The Score Takes Care of Itself Read Free Page B

people simply go through the motions at their jobs, just putting in time—existing—with a “business as usual” attitude. Not if you’re on his team.
    The meticulous manner in which he detailed specific actions and attitudes of his Standard of Performance as applied to secretaries and receptionists was true throughout the organization but in increasingly exponential quantities.
    Bill Walsh was cautious in part because he was savvy. One day I started asking him about the leadership characteristics of other outstanding coaches—first Tom Landry, then Mike Holmgren, next Jimmy Johnson. Initially, he was open and insightful (as you’ll read later). But then, suddenly, he decided this was a subject he did not like, namely, talking about his peers—that I was taking him down a path that could cause problems for him. And that was the end of that discussion. The atmosphere in his small office chilled: “I’ve got to make some calls,” he said brusquely as he broke off his description of Bill Parcells and picked up the phone. And without his saying so, I knew he had dismissed me for the day. (I noticed as I was leaving that he put the phone down, never made a call.)
    Bill had sensed, incorrectly, that I was looking for some dirt or critical comments on other coaches. He was a very careful man.
    Bill Walsh was an educator—a teacher. He accumulated great knowledge because he was a Grade A student of leadership, paying close attention along the way to some of football’s most outstanding and forward-thinking coaches, most of all Paul Brown (of the Cincinnati Bengals). Bill absorbed their good ideas, learned from their bad ones, applied his own even more advanced concepts, and then reveled in the process of teaching what he knew to his teams. I came to believe that the part of football he enjoyed best was teaching, or more accurately, identifying outstanding talent and teaching that player, assistant coach, or staff member how to be great. He loved it.
    Bill Walsh was without pretense, almost soft-spoken. While his comportment was never chummy—there was a reserve to his manner—he was easy to talk to and be with unless I hit a nerve. For all the attention and glory that had been heaped on him during and especially after the dynasty years, he was normal—coffee-and-doughnuts normal; although not laid-back or casual, he was unaffected. You’d think you were talking to a very successful and focused midlevel corporate executive unless you noticed the picture on the wall of Bill standing next to Joe Montana holding a Super Bowl trophy, or the picture on the other wall of Bill standing next to Joe Montana holding a different Super Bowl trophy.
    All of the above became apparent to me as we proceeded to write this book revealing Bill’s leadership philosophy. Along the way, I secured a generous offer from a publisher eager to share the “wisdom of Walsh”—when it came to building a top team in business or elsewhere. And then, boom! Just as simply and suddenly as it had begun, it stopped. No book.
    Bill—retired from the NFL for ten years—had accepted an offer to return in an executive capacity to the San Francisco 49ers. On the same day that I received a lengthy contract from a publisher, he called with the news that he was going back to the NFL. I knew what that meant, because in our earliest conversations he had laid out only one stipulation: “If I go back to the NFL, I don’t want this book coming out. I don’t need the headache.” It was a handshake deal. And so, no book.
    As writers do, I put my writing and notes and tapes and collected articles and interviews and research material into boxes, put the boxes into storage, and then forgot about it—or tried to. It was great stuff on leadership that Bill had shared in our conversations, and it seemed a shame to pack it up and move on. But that’s what happened.
    Bill lent a hand to resuscitating the moribund 49ers for several years (his towering San Francisco