A lesson in baseball
I must say a movie about baseball wasn’t my first choice to go and see at the movies, the fact that Brad Pitt was starring did sway my interest a little more than the storyline but never mind the attraction – I watched it and I loved it. If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s a very rough recap. A General Manager of a baseball team has limited financial capacity for his player’s payroll. Not being able to purchase the big names that all the teams are bidding for, he creates a formula for success which sees him recruit unknown or undervalued players based near solely on their on base percentage. This resulted in winning 103 games in that season and paying his team 1/6
th per win than that of their competitors in the league who won the same amount of games with the big name, big ticket baseball stars. But how?
The formula was this: What wins games? Runs. Let’s find people who get them.
It was an inspirational movie, and it’s one of those situations where you say to yourself ‘so simple, why everyone in baseball isn’t doing this is beyond me’. Well, they are now because this formula was created 10 years ago and everyone has cottoned on.
After watching the movie, I didn’t put much more thought into it until I attended a webinar held by Ross Clennett with guest speaker Paul Bisale. He took the formula from Moneyball and applied it to recruitment and talent management. Sounds like a fair stretch – but it’s not. Ask yourself this: What are your runs? What wins your game?
If you can work out what equals high performance in your company, then you can determine the right people to do it. Having a formula will mean clarity, and then it’s simply a matter of the numbers adding up. The recruitment game is ever changing. The slightest shift in the economy, a boom or decline creates waves and it affects our reasoning and decisions behind hires – sometimes, you need to get down to the facts and leave the emotion and external impacts out of it.
The other undertone of this movie (and book for those who like the long road) is that it is an unfair game. Those who have the money have the better options. If you don’t have the budget or the brand or positioning then you are not playing the same game. Start a game in your league and set the rules for you.
Food for thought:
Experience does not equal high performance
DISCLAIMER: This article does not constitute legal advice. If you require assistance with creating policies for your workplace, please email admin@wattsnext.com.au
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