Bill Walsh Quotes

Confidence gets you off to a fast start. Confidence gets you that first job and maybe the next two promotions. But confidence stops you from learning. Confidence becomes a caricature after a while. I can't tell you how many confident blowhards I've seen in my coaching career who never get better after the age of forty." -- Bill Walsh

Like water, many decent individuals will seek lower ground if left to their own inclinations. In most cases you are the one who inspires and demands they go upward rather than settle for the comfort of doing what comes easily.

A good leader is always learning. The great leaders start learning young and continue until their last breath.

Someone will declare, “I am the leader!” and expect everyone to get in line and follow him or her to the gates of heaven or hell. My experience is that it doesn’t happen that way. Unless you’re a guard on a chain gang, others follow you based on the quality of your actions rather than the magnitude of your declarations.

For me the starting point for everything - before strategy, tactics, theories, managing, organizing, philosophy, methodology, talent, or experience - is work ethic.

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?” Virgil

Do expect defeat. It’s a given when the stakes are high

His leadership example of doing your job, treating others with respect, expecting people to do their jobs, and holding them accountable is a formula for success that will work in any good organization.

Champions behave like champions before they’re champions; they have a winning standard of performance before they are winners.

Not to get too clever, but “consistent effort is a consistent challenge.

Bill Walsh says, “Almost always, your road to victory goes through a place called ‘failure.

Bill Walsh diz: “Quase sempre, sua estrada para a vitória passa por um lugar chamado ‘fracasso’.

MY FIVE DOS FOR GETTING BACK INTO THE GAME: 1. Do expect defeat. It’s a given when the stakes are high and the competition is working ferociously to beat you. If you’re surprised when it happens, you’re dreaming; dreamers don’t last long. 2. Do force yourself to stop looking backward and dwelling on the professional “train wreck” you have just been in. It’s mental quicksand. 3. Do allow yourself appropriate recovery—grieving—time. You’ve been knocked senseless; give yourself a little time to recuperate. A keyword here is “little.” Don’t let it drag on. 4. Do tell yourself, “I am going to stand and fight again,” with the knowledge that often when things are at their worst you’re closer than you can imagine to success. Our Super Bowl victory arrived less than sixteen months after my “train wreck” in Miami. 5. Do begin planning for your next serious encounter. The smallest steps—plans—move you forward on the road to recovery. Focus on the fix. MY FIVE DON’TS: 1. Don’t ask, “Why me?” 2. Don’t expect sympathy. 3. Don’t bellyache. 4. Don’t keep accepting condolences. 5. Don’t blame others.

The goal in any sport is to finish with the best score, but it would be ridiculous to spend the whole game staring at the scoreboard. The only way to actually win is to get better each day. In the words of three-time Super Bowl winner Bill Walsh, “The score takes care of itself.” The same is true for other areas of life. If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.

In the words of three-time Super Bowl winner Bill Walsh, “The score takes care of itself.” The same is true for other areas of life. If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.

When, as the football coach Bill Walsh explained, "self-confidence becomes arrogance, assertiveness becomes obstinacy, and self-assurance becomes reckless abandon." This is the ego, as the writer Cyril Connolly warned, that "sucks us down like the law of gravity.

Change before you have to.—Jack Welch Wisdom is the reward for a lifetime of listening when you would have preferred to talk.—Doug Larson Communication creates collaboration. Big ears are better than big egos. When you’re not listening, ask good questions.—Bill Walsh The

isso é o ego. É o senso de superioridade e de certeza que ultrapassa os limites da autoconfiança e do talento. É quando a noção de nós mesmos e do mundo se torna tão inflada que começa a distorcer a realidade que nos cerca. Como explicou o técnico de futebol Bill Walsh, ocorre quando “a autoconfiança se transforma em

often you crash and burn.

Leadership, at its best, is exactly that: teaching skills, attitudes, and goals (yes, goals are both defined and taught)

passion, expertise, communication, and persistence are the four essentials of good teaching and learning,

It’s when the notion of ourselves and the world grows so inflated that it begins to distort the reality that surrounds us. When, as the football coach Bill Walsh explained, “self-confidence becomes arrogance, assertiveness becomes obstinacy, and self-assurance becomes reckless abandon.” This is the ego, as the writer Cyril Connolly warned, that “sucks us down like the law of gravity.

And, of course, between the ups and downs, the good times and bad, there are ongoing challenges to keep everyone firing on all cylinders at all times. Not to get too clever, but “consistent effort is a consistent challenge.” There

Your competitor must never look at you across the field, conference table, or anywhere else and conclude, “I not only beat you, I broke your spirit.” The dance of the doomed tells them they’ve broken your spirit. That message can hurt you the next time around. And

Frank,” I said when I reached him late that afternoon, “do you remember in 1978 when you told me that Bill Walsh was the most impressive young coach you’d ever met?” “Did I?” he replied modestly. “And then you told me how impressed you were with that young attorney general in Arkansas, a guy named Bill Clinton?” “Well, I remember thinking highly of him,” he responded, still trying to play it down. “Yes, you did,” I reminded him. “So Frank, now that Walsh is headed to the Hall of Fame, and Clinton is headed to the White House, I’m calling you for only one reason. “Who do you like in the fifth tomorrow at Santa Anita?

Even when you have an organization brimming with talent, victory is not always under your control. There is no guarantee, no ultimate formula for success. It all comes down to intelligently and relentlessly seeking solutions that will increase your chance of prevailing. When you do that, the score will take care of itself.

constant marking down of her performance is wildly at odds with the reality of the minority government. Despite the government’s wafer-thin margin, the parliament is remarkably stable; but it’s depicted as though we are living through the last days of Rome. Gillard is implementing reforms and the parliament has passed a record amount of legislation—around 180 bills to date—but the press talks endlessly of a government close to collapse. Australia is economically robust compared to faltering international economies, but you’d be forgiven for thinking the Australian economy is on the point of disintegration. The media’s primary focus is on personalities and politics, not policies or the running of the country.

happens everywhere all the time. Have you noticed, however, that great players and great companies don’t suddenly start hunching up, grimacing, and trying to “hit the ball harder” at a critical point? Rather, they’re in a mode, a zone in which they’re performing and depending on their “game,” which they’ve mastered over many months and years of intelligently directed hard work.

My Standard of Performance—the values and beliefs within it—guided everything I did in my work at San Francisco and are defined as follows: Exhibit a ferocious and intelligently applied work ethic directed at continual improvement; demonstrate respect for each person in the organization and the work he or she does; be deeply committed to learning and teaching, which means increasing my own expertise; be fair; demonstrate character; honor the direct connection between details and improvement, and relentlessly seek the latter; show self-control, especially where it counts most—under pressure; demonstrate and prize loyalty; use positive language and have a positive attitude; take pride in my effort as an entity separate from the result of that effort; be willing to go the extra distance for the organization; deal appropriately with victory and defeat, adulation and humiliation (don’t get crazy with victory nor dysfunctional with loss); promote internal communication that is both open and substantive (especially under stress); seek poise in myself and those I lead; put the team’s welfare and priorities ahead of my own; maintain an ongoing level of concentration and focus that is abnormally high; and make sacrifice and commitment the organization’s trademark.

After the bill had been pulled that Friday, Katie Walsh, feeling both angry and disgusted, told Kushner she wanted out. Outlining what she saw as the grim debacle of the Trump White House, she spoke with harsh candor about bitter rivalries joined to vast incompetence and an uncertain mission.

Accuracy, accuracy, precision in execution of everything at all levels. No sloppiness. Game-level focus was the price of admission. Obviously,

When things are going best is when you have the opportunity to be the strongest, most demanding, and most effective in your leadership.

A leader must be able to identify these types of situations and not shy away from removing malcontents from the organization. It takes true character to stay with an organization when things seem to be at their bleakest. It

Communication creates collaboration. Big ears are better than big egos. When you’re not listening, ask good questions.

Sometimes you can't have the last word.

enabling us to establish a near-permanent “base camp” near the summit, consistently close to the top, within striking distance, never falling to the bottom of the mountain and having to start all over again. Initially, it meant I had to drastically change the environment, raise the level of talent, and teach everyone what they needed to know to get to where I wanted us to go.

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.

The goal in any sport is to finish with the best score, but it would be ridiculous to spend the whole game staring at the scoreboard. The only way to actually win is to get better each day. In the words of three-time Super Bowl winner Bill Walsh, "The score takes care of itself.'' The same is true for other areas of life. If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead. What do I mean by this? Are goals completely useless? Of course not. Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress. A handful of problems arise when you spend too much time thinking about your goals and not enough time designing your systems.

Champion of the Sioux. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1932; Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1957. Wallis, Michael. The Real Wild West: The 101 Ranch and the Creation of the American West. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. Walsh, Richard J., with Milton Salsbury. The Making of Buffalo Bill. Indianapolis: Bobbs- Merrill, 1928. Ward, Geoffrey C. The West: An

Running a football franchise is not unlike running any other business: You start first with a structural format and basic philosophy and then find the people who can implement it. —BILL WALSH

have put in the category of “I’ll worry about that when the time comes”? Planning for the future shouldn’t be postponed until the future arrives. When

Leaders sometimes wonder why they or their organization fail to achieve success, never seem to reach their potential. It’s often because they don’t understand or can’t instill the concept of what a team is all about at its best: connection and extension. This is a fundamental ingredient of ongoing organizational achievement. (Of course, incompetence as a leader is also a common cause of organizational failure.) Combat soldiers talk about whom they will die for. Who is it? It’s those guys right next to them in the trench, not the fight song, the flag, or some general back at the Pentagon, but those guys who sacrifice and bleed right next to them. “I couldn’t let my buddies down,” is what all soldiers say. Somebody they had never seen before they joined the army or marines has become someone they would die for. That’s the ultimate connection and extension.

The 49ers didn’t have a first-round pick—it had been traded years earlier to the Bills in the O.J. Simpson trade—and Walsh was hoping to take Simms at the top of the second round. But the Giants took Simms seventh overall, and Walsh had to settle for Joe Montana with the last pick in the third round.

He did not view the organization and the individuals within it as two separate entities, but as one and the same: “People are the heart of your organization,” he instructed me. This perspective affected his leadership profoundly.

That, in my opinion, was his primary leadership asset: his ability to teach people how to think and play at a different and much higher, and, at times, perfect level. He accomplished this in three ways: (1) he had a tremendous knowledge of all aspects of the game and a visionary approach to offense; (2) he brought in a great staff and coaches who knew how to coach, how to complement his own teaching of what we needed to know to rise to his standard of performance; and (3) he taught us to hate mistakes.

The motto of the Boy Scouts, “Be Prepared,” became my modus operandi, and to be prepared I had to factor in every contingency: good weather, bad weather, and everything in between. I kept asking and answering this question: “What do I do if . . . ?” It’s the same for you, of course: “What do you do if . . . ?” Most leaders take this no deeper than the first level of inquiry. You must envision the future deeply and in detail—creatively—so that the unforeseeable becomes foreseeable. Then you write your script for the foreseeable.

The second-richest man in America, Warren Buffett, says one of his biggest challenges is to help his top people—all wealthy beyond belief—stay interested enough to jump out of bed in the morning and work with all the enthusiasm they did when they were poor and just getting started.

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’ve figured it out; we’re golden.” But the gold can tarnish quickly. Mastery requires endless remastery. In fact, I don’t believe there is ever true mastery. It is a process, not a destination. That’s what few winners realize and explains 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.

Have there been times when your own ego has turned unhealthy, been pumped up for various reasons into egotism? Have there been instances where you hurt yourself because you got caught up in your self-importance? Be careful. People can sense it, they can see it. When they do, your effectiveness is dramatically reduced. At times it can even be fatal. That’s why it’s worth monitoring in yourself and your staff.

During the ensuing fourteen years, the San Francisco 49ers won five Super Bowls. It happened only because at the moment of deepest despair I had the strength to stand and confront the future instead of wallowing in the past. Many can’t summon the strength; they can’t get up; their fight is over. Victory goes to another, a stronger competitor.

Do force yourself to stop looking backward and dwelling on the professional “train wreck” you have just been in. It’s

In planning for a successful future, the past can show you how to get there. Too often we avert our gaze when that past is unpleasant. We don’t want to go there again, even though it contains the road map to a bright future. How good are you at looking through the evidence from the past—especially the recent past? There’s a certain knack to it, but basically it requires a keen eye for analysis, a commonsense mind for parsing evidence that offers clues to why things went as they did—both good and bad. And, of course, it often requires a strong stomach, because what you’re rummaging through may include not only achievements but the remains of a very painful professional fiasco.

Exhibit a ferocious and intelligently applied work ethic directed at continual improvement;

The competitor who won’t go away, who won’t stay down, has one of the most formidable competitive advantages of all. When the worst happens, as it did to me, I was helped by knowing what it took to be that kind of competitor—to not go away, to get up and fight back.

They were locked into the past and unwittingly locking themselves out of the future. Leaders do this to themselves and their organizations all the time.

Be bold. Remove fear of the unknown—that is, change—from your mind.

Unfortunately, too often we find comfort in what worked before—even when it stops working. We get stuck there and resist the new, the unfamiliar, the unconventional.

When the inevitable setback, loss, failure, or defeat comes crashing down on you—losing a big sale, being passed over for a career-making promotion, even 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. This is how you must think if you want to win. Otherwise you have lost.

A philosophy is the aggregate of your attitudes toward fundamental matters and is derived from a process of consciously thinking about critical issues and developing rational reasons for holding one particular belief or position rather than another.

Success doesn’t care which road you take to get to its doorstep.

This success wasn’t an accident; I had written the script for our success. Informed preplanning—looking perceptively into the future and getting ready for it—gave the Stanford football team a distinct advantage. I took that advantage with me when I was hired by the 49ers.

you must not only have a plan but also prepare for what happens if the plan works or fails or if an unexpected situation suddenly requires a completely different approach. What then? And what happens after that? And after that?

Failure is part of success, an integral part. Everybody gets knocked down. Knowing it will happen and what you must do when it does is the first step back.

The culture precedes positive results. It doesn’t get tacked on as an afterthought on your way to the victory stand. Champions behave like champions before they’re champions; they have a winning standard of performance before they are winners.

Former Chairman of KPMG UK Bill Michael told employees there was “no such thing as unconscious bias.” The idea was “complete and utter crap.” He was later fired for telling pandemic-stressed staff to “stop moaning.”80 I guess it’s easier to point to a disrupted supply-chain or digital process than a disrupted mental state. It’s also easier to self-delude.

Another great coach, Bill Walsh (who oversaw three Super Bowl Championship teams at the San Francisco 49ers), emphasized the importance of personal and positive encouragement. Walsh would shake hands and say a positive personal word of encouragement to every player just before each game. He also asked his assistant coaches to acknowledge each player, shake his hand, and offer supportive thoughts.

The ability to help the people around me self-actualize their goals underlines the single aspect of my abilities and the label that I value most—teacher. —BILL WALSH

Concentrate on what will produce results rather than on the results, the process rather than the prize.

Because I tell myself to try harder and harder, to hit the ball better and better. I become a victim of myself and go into a kind of stupor because I’m trying so hard without really knowing what the heck I’m trying to do.

Constructive criticism is a powerful instrument essential for improving performance. Positive support can be equally productive. Used together by a skilled leader they become the key to maximum results.

When it comes to telling people what you expect from them, don’t be subtle, don’t be coy, don’t be vague. What is your version of, “Gentlemen, this is a football”?

the skill of being a great listener—is the first law of good communication. (The second law is “When you’re not listening, ask good questions.”)

Communication is complex. It’s not just the King’s English. Body language, gender connection, age connection, role connection, affluence and wealth connection, receiving or taking directions, and the state of mind of one person or another are all elements in communicating with someone. It’s not just being able to talk back and forth. It’s recognizing when to say it, how to say it, when to listen, whom you’re talking with, how they feel, what you’re trying to get down to, how important the circumstance is, what the necessity is timewise, and how rapidly the decision must be made.

Listen 2. Learn 3. Lead

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.

Planning for the future shouldn’t be postponed until the future arrives.

By nature he was an innovator who wasn’t afraid of change.

Be more concerned with finding the right way than in having it your way.

March 28th COWARDICE AS A DESIGN PROBLEM “Life without a design is erratic. As soon as one is in place, principles become necessary. I think you’ll concede that nothing is more shameful than uncertain and wavering conduct, and beating a cowardly retreat. This will happen in all our affairs unless we remove the faults that seize and detain our spirits, preventing them from pushing forward and making an all-out effort.” —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 95.46 The opposing team comes out strong, establishes an early lead, and you never had time to recover. You walk into a business meeting, are caught off guard, and the whole thing goes poorly. A delicate conversation escalates into a shouting match. You switched majors halfway through college and had to start your coursework over and graduate late. Sound familiar? It’s the chaos that ensues from not having a plan. Not because plans are perfect, but because people without plans—like a line of infantrymen without a strong leader—are much more likely to get overwhelmed and fall apart. The Super Bowl–winning coach Bill Walsh used to avoid this risk by scripting the beginning of his games. “If you want to sleep at night before the game,” he said in a lecture on game planning, “have your first 25 plays established in your own mind the night before that. You can walk into the stadium and you can start the game without that stress factor.” You’ll also be able to ignore a couple of early points or a surprise from your opponent. It’s irrelevant to you—you already have your marching orders. Don’t try to make it up on the fly. Have a plan.

consistent effort is a consistent challenge.

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.

Before you can win the fight, you’ve got to be in the fight.

Exhibit a ferocious and intelligently applied work ethic directed at continual improvement; demonstrate respect for each person in the organization and the work he or she does; be deeply committed to learning and teaching, which means increasing my own expertise; be fair; demonstrate character; honor the direct connection between details and improvement, and relentlessly seek the latter; show self-control, especially where it counts most—under pressure; demonstrate and prize loyalty; use positive language and have a positive attitude; take pride in my effort as an entity separate from the result of that effort; be willing to go the extra distance for the organization; deal appropriately with victory and defeat, adulation and humiliation (don’t get crazy with victory nor dysfunctional with loss); promote internal communication that is both open and substantive (especially under stress); seek poise in myself and those I lead; put the team’s welfare and priorities ahead of my own; maintain an ongoing level of concentration and focus that is abnormally high; and make sacrifice and commitment the organization’s trademark.

What John Ayers was doing seemed routine. But to the few who knew, and watched, it was a thing of beauty. The ball is snapped and John Ayers sees Taylor coming, and slides quickly back one step and to his left. And as he slides, he steps to meet his future. He’s stepping into 1985, when the turf will be fast and he won’t be able to deal with Lawrence Taylor…. Another quick step, back and left, and it’s 1986, and he’s injured and on the sidelines when the Giants send Joe Montana to the hospital and the 49ers home on the way to their own Super Bowl victory…. A third quick step and he crouches like one power forward denying another access to the hoop. But now it’s 1987 and Coach Bill Walsh is advising John Ayers to retire. Ayers ignores the advice and then learns that Walsh won’t invite him back to training camp…. He takes his final quick step back and left and times his blow, to stop dead in his tracks the most terrifying force ever launched at an NFL quarterback. “I don’t think I’ve ever played against a football player who had more drive and intensity to get to the quarterback,” John Ayers will say, after it’s all over, and he’s been given the game ball by his teammates. “It was almost like he was possessed.”…But now it’s 1995, and John Ayers has just died of cancer, at forty-two, and left behind a wife and two children. Joe Montana charters a plane to fly a dozen teammates to Amarillo, Texas, to serve as pall-bearers. At the funeral of John Ayers the letter of tribute from Bill Walsh is read aloud.

Being really good wasn’t good enough. He taught us to want to be perfect and instilled in the team a hunger for improvement, a drive to get better and better.

The score takes care of itself" - Super Bowl winner Bill Walsh

And that’s what it all comes down to, namely, intelligently and relentlessly seeking solutions that will increase your chance of prevailing in a competitive environment. When you do that, the score will take care of itself.

Of course, if this were some crappy novel, it’d be a bunch of albino Vatican hit men trying to cover up the fact that Jesus’s descendants are a family of Lithuanian shoe salesmen in Perth Amboy and the papacy is run by aliens.

What Bill Walsh did is easy to describe: (1) He could identify problems that needed to be solved; and (2) He could solve them.

Leaders are paid to make a decision. The difference between offering an opinion and making a decision is the difference between working for the leader and being the leader.

Conventional wisdom often produces conventional results

Bill Walsh was not afraid of talent. He hired assistant coaches who were extremely good, and he did it with the expectation that they would move on—up to head coaching positions. And in fact, about fifteen of them did. He didn’t feel that you sold your soul to the company store. While you were a 49er, you were expected to give it your all, but Bill was very enlightened in the way he supported the lives and careers of employees beyond just what they could do for his team.

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. If you’re perceived as a negative person—always picking, pulling, criticizing—you will simply get tuned out by those around you. Your influence, ability to teach, and opportunity to make progress will be diminished and eventually lost. When that happens, you become useless, a hindrance to progress. When your feedback is interpreted as a personal attack rather than a critique with positive intentions, you are going backward. Constructive criticism is a powerful instrument essential for improving performance. Positive support can be equally productive. Used together by a skilled leader they become the key to maximum results. Most of us seem to be more inclined to offer the negative. I don’t know why, but it’s easier to criticize than to compliment. Find the right mixture for optimum results.