One of the skills every great leader must master is teambuilding. How do you identify, develop, and retain top talent and then mold them into a functioning team? Great organizations have systematized this process.
There are several organizations I really admire when it comes to the subject of team building – the Alabama Crimson Tide, the New England Patriots, and Disney. Another is the Houston Astros.
Sports Illustrated writer Ben Reiter recently profiled the organization in his excellent book Astroball: The New Way To Win It All. While this focuses on the 2017 World Series champion baseball team, the book is all about leadership, innovation, and teambuilding. I can’t recommend this book enough. You can order a copy by clicking HERE or on the image provided.
The following are 10 Leadership Lessons From Astroball: Ben Reiter’s Book On The Houston Astros. First is the leadership principle, followed by an exact quote from the book.
- The Most Valuable Resource An Organization Has Is Its People – The Astros, though, had developed a method of integrating a recently overlooked source of information back into their decision-making: humans. The synthesized human observations into their probabilistic models, and made human responsible for triaging – and sometimes rejecting – the results… They sought to identify players who were unsatisfied with their lot, who possessed an uncommon drive, and ability to improve. A growth mindset, they called it.
- Great Organizations Rarely Started Out Great – (Astros general manger Ted) Luhnow said, “At the end of the day, when you’re in 2017, you don’t really care that much about whether we lost 98 or 107 in 2012. You care about how close we are to winning a championship in 2017.”
- You Hire The Culture You Want – Luhnow set about building a front office team largely composed of modern thinkers like him, who could bring a new perspective to the game.
- Smart Organizations Compensate Based Upon Production Rather Than Potential – Sig Megdal said, “If a human being can sense it, a human being can quantify it. If he can quantify it, he can learn about it.” How many funds a player could be expected to produced measured against the salary he was likely to command.
- Trust Your Process And Allow It To Influence Your Decision-Making – Sig said, “What if we don’t have good results?.. All we can control is the process, and I’m confident we’re creating good processes and making good decisions. The rest is hope.”
- Hire Employees With A Growth Mindset – At a certain point, the decisions were out of the front office’s hands. They belonged to the players themselves: how hard to train, what to eat, how willing they were to use those tools to determine which pitches to swing at and which to throw. That was where having a growth mindset was important.
- The Leader’s Best Friend No One Talks About – Luck – The owner’s patience also allowed the Astros to benefit from the best friend of even the most disciplined gambler: luck.
- Perspective And An Abundance Mindset Are Everything – Barry Bonds said, “Sometimes you’re in an oh-for-ten slump, and you might start to doubt your ability. But you have to understand that every time you walk to the plate, the person who is in trouble isn’t you. It’s the pitcher.”
- The Most Successful People Are The Most Organized People – Carlos Beltran said, “He (Justin Verlander) is the most prepared pitcher I’ve ever been around.”
- Winners Simply Get More Opportunity Than Others – Alex Bregman said, “One of the reasons I have this opportunity is because I’m a winner.”
- ***BONUS*** Talent Acquisition Is Not Homogenous. Smart Leaders Assemble Great Teams From A Variety Of Places – Of the 25 players on his World Series roster, Luhnow had inherited three, drafted four, traded for nine, and signed nine as free agents, with the idea of assembling a roster that could not just win once but keep doing it.
Once again, Astroball: The New Way To Win It All is a great book! Pick up your copy today by clicking HERE. Also, I still have the Astros in seven games to win the World Series again this year!