Full review and highlights at https://books.max-nova.com/score-takes-care

"The Score Takes Care of Itself" exists at the intersection of the two worst genres in all of literature: business and sports. And yet, Bill Walsh's story of how he took the San Francisco 49'ers from being one of the worst teams in the league to three Superbowls in a few short years manages to transcend the typical drivel and self-glorification of these sorts of books. Walsh's perspective is thoughtful and self-aware and he actually changed my mind on a few things about management. I particularly liked his concept of a "Standard of Performance" - as he notes, "People are most comfortable with how they are being treated when their duties are laid out in specific detail and their performance can be gauged by specific metrics. The key is to document — clarify — those expectations." This may sound like a fancy way of describing a normal, boring job description, but if you read his Standard of Performance for the 49'ers, you'll see that it is far more focused on attitude and mindset (emphasis mine):

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.

Walsh brought an unusually academic and analytical perspective to football, an approach that made him an outsider for much of his early career. With his constant emphasis on teaching, he was a natural fit as Stanford's football coach before his ascension to the NFL. He also did away with a lot of the macho ******** that still characterizes many football programs (including the middle school team I played for growing up in Kentucky!), forbidding "the traditional hazing of rookies" and demanding that all "demonstrate respect for each person in the organization and the work he or she does." But Walsh was also uncompromising in his insistence on continual improvement and tracking of results. In a way, he reminded me of David Allen (of "Getting Things Done" notoriety) - as the author notes, "Bill Walsh loved lists, viewed them as a road map to results."

I've read a lot of business books and 90% of them are completely useless (see Sturgeon's Law). This is one of the good ones.

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