imapMyTeam Blog

Batter Up: 3 strikes and you’re out if you don’t learn these lessons from baseball

Sunday and Monday were huge days for many – so much so that some are lobbying that opening day of baseball become a national holiday. There are several lessons from baseball that can be applied to business – here are three to consider:

1. Have the right person in the right place. You can have nine great shortstops but maybe a terrible team if none can play another position. Teams can’t get overloaded and neither can your business team. Do you have the right balance of players that cover all of the bases? Blindspots can cost the team wins [success]. Which leads to:

2. Good teams are never accidental. Teams that win [succeed] use the best possible combinations of people they can get. The ‘best skill’ player sometimes doesn’t help the team if they don’t fit the overall team chemistry. If given two players who have similar skills but one excels at interacting with their teammates, guess which one the team will choose to keep? Adding a person only for his or her skills sometimes backfires…think about baseball teams that acquire a player at a trading deadline that looks great on paper but ends up hurting the overall team performance. However, you lose if you choose to stand pat because:

3. You cannot remain static. Your competitors are constantly learning and adapting [probably in part from your strategy] and changing their ways to be more competitive. You can never stop adjusting and evolving. You need to be in a constant evaluation mode yourself. What are my strengths, weaknesses and how do I self-manage them.

And, to close, we have to add one of our favorite quotes from Chuck Tanner who managed in the majors for over 17 years.

“I don’t think a manager should be judged by whether he wins the pennant, but by whether he gets the most out of the twenty-five players he’s been given.”


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