Moneyball: Challenge the Conventional Wisdom
A worker goes over files in Sears' catalog office. Frank Scherschel/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
I often see calls on social media to join groups of “like-minded individuals.” Although I applaud the desire to congregate for a cause, there is danger in the consequence of like-mindedness. The natural consequence is groupthink, defined as, “the practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility.”
Groupthink & Conventional Wisdom
Early in the film Moneyball, Brad Pitt’s character, Billy Beane is in a recruiting meeting with the senior recruiting team for the Oakland A’s. The discussion in this meeting – starting about the 9-minute mark – is a crucial set up for the entire remainder of the film and is representative of what actually happened in real life.
The recruiting staff is going through the exercises they always go through to find the “best” players, capable of replacing three key players who were recruited away from the A’s for teams with bigger budgets. Billy Beane challenges them on the fact that they are doing the same old thing and expecting different results. The recruiters, however, are convinced they are doing the right thing, although it is the same thing they have always done. In other words, the conventional wisdom, which they all shared with the exception of Beane, was that they needed to focus on form and fit through very subjective lenses. Lenses that had been developed throughout the history of baseball.
If you’ve watched the film, you know the rest of the story. You can get a better glimpse of the situation by reading the book the movie was based on, by Michael Lewis.
Sears
Groupthink is dangerous to organizational excellence. Sears Roebuck is a prime example. There were many groupthink decisions over the years leading to its decline into irrelevance and eventual non-existence. The one that stands out to me the most, is that early on, had the board members and professional managers recognized the internet and Amazon for what they were, they could still be a juggernaut today.
Sears, at one point, had the largest database of consumer tastes and preferences on the planet. This came from data collected from customers who ordered products through the once famous Sears catalogues, shipped to every mailbox in the country in the spring and fall. My dad ordered Craftsman tools from the catalogue. My mother ordered Kenmore appliances from the catalogue. And as children, we would lay – sprawled on our stomachs, on the living room floor – casually turning catalogue pages and fantasizing about what gifts we would receive at Christmas, or what toys would heighten our summer pleasures.
However, despite the growth of big box stores, particularly Walmart, and the nascent yet burgeoning internet, as well as the start up of a Seattle on-line bookseller called Amazon, Sears never even considered the opportunities or threats these innovations represented. Like the recruiters in Moneyball, they were confident that by continuing to do what they had always done, they would prevail.
The sad truth is that Sears, much too late, made a series of desperate decisions to save the business. It was already a fatally sinking ship. There would be no bailing it out. Rather, just an agonizingly prolonged death spiral, that seemed apparent to everyone but those so bent on trying to save it through the lens of conventional wisdom.
Operational Discipline & Professional Maturity
Now, granted, Sears was a great American icon, both in business and popular culture, often looked upon with a mix of whimsical nostalgia and mild regret. In contrast, baseball, also an American icon, was invigorated by one person willing to challenge the conventional wisdom, to pierce through the veil of groupthink and try something different before it was too late. This required both operational discipline and professional maturity.
Operational discipline is where regardless of the resistance, internal or external, you stay the course on the strategy, initiative, or correction. There will always be naysayers, Billy Beane dealt with a number of them. Sports radio shows pilloried him. He was confronted by a manager who, although he thought he was doing the right thing, tried to sabotage what Beane was striving for. Senior recruiters who could not abide the new way of considering baseball, self-selected themselves out of the organization. Yet Beane stayed the course.
Professional maturity is where you accept all the above and understand that it is not personal, but rather, the outward appearance of friction in the transition from the old to the new. People become frustrated and they will lash out. Personal attacks may take place. The leader with professional maturity will understand this and not buckle but stay the course until others start to see the wisdom of the course that has been set.
Conclusion
Organizational excellence is no different. Unlike Moneyball, it will not likely happen in a season. It is a journey that will never end. It will, however, require breaking through the groupthink and challenging the conventional wisdom. It will take operational discipline and professional maturity. Every organization’s journey of excellence is the aggregate of the number of people pursuing excellence in their corner of the business. Hence, the mean – or average – of the behaviors of the people within the organization is its culture. Acceptable like-mindedness here is alignment across the enterprise as to how to fulfill the purpose of the organization, through experimentation, continuous improvement, innovation and collaboration. This is the only case where it is acceptable. But to be acceptable, it must also be open to being challenged.
How will you challenge the conventional wisdom in your world?
I very much appreciate you and the time you have taken to read this article. You can find more articles like this from me at https://www.legup.solutions/blog.
If you have thoughts on this or other topics regarding yours or your organization’s journey of excellence, feel free to continue the conversation on my Secret Sauce slack feed.
Originally published at https://www.legup.solutions on 30 APR 2024