Setting the Standards
Set clear standards for daily work before success brings recognition. Practicing those standards can build the habits and skills needed for better performance.
THE IDEA
Bill Walsh said, "Champions behave like champions before they’re champions. They have a winning standard of performance before they are winners."
The practical question is what that standard requires today. Define behaviors you can observe: preparation, care with details, honest review of mistakes, and consistent follow-through. Then assess your work against them even when no one is watching or rewarding it.
Standards need to suit the task and its constraints. A useful standard guides effort and improvement; an unattainable demand for perfection can prevent work from being completed. Strong habits improve preparation without guaranteeing the outcome.
When to use it
Building a personal brand: blogging with the rigor of a paid columnist even with no audience.
Leadership: holding a team to the same quality of work you'd demand after a successful IPO, during the scrappy early days.
Health: setting a sustainable routine and tracking whether you follow it.
Education: a student approaching homework with the thoroughness of a researcher preparing for publication.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
A Startup Founder's Quality Bar
A startup founder defines a quality bar for an early product: its core function must work reliably, its limitations must be clear, and customer questions must receive a response. The team uses that standard to decide what is ready to release and what needs more work.
The Ambitious Guitarist
A young guitarist wants to be a professional session musician. Even while practicing in their bedroom, they maintain a strict schedule, warm up with advanced scales, and record themselves to critique mistakes—treating each practice session like a studio recording. They hold themselves to the standard of a pro long before they ever step into a real studio.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
What standards do you hold yourself to when no one is evaluating you?
In what area of your life could you elevate your internal performance bar to match the level you aspire to?
What would skilled, careful work look like on your next task? Which part of that standard can you practice now?
References
- The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership — Bill Walsh (2009)
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- Clear Thinking Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results (Shane Parrish)