Teamwork Tuesdays: Bill Walsh — The Score Takes Care of Itself

Bill Walsh, legendary coach of the San Francisco 49ers, believed you don’t create success by chasing the scoreboard. You create success by focusing on the things you can control. He called this the Standard of Performance.

Walsh understood that culture and teamwork are built through the small things: how you prepare, how you communicate, how you treat people, how you respond to mistakes, and how consistently you do your job. When everyone commits to the standard, the team becomes stronger.

That is what makes this powerful for any organization: the score is a result, not the process.

You can’t control the final score. You can control whether you were prepared. You can control your effort. You can control your attitude. You can control how you support your teammates. You can control whether you hold yourself and others accountable.

Great teams don’t constantly ask, “Are we winning?” They ask, “Are we doing things the right way?”

When everyone focuses on the standard instead of the scoreboard, something interesting happens: the score takes care of itself.

How can I use this?

Define what “great” looks like for your team. Then focus on consistently doing those things—especially when nobody is watching. Culture is built when the standard becomes the way you do things.