The Score Takes Care of Itself

How to drive outcomes by focusing on inputs

In his second season as coach of the perennially lousy San Francisco 49ers, Bill Walsh’s niners were losing 35-7 to New Orleans at half. Fans were disgusted. Boos, beer cups and debris rained down on the team as they retreated into the locker room.

Amidst a circle of dejected faces, Bill said this:

“Some of you may think we’ve already lost this game, and you might be right, and if we do I can live with it, however if we go down, you must decide how you want to go down. You can lay down and let them continue this assault, or stand your ground and fight back, and only you will know. And here’s the key part, frankly I care a lot more about how we lose than if we lose”.

The 49ers mounted a spectacular second half assault, outscoring New Orleans 28-0 in the second half. It was one of the greatest comebacks in NFL history.

This speech epitomizes Bill Walsh’s approach to winning. It’s all about the inputs. He cared about how the team won or lost, rather than the outcome of the game.

He cared about execution. Doing all the little things exactly to specification. Running precise routes, being in the right position on the field, being professional in preparation, having the right attitude, meeting his standard of performance. Because he knew the secret to winning - if his team executed to his exacting standard, the score would take care of itself. And that’s what happened in the ten years that he lead the 49ers, winning three super bowls and dominating the league.

In business, this philosophy is trumpeted as “Inputs over outputs”. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care about outputs or outcomes. On the contrary, we care deeply about outcomes, and it for this reason that we need laser focus on our inputs. Same goes in our lives - good food in, healthy body out. Good books/pixels in, healthy mind out.

Amazon is famous for their maniacal focus on inputs.

In the quintessential book on Amazon’s working process entitled “Working Backwards”, there is a chapter called “Manage your inputs, not your outputs”. Amazon crafts their business as a system - inputs go in, outputs come out. Because inputs will define your outcomes, it’s critical to choose the right inputs.

As an example, Amazon rightly assumed that more selection would result in better customer experience and ultimately more sales. To represent breadth of selection, they optimized for growing the number of product detail pages (the input). They obsessively focused on adding product detail pages (PDPs), but eventually saw that growing the number of product detail pages didn’t result in increased sales. Obviously, if the products on those pages are not compelling, customers won’t buy. Additionally, if the products aren’t in stock and available to ship, customers won’t buy. They picked the wrong input (number of PDPs). They quickly pivoted to percentage of PDP views where the product is in stock and available to ship. This input hit the mark and they saw sales grow with the new key input.

The Simple Lesson

In life and in business, identify your inputs for winning. Then optimize for them.

For me it’s sleep, exercise, writing, reading amongst others. Maintaining these inputs results in increased levels of energy, fulfillment, joy and ultimately enables me to drive my purpose forward.

In business it’s about building your system. A system is nothing more than a process by which inputs turn into outputs. So write down your key inputs that drive your system and optimize, incentivize, track and hold your teams accountable toward driving those inputs. With the right inputs, the score takes care of itself.

Bill Walsh made a legendary career of inputs. And so can you.