Bill Walsh has long been known for his "Standard of Performance" which is a series of guidelines that held everyone in his organization accountable. Not just players, but equipment managers, trainers, assistant coaches, secretaries, media relations people -- anyone involved with his program. At LSU, we refer to this as "The Lady Tiger Way." It is something that must be emphasized every single day to maintain. You must be quick to point out any time a player or team member veers from the ideal of these standards and you must celebrate when they are in point in representing your program in the way you deem necessary. The "Standard of Performance" ("The Lady Tiger Way") go far beyond just how we we practice -- it is about how we go about EVERYTHING. In his most recent book, Coach Walsh talks about establishing those standards. His book, "The Score Takes Care of Itself," by Coach Walsh with Steve Jamison and his son Craig Walsh is a tremendous book along the lines of Coach Walsh's book "Finding the Winning Edge."
In quantifying and implementing your own version of the Standard of Performance, the following guidelines are a good reference point:
1. Start with a comprehensive recognition of, reverence for, and identification of the specific actions and attitudes relevant to your team’s performance and production.
In quantifying and implementing your own version of the Standard of Performance, the following guidelines are a good reference point:
1. Start with a comprehensive recognition of, reverence for, and identification of the specific actions and attitudes relevant to your team’s performance and production.
2. Be clarion clear in communicating your expectation of high effort and execution of your Standard of Performance. 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 demand they go upward rather than settle for the comfort of doing what comes easily. Push them beyond their comfort zone; expect them to give extra effort.
3. Let all know that you expect them to possess the highest level of expertise in their area of responsibility.
4. Beyond standards and methodology, teach your beliefs, values, and philosophy. An organization is not an inanimate object. It is a living organism that you must nurture, guide and strengthen.
5. Teach “connection and extension.” An organization filled with individuals who are “independent contractors’ unattached to one another is a team with little interior cohesion and strength.
6. Make the expectations and metrics of competence that you demand inaction and attitudes from personnel the new reality of your organization. You must provide the model for that new standard in your own actions and attitude.
