Baseball And Business: Success Breeds Success.

Welcome to my newsletter. In this space, I hope to share with you insights from our team as we dive into the world of Connecting Talent to Value. Today I would like to share with you the first in a series of videos relaying a great conversation I had recently with ASU Baseball Head Coach, Tracy Smith. This conversation lays the foundation of our collective pursuit, in baseball as in business, to Connect Talent to Value and achieve success. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

Below is a transcript of this conversation:

Sandy Ogg: Today, I'm talking with Tracy Smith, the head baseball coach for Arizona State University. In my eyes, he's the CEO of ASU baseball. I've watched how he thinks and how he acts in that role, and it reminds me so much of the CEOs that I work with from all different kinds of business applications. When Tracy and I met and started talking about the application of business and business concepts and ideas to sports, I realized the connection there. Maybe we could begin, Tracy, with you introducing yourself and talking a little bit about the career you've built over these years to land in such a cool job as ASU baseball.

 Tracy Smith: So I'm the small-town guy who happens to be luckily coaching at arguably one of the best baseball institutions in the country. I'm an undergraduate degree at Miami University. Played there, coached there, was a head coach for nine years there, built a program. Having some success there and then moving on to Indiana University for nine years as a head coach, I implemented some of these strategies and ultimately ended up here. 

I was always fascinated by the intense similarities between what I do as a baseball coach and what I've done in my career and what you've done in the business world. I've always enjoyed and actively would seek out conversations with people in the business world because -and you know this- success is success. And, I think when you look at whether it's a coach or someone in the corporate world, we're dealing with the same things. It may be a different uniform, it may be a different playing field, but the one common denominator is: we're dealing with people. And, you're not going to have success unless you surround yourself with good people. So, I've always been fascinated with that relationship. That's -if I remember correctly- how our conversations went and what ultimately led to the development of our relationship over time. But "who am I?" I'm a small-town Indiana guy who has small-town values but who takes my job very, very seriously. I don't take myself seriously. But, I am someone who had a plan, maybe didn't know what I was doing, but that's where you come into the picture because of what you made me think about and put that stuff pen to paper. So, that's who I am.  

 SO: I can remember, vividly remember, some of our early conversations…

 TS: …we would have some long conversations, but I remember every single time when I'd hang up that phone, I'd be like... "You know, I just feel better because it made me like there's -maybe not confusion- but these things that were perhaps a little bit disoriented or not organized my mind. You forced me to organize my thoughts. And through that process, what that did is it was the confidence thing, too.

 We've since expanded those conversations into what you do in your real life, developing people and helping them put together plans for success. I was just as intrigued because I never looked at myself as like the CEO, but when you tagged that name in that, well, "yeah, you really are a CEO."

 I've been a head coach or a CEO of my business for 18 to 20 plus years but had never organized the thoughts that were swirling around in my head. If I'm the guy running my local pizza shop, I've got to develop as I expand, and maybe that becomes a franchise or whatever. So you have to evolve, and you have to become more organized, and you made me do that. That's the part that I want to share with the world is these concepts aren't just unique to baseball. They're not just unique to the business world. You have a really, really good system.

 SO: the other thing that is amazing to me as I've gotten to know it is how demanding the environment is and how high the expectations are. There are some businesses I've worked for and worked with, where the accountability was daily and rough and brutal, but not many. But, man, the business you're in, it's ROUGH, and the expectations are HIGH. And, it's played out in front of everybody. Either we won, or we lost, and either we're moving in the direction of being a champion, or we're not. There aren't that many businesses where the accountability is that clear and brutal.

If you like the topic and are interested to learn more, download our whitepaper "In the Field: Talent to Value Wins in Baseball."

I hope you all enjoyed my Newsletter!

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