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Book Review: The Score

Takes Care of Itself by
Bill Walsh with Steve
Jamison and Craig
Walsh
The blueprint of Bill Walsh’s philosophy

Edwin Setiadi · Follow

9 min read · Aug 15, 2023

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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:

1. 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.”

2. Have a grand unifying principle, have a

philosophy.

3. Before you can win the fight, you’ve got

to be in the fight.

4. 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.

5. 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.”

6. It takes time to rebuild, it’s not an

overnight success. Achieving success
takes time, patience and fortitude.

7. 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.

8. 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.”

9. 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.”

10. 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.”

11. 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.”

12. Respect the past but don’t cling to it.

13. Give credit where credit is due.

14. 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.”

15. 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.

16. 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.”

17. “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.”

18. 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.”

19. 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.”

20. 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.

21. Sweat the right small stuff.

22. Beat em’ to the punch! Hurt your

opponents before they hurt you. Strike
first.

23. 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.”

24. 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.”

25. “you don’t need to shout, stomp, or

strut to be a great leader — just do the
job and treat people right.”

26. Blend honesty and “diplomacy.”

27. 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.”

28. Be careful with flattery, don’t get it into

your head and make you lose focus.

29. 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.”

30. 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.”

31. 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.”

32. Be crystal clear with direct

communication that is clear, specific,
and comprehensive without an ounce
of ambiguity. Don’t beat around the
bush.

33. 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.”

34. Leadership needs poise under

pressure.

35. 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.

36. Money talks. Treating people right talks

louder.

37. 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.

38. 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.”

39. 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.”

40. 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.”

41. 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.”

42. If it looks inevitable that you’re going to

lose. At least lose with dignity.

43. Use the four most powerful words: I

believe in you.

44. “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.”

45. 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.”

46. “The most effective survival tools a

leader can possess: expertise,
composure, patience, and common
sense.”

47. 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.”

48. 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.”

49. “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.”

50. 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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