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 The real task in sports is to bring together groups of people to accomplish something. Walsh, like other coaching legends, has done far more than produce consistently winning teams: in his case, three Super Bowl championships for the 49ers in eight years and an organization enshrined in the press as “The Team of the ’80s.” During his ten-year career with the 49ers and as a coach at the high school, college, and professional levels, Walsh developed a uniquely thoughtful style of play and a successful system of team management that has become one of the most respected in the  game.

Less of a psychologist than Rockne, and never a disciplinarian like Lombardi, Walsh nevertheless produces winners through a businesslike approach to maximizing the potential of players and coaches. It can be the need to draw attention to yourself in the public arena. These are all negative manifestations of ego, and if you are not alert to them, you get diverted and your work becomes diffused. The dictator gave orders and everyone else just followed them.

Working successfully with the people in the organization demands more from the coach or the executive. There should never be a moment on the football field when a player doesn’t feel challenged both physically and intellectually. That is where the breakthrough comes. When I was with the 49ers, I was both head coach and general manager, so my duties were more business oriented than those of a lot of NFL head coaches. That year, he took a moderately talented Stanford team to a national ranking and a win in the Bluebonnet Bowl. In fact, I made a point of reminding our coaching staff that I expected them to change their opinions and impressions over time. He has to drop or sidestep the ego barrier so that people can communicate without fear. That has required from management a fundamental change in the art and skill of communication and in organizational development. Some of the most talented people are the ones who are the most independent. In coaching, I think of it as the coach’s ability to condition the athletes’ minds and to train them to think as a unit, while at the same time, making sure each athlete approaches his own game with total concentration, intensity, and skill. They knew they could be wrong one time and then, when they got a little more information, change their opinion and not be demeaned for it. His political commentary appears frequently in Knightliness and other newspaper chains around the United States.

HR: Do you see a link between managing and coaching?

Bill Walsh: I see coaches and executives who have more similar skills today than ever before. He also focused on what other coaches had considered the minutiae of the game: minute-by-minute choreographing of practices, breaking down individual and group tactics into parts, and defining responsibilities and setting objectives for both players and coaches.

This season, Walsh has been paid the ultimate accolade for a coach: former Walsh assistants are NFL head coaches in Tampa Bay, Minnesota, Green Bay, New York (Jets), and San Francisco.

Retiring after his third Super Bowl victory in January 1989, Walsh signed on as a football analyst for NBC Sports, eschewing numerous bids to coach professionally before stunning the football world in 1992 by returning as head coach at Stanford.

This interview was conducted by Richard Rapport, who is a San Francisco-based writer and a contributing editor to San Francisco Focus and Forbes/ASAP. What is the role of healthy versus unhealthy ego in a competitive organization like a football team?

English is a marvelous language until it comes to the word “ego.” We Americans throw that around, using that one word to cover a broad spectrum of meanings: self-confidence, self-assurance, and assertiveness—attributes that most people think of as positive.

But there is another side that can wreck a team or an organization. And they are the ones that have done the most in-house to develop their people. That commitment has come through in the personality of the organizations. Today’s NFL is a very complex world, and great football knowledge alone won’t get your team to the Super Bowl.

Historically in sports, there has been one central figure in the organization whose presence dominates everything and whose judgments people identify with. It contributed to an environment where our team could be more flexible and adaptable in responding to the unexpected moves of our opponents.

I tried to remove the fear factor from people’s  they could feel comfortable opening their mouths. In 1979, Walsh was named head coach and general manager of a dreadful 49ers team that had been virtually dismembered in the late 1970s by mismanagement and horrendous personnel decisions.

Walsh immediately began to develop long-range strategic and personnel plans for the 49ers. It is true of the Redskins, the Raiders, and, of course, the 49ers.

What is the biggest obstacle to creating this kind of organization?

The coach must account for his ego. That is the most fundamental change. Prized nonetheless for his skills on offense, Walsh was honored for honing All-Pro quarterbacks Dan Pouts, Kenny Anderson, and Greg Cook.

In 1977, at age 47, Walsh became Stanford’s head football coach. It can be a feeling that others are a threat to your own territory. The organization would simply discard a player who did not fit a specific, predefined mold. It can come from your insecurity in working with others. They are the ones that have created the greatest sense of belonging.

Joining the august company of Knuth Rockne, Paul Brown, and Vince Lombardi, former San Francisco 49ers and current Stanford University football coach Bill Walsh is recognized as one of the most important figures in football history. That is being distracted by your own importance. His ability to coolly analyze opponents, matching their weaknesses with his teams’ strengths, has made come-from-behind wins a Walsh football hallmark.

Believed to be too cerebral for a top position for which extreme macho was long considered an ineluctable quality, for years Walsh was forced to content himself with assistant coaching positions. In a lot of ways, the old system was much easier for all involved. It’s quite natural: the more information you develop, the faster things can change.

But having enormous self-confidence seems essential for a leader—especially in pro sports. If a player did not conform to the way management wanted him to behave, or if he made the organization uncomfortable, it got rid of him. In the old days, the approach was rather crude. Most important, there has been much more recognition and acknowledgment of the uniqueness of each individual and the need that people have for some degree of security.

How does that translate into winning teams?

Those teams that have been most successful are the ones that have demonstrated the greatest commitment to their people. That was the typical response.

Today, in sports as elsewhere, individualism is the general rule. That is what it takes to build a successful, winning organization.

That approach was certainly critical to the success of the 49ers. That is why the old bludgeon approach is leaving football the same way it is leaving business.

What is replacing the old approach?

Management today recognizes that to have a winning organization, it has to be more knowledgeable and competent in dealing with and developing people.