I recently watched the Moneyball movie - a biopic after Billy Beane, the manager of the Oakland Athletics baseball team. It’s hard to imagine anything less relevant to me than baseball, but the movie is in large not about the game itself, but rather about how it’s managed and changed, so it did hit the right strings.
The plot revolves around a baseball team manager trying to change the rules and build a team that would win under severe budget constraints - totally about management and, particularly, change management. Below are the key thoughts that got running through my head by the time the end titles made it to the screen.
- If you gonna change the rules, there would be people who will oppose you. No exceptions.
- If you gonna change all the rules, almost everyone will oppose.
- There still will be people who support you - keep them, teach them, trust them and respect them.
- Building a winning team is not about picking the top players - it’s rather about picking the right ones, who cover the needs of the team.
- The needs of the team is what it has to do to win - preferably, expressed in figures. Nothing else matters.
- Winning is all about performance, performance is all about measurement - neither is about whom you like and whom you don’t.
- While building a team you will certainly have to hire people, but likewise you will have to fire someone.
- By the time the game begins the manager’s job is done - they can only watch how it develops and make a note of any required adjustments.
- The fact that you succeed at changing the world doesn’t mean that you win.
