Baseball Success and Organizational Transformation
Bringing home a championship is a dream for any sports team, but Houston Astro winning the 2017 World Series baseball championship was extra sweet by lifting the spirit of the city shortly after the disastrous flood which devastated a large part of the city. The book by Ben Reiter, Astroball: the new way to win it all, describes in details how general manager Jeff Luhnow systematically led the transformational change of Houston Astro from a historically worst professional baseball team in 2014 to its first ever world championship in a few short years.
I had the fortunate opportunity to attend a lunch speech by Mr Jeff Luhnow last week, not about baseball but about transformational changes occurred in the Astro organization which dealt with remarkably similar issues to changes in any other industries. Here are some of the insights he shared:
Have a vision shared from the top
At the very beginning when Mr. Luhnow shared his vision, he was able to receive the unflinching support from the owner from day one.
Have the right people who share the vision
Baseball is an industry with a lot of traditions and way of doing things. To install his vision, Mr Luhnow had to make many tough personal decisions including letting go of many with tremendous amount of knowledge and experience but not a good fit with the new culture. More importantly, he had to identify people who could be part of the solution, champion the changes, celebrate the success. Creating a new culture is hard but in the end, it is all about people.
Communicate the vision with strategic customers
Houston Astro proactively engaged with its season ticket holders and invited over 800 fans and speak directly with them about the vision. By sharing the vision, the fan base indirectly becomes the change ambassadors.
Leverage Technology
While baseball traditionally is most about experience and judgement. Mr Luhnow integrated sophisticated data analytics into the talent scouting process in conjunction of human experience.
Talent development
Focus on long terms and sustainable success not short term success with big time free agents.
Be bold and willing to make mistakes
Mr Luhnow openly admitted that he had made many mistakes including the releasing of JD Martínez who is now the star outfielder in the Boston Red Sox. The key is to accept responsibility and learn from the mistakes. He used the term - on the bleeding edge - to describe the learning through making mistakes.
If you take out baseball from the story, you would realize how remarkable the insights apply to the success of organization changes in any industries!
(P.S. Fifteen years ago in 2003, I was on a small team at Wharton MBA program that worked on a strategy project with the Boston Red Sox management including owner John Henry, President Larry Lucciano when the Red Sox, managed by Theo Epstein at the time, was going through its organizational change under Mr John Henry’s ownership. Mr Henry shared his vision and insights on where he wanted the Red Sox team to be. The Red Sox won the World Series the following year in 2004 after a long drought since 1918. Coincidentally, the team they beat in the World Series that year was the St. Louis Cardinals where Mr Jeff Luhnow was working at the time.)