“Put it on tape.”

This was a phrase that I was all too familiar with as a member of the Stanford Football Team. This term epitomized a meritocracy. It epitomized that in a hyper competitive environment, there is no room for favorites. No space for politics, and your work and trajectory would not be stifled by bureaucracy. Your actions dictated where you ended up on the depth chart. You knew exactly where you stood.

Games and practice(s) were filmed from 3 different angles. At first glance it sounds crazy, over the top, and unnecessary. Everything I do is going to be filmed? What if I mess up—everyone is going to be able to watch it! Once you got past that you were going to “embarrass yourself” you realized that everyone was in the same exact boat as you, including the coaches. Your mentality flipped. You realized this tool, and most importantly this mentality was going to up-level you, and the team.

Mastering your craft

You knew that because you had access to all of this film, you could hone your craft. You knew that you could always ‘watch the film’, to see how you could improve, and areas you needed to work on. And because of the film, you also knew that the coaching staff would invest more in you, the more you invested in yourself. They wanted to help you master your craft. And the tape allowed for that.

Celebrating as a team

Sundays during football season were spent sitting in Kissinger Auditorium. It was where we met as a team to debrief on the game, and watch “the tape”. The entire football program was present for this session––not just coaches, and players but also equipment staff, administrators, trainers, strength coaches, and doctors––close to 140 people. It really was the entire team. After all, you win and lose as a team.

Like any great team meeting the Head Coach opened things up, provided some thoughts about the game, grounded in the evidence from the tape. Individual players, and entire units were lauded for what they put on tape. Recognition was given out in the form of helmet stickers for outstanding performance, great effort, and winning. Watching your teammates make exceptional plays that I had missed because you were making your block (hopefully), was oftentimes the highlight of my week. If the team didn’t win, nobody got stickers––it didn’t matter if there was an epic performance by an individual player. It was all about the team, the team, the team.

Embracing feedback

With the accolades distributed, and the glow of the win fading–-it was time to focus on improvement. In front of that same group, it was time to embrace feedback. For the next few hours, you would watch every play from multiple angles, and multiple times. Coaches and players would be talking through what they saw, what they were thinking at that precise frame, and strategizing on how to improve. Sometimes the feedback would sound like:

‘Cuddy, let’s see why you got beat, and got [Toby] tackled in the hole.’ ‘Looks like you stepped back, and not down and into the gap–-we will drill that at practice, you can get this fixed.’ or ‘Looks like #94 just straight up beat you across your face–-good football play by him. We won’t win every play.’

No embarrassment, no shame. Everyone has techniques they need to master with practice, and everyone gets beat.

Yes, there were embarrassing moments, but they didn’t last long. And teammates didn’t pile on in a serious way. In a team sport like football, where 10/11 guys can have the best play of their life, but 1 guy messes up because he is self-confident, and that costs you the ball game––you need to lean on each other, you need to build each other up to win a championship.

They can’t ignore you

If you have ever wondered why an all-star, future NFL hall of famer suddenly gets cut from a team, there is only one reason. They haven’t been able to put it on tape. This is the beauty of putting it on tape. It ensures that people are evaluated on their merit, not what they did in the past for the team or industry, but how they are currently executing. It requires accountability up, and down the organization. It rewards those people who show up with tenacity, daily. It allows people with high agency to grab opportunity, and invest in themselves and the team. The tape tracks your progress. It shows if you are getting better, or worse; you don’t stay the same. And finally it provides a glimpse into what excellence looks like, and a playbook of how to achieve it.

My co-founder Fabian and I thought hard about the culture we wanted to build from the early days. And similar to “code wins all arguments,” putting it on tape is the culture that we believe can catalyze BRM to win a championship.