What Do Baseball and Toyota Have in Common?
April 13th, 2005 by HalIt's that time of year again. Baseball is on our minds. Only this year the NY Yankees are in the basement. Perhaps they need a little of Lou Pinealla's wisdom. My friend and co-blogger Joe Ely (also a baseball enthusiast) writes Learning about Lean. His latest posting Making Change Happen references the work of Jeff Angus.
Jeff has a marvelous weblog Management by Baseball where he offers an interpretation of management and leadership inspired by his years writing about baseball and consulting to business. Last week he offered this posting on leading change in organizations, Slipstream the Cosmic Wisdom of Lou Piniella. Jeff's wisdom comes through even for those of us who are not wrapped up in the game. Here's Jeff's wrap-up of the Lou Piniella approach to change:
BEYOND BASEBALL
The Piniella Solution then, is
- Start at the bottom of the org chart and solicit suggestions in the "What needs changing/improving around here" line.
- Act quickly and publicize the change.
- Follow up with more right away so you can accustom staff and adjacent departments that change is an on-going thing, and that it has payoffs.
The approach is not effortless or without its own potential pitfalls. Many times, line workers "don't get it", "it" being strategy or marketing fine points or subtle initiatives. Some suggestions will be entirely dysfunctional and not based in any reality. Okay, both are frequently true, but line staff know things others don't, those things are usually not valued, and there's much more to be mined there.
Taiichi Ohno had similar advice: Go to the workplace. I wonder what else baseball and Toyota have in common?
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April 15th, 2005 at 4:07 pm
Well,
As a Dane I am not that familiar with American sports. However, some years ago Gregg lend me a wonderful book by Robert Keidel comparing sports with management. His point (Keidel) was that baseball was a game between individuals, Football was the game by teams, albeit with very strictly procedures for the team’s handling of any foreseeable situation just as a machine, whereas basketball was the real flexible play of teams improvising based on intuition and based on training in handling the unforeseen.
Recognizing the complex nature of projects and the loosely coulpled system usually undertaking them, the challenge seems to me (and as far as I remember to Greg) to how to move the group from baseball to basketball?
Sven
April 15th, 2005 at 4:21 pm
That would be Greg Howell’s idea — moving from baseball to basketball. But the point of Managing by Baseball is that Lou Piniella brings an unusual leadership that is responsible for people playing baseball in a more team fashion. Take a look at the article to see the team statistics. Even a Dane can appreciate increasing “wins” is the point of the game!