A movie producer hoping for box office success seeks critical acclaim from Messrs. Ebert and Roper. A business-guru author aspires to penetrate his market by receiving a front-cover endorsement from Tom Peters (author of "In Search of Excellence"), back-cover kudos from Forbes magazine, and a big marketing budget from a national publisher.
Seattle consultant Jeff Angus has swung for the fences with his new book, "Management by Baseball: The Official Rules for Winning Management in Any Field."
He's hit the sweet spot with Peters, Forbes and HarperCollins, and knocked the ball out of the park with his persuasive (though novel) approach to the dos and don'ts of running a business.
Here are a few of the many takeaways from "Management by Baseball" with application to business people looking for sound ideas to enhance performance.
- Maury Wills was baseball's best base stealer as a player, but then became the game's worst manager by forcing even his slowest players to try stealing bases.
Message: Special talents that once worked for a manager should not be forced onto personnel who have clearly different skill sets.
- Los Angeles Angels skipper Mike Scoscia won the 2002 World Series, and Philadelphia Phillies manager Jim Fregosi lost the 1993 Fall Classic, because the former had the ability to make decisions disconnected from his emotions and the latter did not.
Message: Emotions are important, but not at crunch time when making strategic moves.
- In 1998, Joe Torre led the New York Yankees to the world championship. He did it by keeping five big-league egos productive while filling just two lineup spots -- left field and designated hitter. Torre gave each of the five sufficient chances to play left and DH while rotating them into game situations where their skills had maximum impact.
Message: Know and use the strengths of each person on your company's roster, and keep everyone on the team involved in the most important work.
Management by baseball? If it's good enough for Tom Peters, it's good enough for me -- and these stories prove it works.
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