Course Project: Leadership Review of Moneyball (2011)
Introduction:
Moneyball (2011) is a movie based on the truth story for Mr Billy Beane and his attempted to have the perfect team to achieve the baseball game win. Based on Moneyball: The art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis 2003. The lead actor in this movie is Brad Pitt (Billy Beane) and his assistant Peter Brand (Jonah Hill). This story changes a lot of concepts in management especially in the recruitment process. On this article I will write down the leadership skills that Billy Beane got it and also a brief talk about his personality.
Leadership:
* Negative:
Introducing a new member in your team is a must, letting your team knows what you are planning to is a very must. As a leader you must make everyone of your team member on board so it will be easy for all to share common goals. Hiding team member activity or your strategy as a leader is mistake that you need as a leader. What we are facing in most of Saudis companies that we deal with new employees as they know the company inch by inch, while actually they don’t know anything. An orientation program is necessary tool for new joiner. In the movie Beane didn’t communicate the new strategy to his team. They have no idea what he is doing and why he is doing it. How can your employees help you if they don’t know what you are up to? Beane and Brand are trying to do one thing, and the rest of the recruiting team is trying to do something different. * Positive:
Team member: we all know that no one can work alone; every team got it team members. When Beane hired Brand (junior analyst with the Cleveland Indians, an Economics grad from Yale on his first ever job) and making him as Assistant GM was a new strange way but the impact on it that Brand felt that he is a very important member of them team which effect his performance positively. It is important to empower the right people and also not pigeon-hole them into what they are naturally good at, but give them opportunities that develop and grow them.
Communication: After the team is linked and willing to contribute in the new strategy. They become on board and Beane finally communicate the strategy with the rest of the team and he start managing the team according to it. This is when the team changed to recruit non wanted players. Logically if you are a manager and you are eliminating good team members and looks for odd members everyone will say that you are crazy, while after Beane applied the new strategy using statistical equations it all went down for his benefit and he break the 80 years record by winning a 20 goals in a row.
Coaching: Beane and management team all begin training to perform their functions, to use their skills in a way that contributes to the strategy. It's interesting how Beane gives players the concrete feedback and statistics (analysis) to help them better understand the current and desired performance, how they can use their unique abilities to help the team. Help players understand and focus on their unique strengths, and guide them to play hard. This is made even more exciting by the fact that these players are considered to be rejected by the other teams. Clear strategy and metrics are a good way to help players to do what the team needs most and also guide teamwork, how to get the most out of your team members. Give your employees a major part involved in something bigger than themselves. Help them be part of the success and make a difference, make a contribution to the team.
Real Problem: “Desperate times call for desperate measures” a common phrase we always hear it, and frankly we can say it is true, if we got back in history we found that most of advance technology were because of the world war. Beane repeatedly asking the scouting staff to state the real problem they are trying to solve is very helpful. Many times organizations lose their way by not knowing the real problem and waste a lot of time looking for a wrong direction. Leaders have to challenge the “it’s always been done this way” mind-set and push the organization out of its comfort zone to adopt a new strategy “ let us do it better. Believe on the goal: if you didn’t believe in your goal, how you are going to achieve it? And how do you expect that other will help you to achieve it. Despite that Beane is criticized all over the media for his approach. Still Beane and Brand stay the course, and remain optimistic that they can turn the it around. They continue to make the necessary moves to execute the strategy. Although Beane and his team break the record, but he keep motivated that the desire is to one all games till last game. Ignore the talking: this mean that when you set a goal try to achieve it whoever the talks are, because in life a lot of people are fighting the best people, wanting them to lose. The media credits with turning the season around despite having the most unlikely cast of characters, and Brand is incredulous. Beane completely dismisses it. And this is a leader way of handling haters. Around your team work: in the beginning of the movie, Beane never travels with the team, and delegates that to Brand instead. This has a disastrous effect since no one else in the organization matches Beane hunger to win. To be away from your team members, makes them unwanted you or even feel that you are out of the scope. But once he starts connecting with the players, and explaining his strategy to them, telling them he believes in them more than themselves, they start responding with higher intensity. This is why leaders should be always with their team. Encourage them, motivate them and off course leading them. Although Beane got a better job offer with attractive salary, he refuse it and stay with his team, this shows that leaders never upending their team. Below are more leadership lessons by Glenn Furuya: Leadership Lesson 1: Find work that best fits your strengths and interests. If one of these is lacking, chances of success diminish. See how this applies to Billy Beane, the Oakland A’s General Manager, played by Pitt. Leadership Lesson 2: Dr. Deming once proclaimed, “Management is prediction.” The success of small-market Oakland A’s in the early 2000s ties closely Billy Beane “system” to build a successful baseball franchise using statistical models to “predict” player performance. Leadership Lesson 3: “Adapt or die.” Beane took on the entrenched, old-guard baseball establishment with a new talent-selection methodology. Many dismissed his efforts and doomed it to fail. Adopting a similar system, the Boston Red Sox won two World Series Championships. Leadership Lesson 4: A primary aim of leadership is to build a better product at the lowest possible cost. Although they failed to win the World Series in 2002, the A’s won 103 games and claimed the longest winning streak in American League history, 20 games, with a line-up of cast-offs and undervalued players. Leadership Lesson 5: Sometimes people are more successful than they think. Many times people are making a difference and don’t even know that they are. The film ends with a metaphor, depicted through the attached video clip, which brings these points home. Also Mr. Gino Blefari published another 3 lessons which I fell it will add value to the subject: Lesson 1: Do not prematurely resolve tension. Billy refused to accept solutions from his scouts and assistants that were based on the old way of doing things. He may not have had his own solutions in the beginning, but he held the tension. He didn’t give up in the face of conflict every time he contradicted the so-called “experts.” Lesson 2: Staying in the fire focuses your attention on outside-the-box solutions. Billy met a young Yale economics graduate who was using sophisticated mathematical models to recruit and draft young players. Billy hired him after the young graduate confessed that according to his model, Billy himself got drafted way too high, and got paid way too much as a young major leagues player. Lesson 3: It’s not about you. Billy was functioning from a higher principle than ego. He really wanted to change how the players were evaluated and in turn how the game was won. Personality: Mr. Joan Chamberlain writes down in his blogs about the movies few points about Superiority personality types live their lives according to certain core ideas, a few of which are: * I love information. (These people are always experts in some subject.) * I can set multiple goals and I will reach them. * I treat life seriously. * I must figure it out (whatever it is). * I must be accurate, thorough and maintain high standards at whatever I do. * I want to make some meaningful contribution to life. By watching this movie you will be able to see this superiority personality types on Beane personality.

References: 1- advantureconsulting.com “MONEYBALL –GREAT LEADERSHIPMOVIE” by JOEL SHAPIRO 2- leadershipworks.com “Leadership Lessons from Moneyball” by Glenn Furuya 3- joansmoviereviews.com “ A deeper look at Moneyball” by Joan Chamberlain 4- hosted.verticalresponse.com “ Leadership skills to learn by Gino Blefari