Just saw Moneyball. I know, we were a little late. Great movie though. I hope the guy who plays the Assistant General Manager wins something. We’ve been talking about the movie ever since we saw it…not just because it is a good movie but because of what we can learn from it.
The movie is about the beleaguered Oakland Athletics. More fundamentally, this is a film about the concept of paradigm shift. Let’s go there for a minute. A paradigm is a method for understanding a particular phenomenon. When new information “enters the system,” the current paradigm is typically disrupted and eventually replaced by a new method of understanding. For example, people once believed that evil spirits caused illnesses, now we know that viruses do. We just hadn’t discovered the virus and, humans being what they are, we had to attribute our illnesses to something. In my part of the country (Western North Carolina), we still have the remnants of several tuberculosis santitoria in the mountains. One hundred years ago, we thought high altitude was the best way to cure tuberculosis. Now we know, antibiotics are better.
The term “paradigm shift”--admittedly massively over-used for over thirty years now--was originally coined by Thomas Kuhn in his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Each word in the title seems particularly well chosen. There is a “structure” to the change. Both the science and the sociology that attaches to it has structure. “Science” is often foundational to the change. Discovery, learning and scientific breakthrough usually catalyze (a science word) the change. And, “revolution” suggests the magnitude and the potential for something really significant to follow.
Ok, so Dr. Kuhn isn’t maybe as good looking at Brad Pit (who plays general manager Billy Beane in the movie). But he was onto something. One of the lessons we’ve all learned at one time or another is that when the paradigm shifts, the social structure around it shifts as well. This is when leadership is tested. In other words, the right knowledge is part of the solution but by itself, is insufficient to create a sustainable change.
The movie features the paradigm we know as major league baseball. Or as they refer to it in the movie, simply: “baseball.” For example: “baseball doesn’t like this.” Or: “baseball hates him because he has a defect.” What the movie shows us is that there are certain rules that cannot, or at least heretofore have not, been broken. And there is an old guard who is watching the flame. Their lives, or at least their livelihoods, depend on the status quo. So, they are entrenched and ready to do battle.
Here is what we watched Billy Beane do in the movie:
As a new question. One of the first things that must happen, arguably before anything can change, is that you have to challenge the conventional wisdom. That means you: a) have to have a hunch, b) you have to decide to play your hunch and c) you have to have the guts to live with the repercussions. Leadership requires courage and self-belief. Asking new questions isn’t always comfortable, just necessary.
How often do we ask new questions in our businesses? For most of us, the answer is probably: “not very.” There is too much at risk and too much to do. And maybe we are too comfortable. Asking the right question is less difficult when the pain level increases and becomes institutionalized. When you’ve lost the account, failed to win the RFP, lost another two points of market share, it can actually become easier to challenge the assumptions by which you have been operating.
Redefine the problem. Billy Beane goes around the table and asks each of his “old guard” scouts “what is the problem?" None of them get it right because all of them state it in the terms in which they are most comfortable. “We have to replace three players,” “we have to put a team together,” “we have to do the best we can with the budget we have,” etc. These are all predictable “current paradigm” responses. Billy’s answer is: “if we think like the Yankees (the big budget team) in here, we will loose to the Yankees out there.
The combination of the right question and the right problem definition is half of the battle. Solutions, strategies and ideas come a lot faster once the problem is correctly framed. If it doesn’t seem a little scary at first, you probably don’t have it. You may, instead, just have a cleaverly worded articulation of the same old paradigm. The even bigger issue here is that some of your people, the ones inextricably attached to the old paradigm, are probably part of the problem. So, it follows that you aren’t going to get any help there.
Hire the geek. Billy hires a no-name, inexperienced and impossibly awkward kid and eventually promotes him to Assistant General Manager. The young man has two things going for him: 1) he isn’t part of the baseball establishment and 2) he has a degree in economics. His premise is: “with all due respect (he’s a “good egg”), baseball owners are buying players when they should be buying wins." And, there are always undervalued players based on the inherent biases of “baseball” (i.e. the institutional and prevailing mindset of the establishment). This kid has technical skills, a fundamentally different point of view and the ability to “do the math.” In baseball they call it a “ball club.” Clubs do not usually invite divergent thinking.
The perhaps more general lesson here is that you have to go outside your current organization to get the talent you need. You might go outside the company, the industry or the country. You need a different perspective, skill set and set of disciplines. Eventually you need a team that respects and embraces diversity of thinking. Maybe you need to change the gender profile, add some younger people, hire someone from a competing firm, retain an anthropologist. What is the skill set that is missing to help implement your new paradigm?
Do the math. First of all, the old guys couldn’t do the math. Most of them got into baseball during the halcyon days where a boy left high school to play baseball. They grew up with Dizzy Dean. The movie dramatizes the notion that there are usually new or better sources of information out there that can inform a more strategic approach. Information drives insight and insight drives strategy. It helps if you have a premise and you know what you are looking for. These guys did.
“The math” might be a research study, an employee survey or an analysis of an existing dataset. The principle is that the research can help you discover, refine and support your idea. It adds context and makes the idea more saleable.
Open lines of communication. So you have the right talent, the right information and a premise. You are half done. In the movie, they actually make this mistake. They try to implement but no one is on board. The manager isn’t buying it, the players don’t get it and the owner isn’t funding it. Good idea but we need a little work on execution. This is where it gets interesting. Billy Beane takes a deep breath and a step back and meets with the manager. And, guess what, he fails to convince him of anything. Why? Because the manager is part of the establishment. As part of the old guard he has everything to lose and nothing to gain. The new assistant has nothing to lose and everything to gain. The lesson for us is that the breakthrough isn’t enough. You have to confront the sociology of the situation.
In the movie, this is manifested by lots of informal meetings with players. One on one, one on two, two on four. Key individuals are identified, key topics are identified. What are the talking points? What are the changes? What are the benefits that you can communicate to motivate change?
Commit totally. When the new plan fails to solidify, as evidenced by a lack of change to the line-up or on-field tactics and the poorest record in the division, chairs begin to fly through windows, water coolers are beat to death by baseball bats and a generally foul mood prevails. Then Billy gets an idea. He trades Pena. Pena is the guy the manager has playing first base instead of the guy Billy wants at first base. So, he trades him to the Cleveland Indians along with every other guy who could potentially play first base so that the only guy left is the one who is part of the new paradigm. By doing so, he has severely limited this team’s options. Billy Beane is “all in.”
Sometimes narrowing your options is a way to achieve commitment. In more practical terms, there are a lot of tactics but it begins with serious belief in what you are doing. You have to eat, sleep and breath it and it has to show. Sooner or later you are confronted with the stakes or implications of your commitment. Once again, your courage is tested.
Adjust. This may seem counter-intuitive but you have to assess, adjust and act along the way. There is a scene in the movie representing the trading deadline for the season. League rules state that no player can be traded after this date to eliminate a last minute unfair competitive advantage. Billy and his assistant make a few last minute adjustments designed to make them more competitive at the end of the season. You have to stay the course but also remain flexible. Throughout the movie, they are running those numbers and tuning the system. The other part of adjusting is admitting. When you make a mistake, you have to admit it and then act to correct it. Billy hired a guy who he was warned against. When it became apparent that he was not part of what made the new paradigm work, he was quickly traded.
In a commercial setting, we’ve all seen the scenario where the leader doesn’t finish well. There is that initial shift in strategy, a “pep talk” and maybe even some evidence of real change but too many of these efforts languish. They fail to receive buy-in, impact stated goals and become a viable means of doing business. The culprit is often that the real talent has moved on. They have not remained committed as demonstrated by making the on-going adjustments and continued communication to keep the new paradigm alive.
In the marketing field, we have a term known as “Challenger Brand Thinking.” While most people were simply enjoying the movie, I was watching an example of challenger brand thinking. The Oakland Athletics are the challenger brand. The New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox are the category leaders. You can’t beat the perennial leaders by playing by their rules. The question is, do you have, or can you create, a “game changer?”