I just expected entertainment. What I got was a great story about business acumen, conflict resolution and team building from the baseball movie, Moneyball.
So often in decision-making, emotions and history cloud the facts hiding the real problem. Brad Pitt plays Billy Bean the General Manager of the Oakland As who took a different approach to solving his problem.
His problem: competing with teams with much larger budgets
His coaches focused on replacing their good players that had been drafted elsewhere. They looked emotionally at the possibilities. Billy was tired of the same routine year-after-year of replacing his star players. He asked himself, “How can I rebuild this team in a different way? “
His process: Change the way he looked at players by studing their statistics not the emotions around them. He hired an economist who suggested players his coaches would have never considered based on their gut instincts. Billy hired the economist’s recommendations based on pure numbers forming a team within the budget.
His new problem: He failed to get buy in from his coaching staff or even inform his coaching staff of the strategy.
The year began terribly. Mainly, because the coaches were not playing the players as recommended. Resentment grew. Finally, Billy became more involved. Talking with the players and coaches. The end result was stellar and changed the baseball recruitment strategy for everyone.
Lesson learned:
Don’t substitute one conflict for another!
Leaders must look at the numbers AND build relationships
all are equally important.
Did you see the movie? What business lessons did you take away?
