to help someone attain that next level of performance, a supportive approach works better than a constantly negative or downside-focused approach.”
Give constructive criticism rather than demeaning criticism. “If you’re growing a garden, you need to pull out the weeds, but flowers will die if all you do is pick weeds. They need sunshine and water. People are the same. They need criticism, but they also require positive and substantive language and information and true support to really blossom.”
Be crystal clear with direct communication that is clear, specific, and comprehensive without an ounce of ambiguity. Don’t beat around the bush.
Embrace uncertainties, in order to avoid mental comfort zone. “This comfort zone is dangerous because it creates an often almost imperceptible lowering of intensity, focus, and energy, which leads directly to reduced effort, additional mistakes, and diminished performance.”
Leadership needs poise under pressure.
On teaching: use straight forward language. Be concise. Account for a wide range of difference in knowledge, comprehension, and experience. Account that some are more receptive and more eager to learn than others. Be observant during your comment. Strongly encourage note taking. Use an unpredictable presentation style. Organize sentence using logical, sequential building blocks. Encourage audience participation. Use visual aids. And remember Sun Tzu: with more sophistication comes more control.
Money talks. Treating people right talks louder.
On motivation: Formally celebrate and observe the momentous achievement—the victory—and make sure that everyone feels ownership in it. Allow pats on the back for a limited time. Be apprehensive about applause. Recognize that mastery is a process and not a destination.
On situational character: “It’s worth remembering that some individuals have “situational character”—their attitude (and subsequent performance) are linked to results. Good results? Great attitude. Bad results? Bad attitude.”
Ego is good. “Here’s what a big ego is: pride, self-confidence, self-esteem, self-assurance . Ego is a powerful and productive engine. In fact, without a healthy ego you’ve got a big problem.”
But egotism? Now that’s bad. “Egotism is something else entirely. It’s an ego that’s been inflated like a hot-air balloon—arrogance that results from your own perceived skill, power, or position. You become increasingly self-important, self-centered, and selfish, just as a hot-air balloon gets pumped with lots of hot air until it turns into some big, ponderous entity that’s slow, vulnerable, and easily destroyed. Unfortunately, a strong, healthy ego often becomes egotism.”
The bottom 20% may determine your success. “the so-called bottom 20 percent of our team—the backups, “benchwarmers,” and special role players, those who didn’t see much action during the regular season. In a sports organization this is the group that often determines your fate—they make the difference between whether you win or lose. In business it may be a customer-service representative or another less prominent “player” who fails to address a problem due to lack of readiness or a feeling that his or her particular job doesn’t really mean that much in the big picture.”
If it looks inevitable that you’re going to lose. At least lose with dignity.
Use the four most powerful words: I believe in you.
“Occasionally, when striving to go beyond conventional results, you must go beyond the conventional and against popular opinion. This means trusting your own judgment enough to be resourceful, innovative, and imaginative. It means resisting the herd mentality.”
The no enemies policy. “I instructed everyone in our organization—players, staff, and all others—to do everything possible to get along with people who interacted with us, even when it might appear they were treating us unfairly. We simply couldn’t afford to waste resources fighting needless fights, whether with fans, media, vendors, sponsors, other teams, or anyone else, including squabbles among ourselves. You can quickly find yourself doing nothing but chasing so-called enemies.”
“The most effective survival tools a leader can possess: expertise, composure, patience, and common sense.”
There’s no mystery to mastery, the connection between preparation and performance: training, training and training. “You never stop learning, perfecting, refining—molding your skills. You never stop depending on the fundamentals—sustaining, maintaining, and improving.”
The importance of work ethics. “For me, the starting point for everything—before strategy, tactics, theories, managing, organizing, philosophy, methodology, talent, or experience—is the work ethic. Without one of significant magnitude you’re dead in the water, finished.”
“When you make a mistake, admit it and fix it. Don’t let pride, stubbornness, or possible embarrassment about your bad decision prevent you from correcting what you have done. Fix it, or the little problem becomes a big one.”
And last but not least, the sentence that becomes the title of the book: Focus on the process, and the result will take care of itself.

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