The movie Moneyball, starring
Brad Pitt and based off the infamous Michael Lewis book of the same title,
provides viewers with a glimpse into the unorthodox strategy a financially
downtrodden baseball team used to rebuild the franchise and see success. Can
business lessons be extracted from the film to help you grow your company?
The
Moneyball Story
In the early 2000s the Oakland A’s
were struggling to find success, and the general manager hired a new assistant
manager who used a different spin to identify talent for the team. Instead of
relying on the gut instinct of seasoned baseball talent scouts, a strategy used
by every other team, he looked for talent based on one statistic: how often a
player got on base (whether through hits, walks, and so on). This odd spin on
researching talent was unorthodox, but allowed the team to find diamonds in the
rough of free agency. Players that had been discarded by other teams for poor
recent performance might still have great on-base percentage numbers. Those
discarded players became the pillars of success for the A’s. They were able to
craft a winning team for less than it would have cost to take the most popular
talent available.
Applying
Moneyball to Business
Can you apply some of these tactics
to managing your own business?
Be
Unorthodox
Sometimes the best ideas are born
out of desperation. When the Oakland A’s starting picking up random,
undesirable players based on a single statistic, they were called crazy. No one
thought it would work because it was an unorthodox strategy.
The team’s financial situation may
have pushed management toward an unorthodox strategy, but sometimes being
unorthodox is your best option. Maybe there is a better way to
attract talent, or build a widget, or sell a product. It might seem crazy at
the beginning, but sticking to your gut on a drastic change can be great for your
business.
Ignore
Detractors
When you are unorthodox or go
against the grain of what is an industry norm, you are bound to have detractors
sharing negative thoughts with you. You might be crazy, or you might be crazy
enough to turn an industry on its head. When other Major League Baseball teams
and critics called the A’s crazy, they built a winning team that was right for
their financial situation. No one said it would work, and it did.
Make
Better Hiring Decisions
Your industry standard for hiring
might be someone with a bachelor’s degree in business management and 3-5 years
of experience. Or MBA candidates from a Top 10 school with 10 years of
experience. All of your competitors are investing serious money into salaries
for these candidates, so obviously you have to do the same just to keep up.
This can lead to an expensive war for talent.
But what about the communications
professional with a passion for your industry? Would you ignore them as a
potential hire just because “the industry” says to?
Focus in on what truly matters to
your organization. Industry familiarity is just one factor to consider, and in
the big scheme of your hiring it may not be the most important. Identify the
factors that matter most to your organization, and pursue those candidates no
matter the industry norm.
No comments:
Post a Comment