Saturday, June 4, 2011

Performance Management Lessons From The Baseball Diamond

I'm a big fan of baseball, and the Phillies / Reds game last Wednesday was one for the ages. Watching the game develop throughout its 19 innings, I saw some spectacular plays, some pretty awful plays, and some truly unexpected things that bordered on downright near impossible.

How did these near impossible things happen? Because Phillies manager Charlie Manuel understands how to get the most out of his players. He knows when to ask for more from a player. He knows when to sit a guy down, even if the guy insists he can keep going. When it comes to performance management, Charlie Manuel gets it.

Here are my performance management takeaways from this epic game.

1. Be in it - and stay in it - for the long haul

The average baseball game lasts less than three hours. Last Wednesday's game was a marathon at 6 hours and 11 minutes.  As the game went on (and on and on) neither team gave up.

Neither did the die-hard fans. The crowd dwindled from more than 45,000 to about 10,000, but those who stuck it out and stayed until after 1 AM Thursday morning were treated to some great baseball. It's something they're not likely to forget anytime soon.

We're all tempted by quick fixes. It's easy to write someone off when a project implodes or a deadline is blown. But it's really the long term that matters. It's important to think about why the project imploded or the deadline was blown, and what can you do to prevent it from happening again. Is there a problem in communication? Is more training required? Sometimes you've got to be willing to struggle a little bit with performance problems in the short term to get to the performance you want in the long term. As Charlie Manuel said, "You never know ... You stay with it until the end. It's like Yogi Berra said, it ain't over until it's over and the fat lady sings."

2. Amazing Things Can Happen

Before last week, Charlie Manuel had never used a position player as a pitcher in his managerial career. But with the bullpen empty and not wanting to risk the other starting pitchers, he was left with little choice. He called on Valdez: "They asked me if I could pitch and I said, 'Yeah, why not?'"

I'm pretty sure Charlie wasn't expecting anything amazing from Valdez, but it ended up to be a pretty amazing outing. "I think he got his fastball up to 88, 89 miles per hour," Manuel said. "That's better than some guys I see out there." That's a pretty big compliment coming from Charlie.

We usually only get what we ask for from our employees. We have to be willing to revisit the expectations we've set for them. That can be uncomfortable for us, because it involves taking a risk. But if it's a calculated risk, it can really pay off.

Valdez started the game at second base and ended up as the winning pitcher. He ended up as the winning pitcher because Charlie asked him to pitch and he stepped up and pitched. And it turned out amazing. The last player to start a game in the field and earn a win was Babe Ruth on Oct. 1, 1921. There may be an unscouted Babe Ruth or Wilson Valdez in your organization, waiting for an opportunity to do something amazing.

3. Know your limits

The flip side of giving people an opportunity to do something amazing is to be aware of limits. In last week's game, Valdez took over for relief pitcher Danys Baez. Baez went five innings and threw 73 pitches - no small feat for a reliever. He was the last available pitcher for the Phillies, and asked to stay in so Valdez wouldn't have to face the middle of the Reds' order. Charlie said no.

Baez has to be commended for wanting to stay in the game and help out his team. But if Charlie had let him continue to pitch, things could have been disastrous. Not only for this particular game, but possibly for the rest of the season if an injury occurred. Relievers like Baez aren't conditioned mentally or physically to throw for long periods of time. Typically they go one or two innings at the most, and often face only one hitter in an outing. Baez was coming seriously close to reaching his limit, if he hadn't surpassed it already.

Even though there were no pitchers left, Charlie knew that he had to take Baez out even if it meant losing the game. He knew Baez's limits. We should encourage our employees to stretch. But we also have to know how far is too far, even if our employees don't.  Even if they beg and plead with us to take on just one more thing, just this once. The best performers often don't know - or acknowledge - their limits. It's important for us to know what's within reach, what's out of reach, and to help our people avoid burnout and think about what they realistically can accomplish.

4. Have fun!

When the game finally ended after 1 AM the next morning, Valdez pounded his glove with excitement. His teammates were also excited, and gave him the customary shaving-cream-pie-in-the-face. When speaking to the media, Valdez said "It was fun. It's something that I will never forget." As he gave this quote, he still had shaving cream in his ears.

One of the sports commentators said that his favorite moment of the game was the middle of the 19th inning. Valdez had just come off the mound, his team swarmed to congratulate him, and there was a smile on every one of their faces. To paraphrase, the commentator said that the players all take their jobs very seriously ( he said "seriously like brain surgery") but at that moment they were just a bunch of guys getting together for a weekend game, having a good time.

That's the moment we should all remember - the moment when we're excited about what we do, happy to be doing it with the people around us. Remember to have fun!

Stephanie R. Thomas is an economic and statistical consultant specializing in EEO issues and employment litigation risk management. For more than a decade, she's been working with businesses and government agencies providing expert analysis. Stephanie has published several articles on examining compensation systems with respect to internal equity, and has appeared on NPR to discuss the gender wage gap. She is the host of The Proactive Employer Podcast, and is the founder of Thomas Econometrics.

Thanks to Compensation Café
http://www.compensationcafe.com/2011/06/performance-management-lessons-from-the-baseball-diamond.html

 

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