team lessons from the post-season
The post-season
I admit – I am a post-season baseball junkie. Throughout most of the regular season, I am a casual fan – going to the occasional baseball game (mostly for the Dodger dogs and beer) and keeping tabs on my teams from a distance. But once we hit the post-season, there is a different level of excitement. Every year, I somehow find myself mesmerized by the players, the teams, the coaches, and the analytics.
The post-season that wrapped up earlier this month was no exception. Two high-performing teams with amazing talent playing their hearts out through Game 7. The whole experience made me think about what makes baseball teams successful. It is clear that the coaches have to put the right players in the right positions. They must objectively monitor the team’s performance and make adjustments as they experience changes and encounter obstacles from the other team. They have to know when to intervene and make changes while keeping individual team members motivated to come back and try again next time.
Does this sound familiar? It should, as it’s no different in the business world. We rely on talent and teams to achieve business goals. And every day we have to make the same decisions about our teams to drive performance and achieve success. Yet, we don’t use nearly the discipline that baseball franchises (or any other team sport) does with this. What can we learn from them?
get the right talent on the team
The first one seems obvious – get the right people in the right positions. Yet, this is the one thing we consistently get wrong in the business world.
Team sports analyze a person’s talent as well as what is missing from their team to execute successfully. They very carefully build teams using data and proven techniques, as they know that how the team works together is key to winning games.
Yet in the business world, most organizations have no approach or science to building teams. We use ad hoc approaches like, “Hey, I like Jim, I think he would be good on our team and he’s looking for his next role.” What are Jim’s natural talents? Is he a pitcher that we are asking to play catcher? How long will he be happy playing out of position?
The bottom line is we have to start using data and science to build teams. I use a team building methodology called Method Teaming to build perfect teams based on business goals, by identifying natural talents and slotting people into the right roles based on their natural talents and what the team needs to drive performance. This helps ensure that the teams have the right balance of natural talents to achieve maximum productivity like sports teams do.
clear goals + expectations
On sports teams, players have clear expectations as to their goals. The pitcher knows he needs to strike out batters, the first baseman defends his base, etc. While these are straightforward, sometimes circumstances change (like the batter bunts), and everyone has to be agile and adjust. Regardless of what position you play, you are accountable for the team’s overall performance. Being the best outfielder on a team that can’t win games means that the team is not achieving its main goal.
To me, this is another lesson for us in the business world. Success is all about results, and in order to achieve results, there must be clear goals and expectations. In the business world, we tend to believe that if we don’t have 100% control over a situation, we shouldn’t be held accountable for the outcome.
This is ridiculous. You could have the best HR function in the world, but if an organization isn’t growing or advancing its purpose, it’s not going to be successful in the long-term. Everyone on the team needs clear goals that tie to what the business is trying to achieve. Anything short of that, and the organization is not successful. In other words, you are not winning.
When there are clear expectations and goals, everyone is focused and working towards the same outcome. And as circumstances change, we need to sprint and pivot to meet these needs, just like sports teams do all the time.
manage performance + productively coach
One thing that was clear during the post-season was the sophisticated use of analytics to monitor the performance of the team. Throughout the World Series, both teams relied heavily on analytics to manage their bullpens, and as a result, made several pitching changes throughout the games to maximize performance.
In the business world, we can also learn from the use of analytics to manage our talent and how to coach when we see performance go off-track. By using analytics to measure a team’s performance, we can course correct or bring in relief quickly when something starts to go off-track. When there are agreed-upon performance analytics, you will find that there aren’t any surprises when you have to make changes. The team member probably has self-diagnosed and expects a change, which makes it a much easier discussion because there is typically less emotion.
Think about how this works in baseball. After a pitcher walks a batter or two, you usually see one of the coaches come out and have a talk with him. It is usually a positive talk, and you can imagine the coach saying, “George, you played your heart out, but it is time to bring in some relief.” Or, “Hey, Joe, today is just not your day. Let’s give you a break and bring in someone else.” This is simple feedback based on the data – the player usually knows he’s not doing his best, and it’s time to get some help.
Why can’t we coach and give feedback the same way in the business world? That’s not to say that coaches don’t get angry or lose their patience once in a while (a human reaction), but they typically know their role is to coach, and they try to think of the best, positive way to give someone performance feedback and motivate them to be better next time.
until next year
In addition to the post-season being fun to watch, there are so many lessons we can learn from observing high-performing teams to help us figure out how to make our business teams more successful. And the bottom line is in today’s knowledge economy, talent and teams can make or break an organization. We simply must do more to help our teams become more productive to achieve business goals.
I am already looking forward to next year’s post-season (and hopefully a Dodgers win this time).
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