---
title: "The Standard of Performance"
description: "Bill Walsh's way of building a winning team by fixing the details rather than chasing a timetable for wins."
canonical: https://tomsharman.com/bookshelf/ego-is-the-enemy/the-standard-of-performance/
updated: 2026-11-03
---

# The Standard of Performance

> Bill Walsh's way of building a winning team by fixing the details rather than chasing a timetable for wins.

Ryan Holiday's framework, from Ego Is the Enemy, pp. 85 to 133.

Framework 3 of 5 from [Ego Is the Enemy](https://tomsharman.com/bookshelf/ego-is-the-enemy/index.md) by Ryan Holiday. Category: Hiring and teams.

## The steps

1. **What should be done.** Define the exact task in every role, from how quarterbacks hold the ball to how the locker room is kept.
2. **When.** Schedule practice to the minute and monitor every drill.
3. **How.** Grade execution down to the inch and enforce effort, sportsmanship and neatness throughout the organisation.

## Where it comes from

From chapter: PART II: SUCCESS, pp. 85–133

Part II covers success, where ego shortens how long it lasts. Howard Hughes is the cautionary tale of inherited wealth and talent wasted on vanity. The remedies are to stay a student as Genghis Khan did, to avoid telling yourself a story about how you got here as Bill Walsh refused to, to decide what matters to you so you can say no as Sherman did and Grant did not, to watch for entitlement, control and paranoia, to organise yourself the way Eisenhower did and John DeLorean did not, to avoid the Disease of Me as George Marshall did, to gain perspective from the immensity of the world, and to stay sober like Angela Merkel. The part ends by saying that success will eventually regress and the sensible move is to prepare for setbacks.

## The animation

24 seconds, 4:5, no sound.

- MP4: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/ego-is-the-enemy/the-standard-of-performance.mp4
- MP4, dark: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/ego-is-the-enemy/the-standard-of-performance-dark.mp4
- Still: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/ego-is-the-enemy/the-standard-of-performance.png
- Still, dark: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/ego-is-the-enemy/the-standard-of-performance-dark.png