Moneyball - a surprising life lesson

I watched the movie Moneyball mostly because I am a Brad Pitt fan and because I was curious about the hype. I had resisted watching the movie because I thought it was about baseball and analytics - two things I have to admit don’t appeal to me so it was not at the top of my list.

Moneyball turned out to be a great reminder about life’s lessons. Contrary to popular belief Moneyball is not about baseball and more importantly it is not about analytics. It is a story about life. It is a story about faith. About cooperation. About leadership. Confidence building. Instinct. But most of all it is a story about learning from past mistakes, rebuilding and sharing the knowledge. Falling flat on our face and rising again – sometimes much later than we ever thought we would.

A term now imprinted on my brain was when Billy Beane, the manager of the Oakland A’s, said, “Adapt or Die”. This line I'm sure was meant to be dramatic in the movie but it is the classic way in which we as human beings survive or for that matter any species thrives - we have to adapt to our changing environment or we will die.

Billy Beane recognised that he was in a no win situation. All his best players were picked off by some of the wealthier top teams. He felt the only way he was going to be in the same position he was before was to go after similar players and pay the high costs he needed to get them.  However his management team decided he had to operate within the confines of the budget he had so there was no way he was going to be able to replace his lost players with players of their kind.

While on his quest to find a solution, with doors slamming in his face before he could complete a sentence, Beane came across a young graduate from Stanford University who had never worked before in his life. Yet he observed seasoned coaches turning to him when he was trying to pick up players. He wanted to know why. He approached the graduate to find out what he knew. The graduate showed him how he statistically traced players to show their worth. And how some of the passed over players were undervalued compared to the high flying players.

Beane was scouted out of high school because he appeared to be the complete package. He was drafted in the first round and paid a huge salary only to buckle under pressure and fall on his face. He walked away from baseball and became a scout himself. Until he landed the manager position at the Oakland A’s.

From his own failure, Beane knew a player had to believe he was successful in order to be successful. He recognised that being a player was either in someone or not.

Combining his experience with the proven track record of the analytics, he took baby steps to rebuild his team. He fired his top scout because the top scout did not believe in him anymore. He knew he had to trust his instincts. Beane recognised that he needed a team of players to cooperate with each other. He fired those who were not team players because he could not afford to have any negative energy pulling the team down or anyone distracting the team from keeping their eye on the prize. He also recognised he needed a player to take the mentoring role to help pull the young team together. Knowing that the person he chose had to be someone who had a vested interest in winning.

Once he put his proper strategy in place, the team started winning and the naysayers stopped talking. The excitement grew but Billy knew that it didn't matter how many games he won, if he didn't get to the playoffs the public would turn their backs on him because they were convinced it was Analytics that was driving the game and not baseball. And Billy did lose the last game and all the naysayers came back again saying baseball is not won by statistics it is won by good players and strategy.

Billy fell into somewhat of a slump after that because he did not see that sometimes we hit home runs and don't even realise we have because the prize at the end is not the one we were expecting. Winning sometimes doesn't mean collecting the big prize at the end. Sometimes it means effecting change. Bringing out the best in ourselves which in turn brings out the best in others.

Sometimes winning means just enjoying the show. Going with the flow. Doing what feels right for us because "it's always a lot to be something we are not."

Though Billy may not have won the championship as he so wanted what he did win was more important - faith in himself again and his value restored. He effected change by doing what he believed in.  And always that is more important.