“Success if the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence”

Colin Powell

The date was December 16, 1979 the San Francisco 49ers were stepping into the field for the last game of the season; coming out from an impressive win against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the bay area team wanted to close the season in a high note, the 49ers went out there and left it all on the field and when the dust settled they walked away with yet another loss, their 14 loss of the season, unable to stopped a combination of passes and rushes from the Atlanta Falcons the team succumbed once again and finished tied with the Detroit lions for last place in the NFL with a 2-14 record.  

Fast forward 26 months to January 24^th, 1982 once again the 49ers were stepping into the field for the last game of the season, this time to face the Cincinnati Bengals in the super bowl. When the final whistle had blown the score was 49ers 26 Bengals 21. They claimed their first super bowl win ever. How can a team finished last and then go to win a super bowl just two seasons later? Coach Bill Walsh said it best “in this organization we have a standard of performance” Bill Walsh created a culture of excellence and he believed that if his team adhere to the standards of that culture the score would take care of itself.

Coach Bill Walsh was a firm believer on improvement, taking a look at each week performance, analyzing the daily practices and finding what can it be done better the team can reduce mistakes and capitalize on opportunities, during the games he believe on focusing on doing what they needed to do and at the end of the game the score would take care of itself.

Just like coach Walsh, we can also create our own standard of performance. While there are some general rules that can be apply universally like the ones from coach Walsh “use positive language and have a positive attitude” or “demonstrate character” we can look at specific values that applies to our unique positions, what if you are a McDonald’s cashier? One of your standards could be to treat every customer as you would like to be treated, what if you are the CEO? One of your values could be transparence towards those you lead.

If we set our standard of performance and then we take the time at the end of each day to analyze them we can see where we failed, where we succeeded, where we need improvement, and then we can focus only on the task in front of us, the customer in front of us, the employee in front of us; we can also be like those 49ers who focused only on the play at hand.

By paying less attention to the results we can have significant improvement in a short period of time and then we can let the result speak for us, and those results will speak louder than our words.