YouSaid · the spoken record

Bill Walsh

lines on the record: 51
first: 2020-01-12
most recent: 2020-01-12
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I work time to death until it killed me. So he's telling us to avoid this. This is his main takeaway here, though. This is Bill talking now. Can you imagine how burned out you must have to be to wait 14 years to return to doing something you love? I don't have to imagine it. I never returned to the NFL as a head coach in spite of offers where I was given a blank contract and told to fill it in with whatever I wanted and then sign it.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And finally, the last piece of advice from Bill Walsh that I want to cover today. And it's something that happened to him. There's a lot of heart-wrenching things in this book. And the advice is two words. Avoid burnout. And he can say that because he burned out. He retired the day right after he won the Super Bowl. He just couldn't take anymore. He says, and he gives an example in history of people this also happening to him or to other people. He says, he's giving an example of another coach. He says, not long after he was finished, burnt out as he described it to reporters at a very emotional press conference when he announced he was quitting. Dick retired for 14 years before returning in triumph by leading the St. Louis Rams to victory in Super Bowl 34. Later, he told the story of having a sign on the wall, this is his previous job, when he was the Eagles head coach. It said The best way to kill time is to work it to death. He told people”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He bought three of those tickets. Anyways, he says, pick a seat day, and there's a lesson here. Pick a seat day was a total flop. What is a flop that taught me something very important? A pretty package can't sell a poor product. Results in my profession were winning football games, and that was the ultimate promotional tool. I was trying to sell a bad product, a team that was the worst franchise in the sports, that had lost 27 straight road games and whose record at home wasn't much better. So he's like, this doesn't matter. Like, I can't put lipstick on a pig here. So he says, from that point on, I focus my energies exclusively on creating a quality product, a team that was worth spending money to see. When that was achieved, we also achieved a ten year waiting list to buy forty nineers season tickets.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's like it's one of those things I have a hard time explaining because it seems so obvious. And for Bill, I'm glad he combined all the lessons that he learned from trying to master his profession for five decades or whatever it was. Think about it. It took him. He wanted to be a head coach in the NFL. Took him 25 years just to get to that point. Then he's got all, so he's got a ton of life experiences lessons up until that point. And then he's got another, what is that, 10? I forgot how long he coached for. But, you know, let's say another decade plus after that continuing learning. And then somebody put it down in a book that you can pick up and read and, you know, 10 hours, 15 hours. But that just seems like a good idea. You got another idea pretty package. We'll not sell a crappy product before they started winning games. He came up with all these marketing techniques to try to sell season tickets. And one was a pick a seat day. They went up selling like 10 tickets the entire day. It was terrible.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's just like, why wouldn't you? You're spending half of your life, your conscious life, seeing you sleep eight hours a day, you're up for 16, you're going to work eight of those, right? Some people work more, some people work less. That's probably average. Who knows? But that means half the time that you're actually experiencing life and not in some dreamlike state, you're working. Why would you not want to master it?”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a reverence for the art. For me, it can be described as a reverence for football, as it could be played, and he describes the highest form of football. He's like, it's an exquisite beauty of what can occur at its uppermost level. I think top performers in all professions have the same deep respect, even reverence for their work. I can see, I go back to this over and over again. It's very obvious for me why a lot of founders and other people that want to master their profession keep recommending this book is because essentially that's what he's trying to help us do. Because he mastered his profession. Everybody works, right? To some degree. How many of us actually want to master our profession? It's a small group. It's a group of misfits, you know? But these are the most interesting people in the world. These are the people that are most widely admired.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We all do, you do, I do. Everybody who's a serious player knows what it takes. The difference is how much you're willing to give to get there. For us there is no mystery to mastery. It applies to anyone anywhere who wants to get really good, who wants to master It applies to you. Okay, so one thing, one pattern I see a lot when reading all these books is a lot of founders, they actually learn from seeing things done the wrong way. They're very fast and beneficial way to learn. Bill's no difference. He says, I hate to see bad football. I hate to see a team play bad football even for a single play. Bad football makes me ill in the same way a symphony conductor hates to hear an orchestra mangled bach or Beethoven.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Says Joe Montana, which also he coached, and he says maybe one of the best quarterbacks of all time, did this as well. He says, Jerry and Joe may be the best ever at their positions at the last stages of their careers were still working very hard on the fundamental things that high school kids won't do because it's too damn dull. It wasn't dull to Jerry and Joe because they the why, the why. We go this over and over again. People have to understand why they're doing. It wasn't dole to Jerry and Joe because they understood the absolute and direct connection between intelligently directed hard work and achieving your potential.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He's going to get to the point. Jerry Rice understands the connection between preparation and performance, between intelligently applied hard work and results, between mediocrity and mastery of your job. And Jerry had the skill coupled with the will to do it. You never stop learning. So again, this whole section is about why do people feel there's a big mystery to mastery where Bill's telling us there is no mystery. You never stop learning, perfecting, refining, molding your skills. You never stop depending on the fundamentals. Sustaining, maintaining, and improving.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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. In evaluating people, I prize ego. It often translates into a fierce desire to do their best and an inner confidence that stands them in good steed when things get really tough. Psychologists suggest that there is a strong link between ego and competitiveness. All this is a hell of a statement he's about to tell us right here. All the great performers have ever coach had ego to spare. All right, so essentially what I took from this section is you need a belief in yourself. Just don't believe that you're perfect, that there is a, I think arrogance, a lot of people confuse confidence with arrogance. To me, arrogance is when you think you can stop learning from other people. All right”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Don't let anybody tell you that a big ego is a bad thing. Tiger Woods, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett have lots of ego. And so does anyone anywhere who is dedicated to taking his or her talent as far as it will go? I've got a big ego too. Here's what a big ego is pride, self confidence, self esteem, self assurance. Ego is a powerful and productive engine. This is a very important part. Without a healthy ego, you've got a big problem. Egotism is something else entirely. And they're next-door neighbors. You got to be very careful about this. Egotism is an ego that's been inflated like a hot air balloon. Arrogance that results from your own perceived skill, power, position. You've become increasingly self-important, self-centered, and selfish.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And explain to some degree why repeating is so difficult. Having triumphed, winners come to believe that the process of mastery is concluded, and that they are its proud new owners. The case. Now he's going to get into the part, the difference between ego and egotism.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so understand that this is prevalent in human nature throughout millennia. So we need a solution for it. Bill's solution is like my standard performance. I apply that standard every day regardless of external outcomes. So I won the Super Bowl. Okay, the next day I'm back at practice. I lost the game. Next day I'm back at practice. Because over time, over the length of your career, multi-decades, the score will take care of itself. All right, so he says, when you reach a large goal or finally get to the top, the distractions and new assumptions can be dizzying. First comes heightened confidence, followed quickly by overconfidence. Arrogance and a sense that we've mastered it. We figured it out. We're golden. But that gold can tarnish quickly. Mastery requires endless remastery. In fact, I don't even believe there's ever true mastery. It's a process, not a destination that goes back to what Jack Dorsey was telling us at the beginning. That's what few winners realize.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The hard work and implied intelligence you would utilize initially are not as crucial as they once were. That is when you get lazy. So he calls this success disease. And his point is he fell for a little bit. But what helped him avoid it was his standard of performance. Think about it as like an operating system. It's a series of habits that you just apply every day regardless of the outcome. Because what happens is like there's a lot of people that will be really successful and they're like, okay, I'm going to slow back. I'm going to let my foot off the gas, so to speak. I'm just going to, you know, I'm fine now. I'm a winner already. I'm good. One of my favorite sayings comes from Conor Gray.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Kind of echoing that here. He says that character isn't you, but it's an addictive attraction if plaques, awards, and commendations start rolling in. Believing your own press clippings, good or bad, is self-defeating. You are allowing others, oftentimes uninformed others, to tell you who you are. The real damage occurs when you start to believe that future success will come your way automatically because of the great ability of this character that you have suddenly become.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Buying into what people say about you can create both external and internal problems. This makes your life and your job a lot tougher than they already are. The genius label was an albatross around my neck. It's easy to get caught up in or enamored by lofty titles, praise, and flattery as you subconsciously attempt to become the character others have created out of who you are. This goes back to Andrew Carnegie's advice for. He's one of his famous quotes is like the judge within reigned supreme or something like that. Essentially, he's telling us the most important person to judge who you are is yourself. You know who you are. Like internally, like, are you proud of the person you have become? Don't let other, like the views of other people, color that or influence that so much and build.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now, we already passed the part where he becomes extremely successful. He wins a lot of games. He obviously wins a lot of Super Bowls. And now he's getting to the point where when you're already good at something, you get like a lot of accolades and people are telling you how smart you are. He's like, don't let that happen. Don't let anybody call you a genius. And that's when you research Bill Walsh, you'll see a lot of people calling him a genius. And so he says, in part because of the complexities of our pass-based offense, the media began referring to me as the genius. And then he's going to, you know, he's human. At the beginning, he's like, oh, that makes me feel good about myself. When the name was first attached to me, I was naive enough to be flattered and did nothing to discourage writers from using it. I may have even been thinking, hey, maybe there's something to it. I learned soon enough that an inflated label like genius or any other form of hyperbole comes with a big downside.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So he talks about coaches would use us saying like, oh, we're going to play X team and they're really vicious, et cetera. He's like, well, I generally prefer the opposite approach. To me, the opposite, they, meaning the other teams, were objects that were both faceless and nameless. Nameless, faceless objects. My logic was that I wanted our focus directed at one thing only. Going about our business in an intensely efficient and professional manner, first on the practice field and then later on the playing field. I felt that moving attention away from that goal to create artificial and manufactured demons was artificial and usually nonproductive, especially when done repeatedly.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For the players, a way of reducing the amount of time players spent in the lunchline. He took time out of his schedule to personally draw up a schematic for those players wanting soup with their meals. One line was designated for those wanting crackers with their soup, and one line was for players who didn't want any crackers. This is an example of sweating the wrong small stuff. I love this idea. We've seen it in different variations. His idea is like, listen, most companies, most football teams, most organizations, they focus on their competitors. I don't care about my competitors. Instead, I'm going to spend that time making myself and my organization better. And therefore, I'm going to make it harder for them to compete against me.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From a course you believe in your heart and know in your head is correct Another great story He's really big on details. He's like, listen, you need to sweat the little details, but you need to sweat the right little details. So he's going to give us an example of the same person applying the perfect execution of that idea, and then that same person not getting, like doing the exact opposite. I says, Coach George Allen was a demon on details. He was preparing to play in the Super Bowl at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. A few days before the game, he sent a staff member out to the Coliseum for an entire afternoon to chart the movement of the sun during the hours when the game would be played. George wanted to know exactly where the sun would be so he could calculate the advantage if his team won the coin toss. This is an example of sweating the right small stuff. Now here's an example focusing on the wrong small details. George took time off from his coaching responsibilities to design a more efficient system of serving food”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, I love that section. All right, now he has something he says over and over again. You need to be unswerving in moving towards your goal. He says this a bunch of times in the book. It's also a trait that he admires in others. And he mentions other coaches that have this trait. And he saw that trait in other people. He's like, I want that for myself. So he developed that talent. He says, we are unswerving in moving towards our goal. We will not quit. There's an inner compulsion and an obsession to get it done the way you want it done. It's good to remind yourself that this quality, strength of will, is essential to your survival and success. Talked about earlier how to manage your mental state when you're having setbacks. In this case, he's talking about your physical state. You need to keep moving, acting, working. Often you're urged to go along and get along. You're advised that your plan should have worked by now. Are told other variations that amount to backing away from your...”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With by, let's say, 10 yards of depth, you have a giant field like you can utilize. And then he says, so the width of the availability of five potential receivers were all available assets even before desperation drove me to utilize them creatively.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Here's a good question to write on a post-it note and put on your desk. What assets do we have right now that we're not taking advantage of? He's talking directly to us. That's important. Let me say that again. Write out this question and then ask yourself, what assets do I have right now that I'm not taking advantage of? So, this is an example of what he was working with. His quarterback's name was Virgil Carter. I was working with Virgil Carter's limited skills. He was a quarterback who couldn't throw a long pass accurately. Then, oh, so another thing was he analyzed how everybody else bunched their players. He's like, most people don't realize, most fans don't realize that a football field, the length is 53.5 yards of width. That's a huge space.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First step back. Okay, so now his takeaway himself out of that. And then these takeaways, listen, each time this happens, each time you come back from doubt or despair, you get stronger for the inevitable future reoccurrence. So he says, when you stand and overcome a significant setback, you'll find an increasing inner confidence and self-assurance that has been created by conquering defeat, almost I would say that has been earned by conquering defeat. Absorbing and overcoming this kind of punishment engenders a sober, steely toughness that results in a hardened sense of independence and a personal belief that you can take on anything, survive, and win.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So that's his advice to get out of the inevitable dark period you're going to have in your life, you're focusing too much on your current state and your past, right? So he's saying, no, the key here is to focus on your next task to just keep moving forward. I was able to summon enough strength to pull my focus, my thinking out of the past and move it forward to our next big problem. It takes strength to shift your attention off pain when you feel as though your soul has been stripped bare. When the inevitable setback, loss, failure, or defeat comes crashing down on you, losing a big sail, being passed over for a career, for a career promotion, getting fired, allow yourself the grieving time, but then recognize that the road to recovery and victory lies in having the strength to get up off the mat and start planning your next move. An integral part. Everybody goes through it. Knowing what happened and what you must do when it does is”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, our equivalent, you didn't have what it takes to be an entrepreneur, founder, whatever it is. At one point, I actually decided to hand in my resignation the next morning. Then I changed my mind. So there's that roller coaster, right? I've tried to describe my anguish, but the words come up short. Everything I dreamed of professionally for a quarter of a century was in jeopardy just eighteen months after it was realized. And yet there was something else going on inside of me, a voice from down deep than in my emotions, something stirring that I had learned over many years in football, and before that growing up, namely I must stand and fight again. I need to stand and fight or it's all over. In my mind, our gut, and in spite of the pain, I knew I had to force myself to somehow start looking ahead, to overcome my grief.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Place called failure. Okay, now what he's going to describe is this next session I'm going to read to you just happens for a few brief hours when they just lost the game in the second season. He goes 6 and 10 if he loses the next game, he's on a terrible losing streak, he has a chance he's going to get fired. So before the organization can reap the benefits of his standard performance, he might be cut out. And this inner monologue about to read to is happening when he's on a cross-country flight back to San Francisco from Florida. And let me just go right into his mental state. He says, I slumped down, depressed in my dark load of space, contemplating whether I should offer my resignation. This is going to be a hard sentence here. Most debilitating of all, devastating was a gnawing fear that I didn't have what it takes to be an NFL head coach.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In your standards, correct first, then you will automatically win. You can't do it in reverse. And I love this. So in the section, he's really good. Obviously, he's a really good teacher. He did it for decades, right? So this is another way to think about the section I just read to you. In a way, an organization is like an automobile assembly line. It must be first class are the cars that come off it will be second rate. The exceptional assembly line comes first before the quality car. So he's saying once you have a great organization, you can't help but make a great product. And in his case, his product, you knew if it was a great product or not because you'd win games if it was.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“your organization. And so now he's gonna get to the point why is this such an important thing? And one of his big ideas is that, listen, winners act like winners before they're winners. He understood the sequence of events. He says eventually within months, in fact, a high level of professionalism began to engage within our entire organization. The forty niners self perception was improving. Individuals began acting and thinking in a way that reflected pride and professionalism, even as we continue to lose games. Winners act like winners before they are winners. Champions behave like champions before their champions. They have a winning standard of performance before they are winners. And this sums up the entire section. The culture precedes positive results. That's his entire thesis. You got to get your culture and your philosophy.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He also talked about this is really interesting too. He didn't believe that there was independent operators. Like some people would say, okay, this is a star player. He's got different rules applied to him. Oh, this person's really valuable. We have to treat them differently. He says every team member is an extension of the entire team. Players had a connection to and were an extension of the coaching staff. This is his whole idea about that any organization is really an organic entity. And so these echoing nature here, like there is no division. Everything's connected. So he says they were an extension of the coaching staff, trainers, team doctors, nutritionists, maintenance crew, and yes, the people who answer the phones. Everybody was connected. Each of us an extension of the other. Each of us with ownership in our organization. I taught this is him talking directly to us again. I taught this just as you should teach it.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For installing a level of proficiency, competency at which our production level would become higher in all areas, both on and off the field than that of our opponents. He's got a really interesting idea about competition I'll get to too, which I love. Beyond that, I had faith that the score would take care of itself. So if we do everything a little right, we can't help but win. I just ran over my next point, which is the note I left myself on the next page. If we can't do, if we can't, if we do that, excuse me, we can't help but win. I directed our focus less to the prize of victory than to the process of improving, obsessing about the quality of our execution and the content of our thinking.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Subject to determination. And his whole point is like, don't haze them, get them up to your standard. If they can't meet your standard, get them out of the organization because your organization is only as strong as the weakest person. All right, now he goes back to his very weird, unique idea. The prime directive was not victory. He never focused on victory. The book is called the score will take care of itself. That's his philosophy and leadership. So he says, from the very start, my prime directive, the fundamental goal was the full and total implementation throughout the organization of actions and attitudes of the standard of performance. This was radical in the sense that winning is the usual prime directive in professional football in most businesses. So again, he has the same trait that almost every single person I've analyzed for this podcast does. They're going to learn as much as they can, but they're going to learn some things like, oh, I'm learning what not to do. This is the same thing that Bill's doing here. He said, I had no grandiose plan or timetable for winning a championship, but rather a comprehensive standard and plan.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or you treat him like crap, like that doesn't make any sense. So this is another idea where you changed. He deviated from the norm. He analyzed what his peers were doing. He's like, nope, no, that's not smart. I'm not doing that. So he says, we respect every member of the organization because they deserve it. If they don't deserve it, they're not part of this organization. So he says, in keeping with this philosophy, I forbade the traditional hazing of rookies and walkons, making them the butt of humiliation or physical punishment. He's like, I'm not going to do that. You're a 49er. He says, when they arrived, I informed them. You are San Francisco 49er. As long as you're here, you will be treated like one. And it was true. They were respected, full-fledged members of organization from day one and were treated as such until they proved otherwise. Now he wasn't a soft person by any means. So I'm going to treat you with respect. If you don't meet my standards, though, he's a dictator. You're out of here. He says, of course, when they proved otherwise, they were not subjected to hazing.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of course. That San Francisco 49er emblem, and the helmet it was affixed to signified that there were members of an organization with pride and high behavioral expectations. So something he talks about a lot in the book is the reason this idea is so powerful is because very few people are held to a high standard. It talks about one, very few people are capable of holding themselves to a high standard and then also very few people work in organizations or are a part of organizations that actually make sure that every single person they may hold certain parts of the organization, certain parts of the company to a high standard, but Bill's like, no, that's not good enough every single one. And then he talks about, so he changed a lot of things. People would come into, they'd be rookies. They'd come in, you know, kind of abused. He also talked about how he didn't like how coaches talk to his players and like he's like, that's if you're trying to tell you about you're part of a leading organization, then you talk to them like they're a dog.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So he says, I'm going to start this. I'm going to have a lesson. He talks about, like, you're going to meet my high standards or you're leaving. But the standards are not going, like once the San Francisco 49 standards, they're not deviating. They're not breaking for anybody. So he says, to encourage, and you're going to see like little tiny ways he does this, which is really smart. To encourage positive thinking, pride, and self-esteem, I insisted that specific equipment carrying the emblem of the San Francisco 49ers be treated with respect. Okay, so if it has our logo, guess what? Now that I'm in charge, San Francisco 49ers, they're an elite organization. So you're not going to abuse things. It's like a flag or an emblem. You're just going to throw it around. He's like, no, you're not going to do that. For example, players were told their practice helmets, which carried our emblem, should never be tossed around. So it's very common. They're done. They just throw it to the side. They should never be tossed around. They're not going to be sat on, and they're not going to be thrown in the bottom of their lockers. So what does he say? He says, you wear it, you hold it, or you put it on a shelf. The same applied to their game helmet.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The next year they go 6 10. Okay, you know what happens the year after that? They win the Super Bowl. So he says, of course, that was part of my challenge. This is the most important part of the section I'm reading to you right now. The most important sentence if you only remember one. Of course, that was part of my challenge turning the self image of the organization on its head from toxic to top notch. Okay, so how do we do that? One way to do this is to teach everyone that you are part of an elite organization. If you start with that belief, eventually if you start teaching that, eventually they will believe it. He also talks about, listen, man, if you're going to teach your organization, you got to repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. Humans are not going to absorb these lessons. You can't say it once and expect everybody to get it. That's just not how it's going to work, especially in an organization with, I don't know, 115, 150 people, however many people are in a professional football organization. All right.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On how to answer our telephones professionally. All of this increasingly demonstrated to others and to ourselves that we are on top of things all things. We were neither sloppy nor inattentive, and contributed to a greatly heightened sense of this is who we are, even though a strong kid, now this is the difference between what he's trying to do at the very beginning and their external results, right? That's why I started the podcast with that metaphor about the scope, the father time and mother nature slowly, like finishing the job because it's a good metaphor. This is going to take a lot of time. So he says, even though a strong case could have been made that who we are wasn't much based on the initial one loss records during my first two seasons. So before he gets there, the team goes two and 14. His first year, they go two and 14.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Their personalities is undoubtedly imbibed into their organization at a very fundamental level. That's why it's such a difference between when a founder leaves or passes away or dies or whatever the case is, that organization changes over time when that person's no longer there. At the very beginning, essentially what he's doing here, this next section I'm about to read to you, think about it like this. He's teaching everyone to make a commitment to be the best versions of themselves. Even now, that's something we've seen a lot. But here's the difference. Even when the current external results may not warrant that belief, he understood the order in which things have to happen, right? So he says, my standard of performance applied to marketing, office personnel, and everyone else with details applicable to their jobs, even to the extent of including specific instructions for reception.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“At its best, an organization, your team bespeaks values and a way of doing things that emanate from a source. And guess what? That source is you, the leader. Thus, the dictates of your personal beliefs should ultimately become characteristics of your team. And we've seen this over and over again with all the founders that we studied. You cannot separate the person from the company that he's built, that he or she is building.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Its various aspects, both mental and physical. So, what he's saying is like, listen, we're going to have a set of values. We're going to have a set of standards. But the values have to come from a source. And they can't just be, they need to initiate action at this point. They should not just be words you repeat that are really just lies. So he compares and contrasts the way he went about this to way other organizations do. And you might have experienced this in some of the organizations that you've been involved with. He says, this is consistent with my conviction that an organization is not just a tool like a shovel, but it's an organic entity that has a code of conduct, a set of applied principles that go beyond a company mission statement that just tacked on the wall and forgotten. We had no mission statement on the wall. My mission statement was implanted into the minds of our people through teaching.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You have for your own life. It's down here. That's not good enough if you're going to stay here. It's coming way to the top. And I'm going to show you how to do that. So he says it would contribute to a new and productive self-image. And an environment and become the foundation upon which we could launch our longer-term goal, namely the resurrection of our football franchise. So he's working backwards. People are like, okay, I took over this football team. I took over this company. I'm going to make it. I'm going to improve it by winning right away. He's like, no, no, I'm going to build a foundation. And that's why the book is called The Score will take care of itself. Because if you do all the little things right, every single one of them, then you don't have to worry about it because whatever your endeavor is will be successful. Now we're getting to his fundamental leadership assertion, okay? He says it began with this fundamental leadership assertion regardless of your specific job, it is vital to our team that you do that job at the highest possible level in all.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Idea he has. To pit it bluntly, I would teach every person in the organization what to do and how to think. The short-term results would contribute both symbolically and functionally to a new and productive self-image. He's going to talk about the importance of your own self-image. And he explains what I've been trying to explain poorly the past, I don't know, several weeks about there's a large section of people out there that have the ability, that have the desire to want to run their own businesses, but what's holding them back is their own self-image. Bill talks about this a lot. And so that's what he's talking about. It's like before you become a winner, you have to believe you have the ability to become a winner. And he goes, so I'm going to systematically convince every single person in my organization that one, that they have the ability to be a winner, and two, that they're part of a world-class elite organization. So what does he say? He's like, this is this thing.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So now he's going to talk about okay. Well, I took over his team. I have no talent. You guys kind of sucked last year. What are we going to do here? So he doesn't start. This is what I think why people recommend this book so much because you think, okay, well, I'm going to start winning games. We went 2-14 last year. The business aspect is like we lost money. Now we're going to turn a profit, whatever the case is. He says, no, no. I'm going to build the culture, but he calls it a standard of performance. And think about a standard of performance as it's high requirements for actions and attitudes. So let's hear what Bill has to say about this. He says, I approach building the 49er organization with an agenda that didn't include a timetable for a championship or even a winning season. Instead, I arrived with an urgent timetable for installing an agenda of specific behavioral norms. This includes both actions and attitudes that apply to every single person on our payroll. This is another unique.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Basic philosophy. So he calls that his standard of performance. Think about it, it's like your own philosophies on how you want to organize your business or the culture your company may have. All right, so now we're going to get into how he ran his team. This is the state of the team when he took over. He was a successful head coach at Stanford, gets recruited to the NFL, and he says, this is what I faced on my first day of work. An organization in turmoil, a team whose roster of talent was paper thin, a future that seemed dismal. In spite of last year's two and fourteen season, I didn't even have a first round draft pick.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He actually dies of leukemia as they were put in the book together. And then he also says something about the stuff he's teaching. And when I was reading this, this is really what I hope founders does for you and your life. He says, this is Bill talking. He says, there's no guarantee and there's no ultimate formula for success. What it comes down to is intelligently and relentlessly seeking solutions that will increase your chance of prevailing. I love that idea. What we're trying to do here, we're intelligently and relentlessly seeking solutions that will increase our chance of prevailing. When you do that, the score will take care of itself. Okay, so now I finally got to the point where I think I can get into the main part of the book. And so I want to start with a quote from Bill Walsh. He says, running a football franchise is not unlike running any other business. You start first with a structural format and a”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And this is a heartbreaking part. I never really got to know my father. He didn't have time. It was all work for dad, or his family wouldn't survive. Over the years, I've heard many theories, often complex or convoluted on what it takes to be an outstanding leader. Most of the theories seem to take a monumental work ethic for granted, as if it is assumed or something, as if people automatically know what it is, and then they just do it.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“At the huge Chrysler plant near our small house in south central Los Angeles. That didn't pay the bills, so he set up a little auto body repair shop in our garage, where he worked after he got done working at the plant, late at night and on weekends. When I was a teenager, I had to work with him on many of those evenings and weekends, long hours into the night helping him out. I hated it, but he taught me the connection between hard work and survival, between survival and success. Dad taught me that. His work ethic became my work ethic. It may have shortened his life, a life that offered little in the way of fun or material reward, and kept him from connecting in any meaningful way with his son.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Talk the section I'm going to read to you here is the loan exception to that. He talks about what he learned from his father. So I wanted to pull that out of the book and start at the beginning as a way to hopefully understand the person Bill Walsh was and then we're going to understand his ideas even better. Okay, so this is his father and what he learned from his early life. He says When I was growing up my role model was a good one. The guy who set the standard for me was my father. Dad knew what it meant to work really hard and he did. He never went past eighth grade. He scrambled around as a young man to make money and came up through tough times, including the Great Depression. He struggled to make a living for his family, but he showed me what a man does when he has a job to do. He goes out and he does it. During the Depression my father was paid thirty one cents an hour to work ten hours or more a day on the assembly line.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was filled with an appreciation that what these players and members of our organization were doing was a work of art, one that had been created over many years, similar in a way to the sculptures in China. It was a thing of beauty, and I believe it's true in your profession. Your effort in the beginning is part of a continuum of effort. Your standard of performance is part of a continuum of standards. Today's effort becomes tomorrow's results. The quality of those efforts becomes the quality of your work. One day is connected to the following day and the following month to the following years. Your own standard or performance becomes who and what you are You and your organization achieve greatness.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Excellence in every single area of our organization had been taught and expected from the day I arrived as head coach. The big plays in business are professional football don't just suddenly occur out of thin air. They result from very hard work and painstaking attention over the years to all of the details related to your leadership. Talent functional intelligence, experience, maturity, effort, dedication and practice may not be perfect, but they will get you so close to perfection that most people will think you achieved it and the results will show it. It takes time to develop the standard of performance. It's not just a seminar or a practice or a season's worth of seminars and practices, but thoughtful and intense. attention over years and years. This is a powerful force to have within you.”
2020-01-12 · Founders · #106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source