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Welcome to Lead Wisely by WonderTour We are back in our Game Theory series in episode 136
and we are talking about the movie Moneyball.

So Brian, we start out with tough questions about leadership on this podcast.

Talk to me about Billy Bean, this hero leader character in this movie.

What is Billy Bean's leadership superpower and why?

Awesome.

We love this conversation.

I will assert that Billy Beane starts the movie with one leadership superpower and in the
course of the movie has to develop a very important second one.

So at the beginning of the movie, as we talked about in our last episode, he's in sort of
a dire situation.

He doesn't have the money to compete head to head with the wealthiest teams in the league
and he's just lost all his best players.

And so he's sort of forced into a fairly desperate situation as a GM.

And as we talked about in last episode, the thing that he does very skillfully, the
leadership superpower that he deploys over and over again, right up front, is the one that

we call vision.

He is able to zoom out from his local situation, his immediate problem and recontextualize
it.

Right.

So in the, you know, in the scene with the scouts, he he's challenging him like the
problem is not that we have to replace, you know, the, the, the best lead off hitter that

we had.

The problem is not that we have to replace 120 RBI's.

The problem is not that we have to find some da-da-da-da, know, find another first
basement.

The problem is that we have less money than the other teams do.

And so we have to be doing something differently.

this, out that far and reframing the conversation as this is an unfair game and we can't
play the same recruiting strategy, the same strategy to fill our team with players is what

opens him to the idea of like,

this crazy statistics kid who is whispering in somebody's ear in this other meeting that I
had, I'm going to go talk to him.

Like, what are you doing?

Wow.

That's a new way of looking at the world.

Like he's open to revolutionizing the way he does the job because he's committed to the
big picture of like, I need to win games.

I want to win the world series, but he's not actually committed to the mechanics.

He's like, I'm totally open to blowing stuff up if it'll work better.

And that's because he understands what game he's playing, which is like, I'm, I have a
different challenge than the GM of the Yankees.

Mm-hmm.

So he uses that very effectively and he uses that skill over and over again.

When he's talking to his players, when he's talking to the owner, when he's talking to the
scouts, when he's trying to explain what the strategy is and how it's going to work, he's

very good at recontextualizing.

Like, okay, even during the course of the season, when some things work and some things
don't, he's like, okay, I guess this isn't working.

These players are maybe need to be traded.

These other players are not working out the way I thought.

I actually want this other thing.

we see him.

doing a really good job of this high level vision of where super clear, where do I want to
go?

How do all the pieces fit together?

We talked a lot in the last episode about making the individual trades, the individual
plays add up to something coherent and not just be, not just try to win each trade, but

try to win the overall result of the trades.

But that's only half the story, right?

Yeah, because he starts out with this great.

You can tell he's a visionary, right?

He's more concerned with the future and the ideas of a thing than he is with the mechanics
of a thing, which is a telltale sign of a visionary.

So what does he do, though, throughout the movie?

Because at the beginning, that visionary trait helps him, but it also hurts him.

if not combined with other leadership superpowers, put another way, you don't actually
achieve the full outcome.

Well, yeah, and this is, think, a lot of our experience.

If you try to revolutionize something inside an organization, if you try to change the way
that everybody's working, if you try to change the goals and measure them in new ways and

put new people in roles that they aren't comfortable with.

what always happens, inevitably in that case, of course, is that everything goes perfectly
the first time and it's very smooth and you succeed right out of the gate when the world's

serious, right?

Of course.

No, no, this never happens.

Zero percent of the time does a revolution work seamlessly from day zero, right?

And so what we see in the first half of this movie is that he puts this land of misfit
toys together and the players themselves are kind of a pirate's crew of people who are

sort of loosey goosey and sort of in different, you know, different levels of maturity.

the Scouts don't understand to the point where he has to fire the head scout,

the coach, you the manager super doesn't understand it, like fights him tooth and nail the
entire way.

and what happens is they lose a whole bunch of games, right?

Like they are the worst team in baseball for like the first 30 games of the season.

Super not working.

Everybody looks like idiots.

He looks like an idiot.

They want to fire him.

The Saber Metrics Revolution is clearly not taking over the world.

Right.

And again, he's manages to zoom out and sort of, you know, realize like, okay, well the
thing that's happened, what's going on here is that.

We put the pieces in place, but they're not actually interacting with each other way that
they need to, like it's not working.

So, so he does two things.

One of the things that he does is he doubles down.

He's like, all right, manager's not playing the players that I wanted to play.

I'm going to trade away all of the people that he likes better.

All of these slightly better first baseman that don't get on bases often.

I'm going to do all of that so that the, have to do it my way.

Right?

So he doubles down on his strategy.

He doubles down on this is either going to work or I'm going to be a 44 year old guy with
a.

high school diploma who just got fired.

But then the second thing that he does is much more impactful and much more work.

And this we get in a series of kind of training montages and stuff is that he, he gets
down to ground level himself and he starts to develop the superpower of compassion.

And we talk about this one a lot on what are two or two, and it seems a little touchy
feely and a little bit, you know, a little bit Disney for, baseball or for, business

leaders.

But the challenge that he has at the beginning, he has a little monologue to Pete about, I
don't, I don't travel with the players.

I don't hang out with the players.

I don't form relationships with them because I might have to fire them someday.

Like, you know, I just, stay, you know, I don't even go to the game.

I don't even watch the games.

Right.

Like, you know, he's super putting walls up between himself and his team.

and it's not working.

Right.

And so the second thing that he does was he starts to develop his skills and compassion is
like, he starts actually talking to the players.

He starts getting them on board with this is what we're trying to do.

Like this is the way we're trying to accomplish.

This is the way we have to play the game.

These are our, this is what success is going to look like for us.

This is how you fit in and why I picked you random misfit toy off of the street to be my
relief picture.

Like all of this stuff.

And I love that.

I love that part of this movie where it's like, it's, you know, these are humans.

They are not objects.

They are subjects.

They are people.

And

they don't get on base because they go stand at the plate and magically, 32 % of the time,
they go stand at first base.

It doesn't just happen by them standing there.

They have to do things.

And they're going to be much better at doing the things if they understand what they're
trying to do and why and how it fits into the bigger picture.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So when we come back after the intro, let's talk more about how we balance the numbers and
the people because that's really the story of Billy Bean.

So when we come back after the intro, let's talk more about how we balance the numbers and
the people because that's really the story of Billy Bean.

He can see how the numbers are going to work, but now we have to figure out how to
actually implement that transformative change in the minds of the people that we work

with.

Yes, love it.

Hi, I'm Brian Notwell.

And we are on a journey to lead wisely, to become better leaders by touring fantastic
worlds and inspiring lore by going on a wonder tour.

We connect leadership concepts to story context because it sticks to our brains better.

You can find out more at wondertorpodcast.com.

So yeah, tell me more about this.

Balance the numbers and the people.

It's the hardest thing to do, right?

Because if you're a numbers minded person, then the first thing that comes to your mind is
how do I numberize the people?

How do I, how do I numerize the people?

But that's not really how it works.

And I think one of the coolest parts of this movie is the kind of mutual mentorship that
happens between Billy and Pete, where Billy surely teaches Pete

a lot about the game of baseball and managing it and players and business.

Exactly.

All of that.

But Pete really teaches Billy about math and about people, about both of them, because
Pete's like, well, we can't just do this thing.

We also have to consider what the what the feedback of the people is going to be if we do
this thing, even if the numbers suggest that we should do it.

We don't always just do what the numbers suggest and.

Even at first, Billy's like, no, I'm 100 % dedicated to this.

We're going to do it.

You know, he tells Pete, you just got to walk in.

It's a business transaction.

Don't waste any time and just tell people that they're caught, that they're traded,
whatever.

And that's what he does.

In fact, the situation with Jeremy Giambi, it's quite comical, right?

Where he not only lets Jeremy know in a matter of fact way, but he also does it in front
of art, the manager.

as an affront to art to be like, like screw you guys, you won't listen to me and play into
my plan.

This is what you're going to get.

I will trade, yes, I will trade your players in your office in front of you and you will
watch it happen until you get on board.

Yeah, brutal.

And obviously this is not the highest EQ situation or anything, right?

That he does this to art.

Like there was many ways he could have potentially addressed art other than this.

Now, sometimes you do end up with an art and the only way is to...

And this is really a last resort, but I have seen it before.

Like the only way to get past that person is metrics and going above them.

That's it.

Because they are not going to change their mind.

They will not do things in a different way.

We've tried...

umpteen times and they won't do it.

So in the art situation, I get it.

Maybe Billy makes a judgment.

That's what he's got to do.

But ideally, Brian, he become more like the Billy later in the movie where he is starting
to learn the lesson and have the superpower of compassion.

this is such a, it's such a real arc because we all, we all do this, right?

Like if you're in a position where you're a leader and you have potential authority over
people's careers and their promotions and their raises and all those things, like then

you, you, you want to be liked, you want to spend time with the people that you work
around and like have good relationships with them all, but you also.

want to have your shields up of like, oh, I might have to be, I might have to be mean.

I might have to be cold and calculating and numeric.

the company might tell me that we got to lay off 20 % of our staff.

Like it might not even be my idea, but you want to protect yourself.

so, Billy starts out very much as the, don't deal with the players.

Like they're just, they're just pieces on the chessboard to me.

But he, he gets to the point where he's like, but that doesn't get any of us where we want
to go.

Like I need them to buy into this.

They're already, many of them are intrinsically biased towards him because they were
players who were undervalued and he took a chance on them.

Right?

You he gave them opportunities when they didn't look like the right kind of player.

So they, he had a, and that's also common, right?

You know, if you, if you hired somebody, if you bring them in, if you put them in a good
position, they will often be open to you challenging them to do things in a different way.

but like not talking to them and protecting yourself doesn't get you a relationship where
they'll take a risk.

doesn't get you a relationship where they'll learn something new.

And so we, he does have to, he does have to get there to the point where he is able to
zoom out and give context, but then he has to get all the way down to ground level at

least some of the time to make sure that he understands what's happening there and make
sure that they understand what's

So let's talk about our mountaintop moment here then, because our mountaintop moment is
kind of the turning point, or at least as it's shown in the story for Billy, where he

isn't quite looking at players as transactions anymore.

And it's after they acquire Rincon, the relief pitcher that they're really excited about.

And at this point in baseball, you have a 25-man roster.

if you're going to be over that roster limit, then by the next day, you have to send
somebody down.

meaning you either cut them and sign them to a minor league contract or just cut them out,
right?

If they won't resign to a minor league contract.

so they have to choose somebody to cut in this situation.

Right.

And so this is a direct fallout from the really fun mountain top scene from our last
episode where they have this telephone game of negotiating a trade for a great new relief

pitcher.

Unlike his monologue at the beginning of the game where he's like, I don't form
relationships and I just go cut the people and I don't get engaged or whatever.

he actually goes and sits down with the guy in the locker room.

And he's, you he's pretty business like about it.

Like he gets right to the point.

He's like, Hey, you know,

We got this thing going on and they quickly understand what's happening.

But what's good about it, as you can see, is he's not shielding himself.

he's not avoiding the responsibility of what he's doing.

He's not hiding from the fact that these are real humans involved and he's about to tell a
real human really terrible news that you're basically getting fired from your job.

And he would have done that earlier in the movie, right?

He would have protected himself from that human's actual emotions.

And he doesn't in this scene.

He's just there with him and he knows that it sucks and he's aware that he's the one doing
it.

But he's not protecting himself from that.

He's willing to just sit with it and recognize that's part of the burden that comes with
being a leader.

Mm-hmm.

And that's one of the examples of how we can see something go down is like you said, he
kind of goes in and he is, he does have compassion.

sits down next to him.

He does it in the locker room and he doesn't just come out with it.

He's kind of like, yeah, it's not going to be good news.

And he understands the weight of that as a guy who himself at one point was cut.

Obviously.

And I think that's one of the things like you are kind of alluding to that he's trying to
protect himself from this entire time is, you know, he has bad memories of not being good

enough at the major league level.

And they mentioned multiple times the kind of theme, like everybody's going to get cut at
some point, right?

Or like everybody's going to play their last game and they use it in different ways.

But in this way, this is Billy coming to terms with his own trauma

he's still showing that you can be a visionary, that you can be pragmatic and look at the
numbers and take action.

But the, have to balance that.

Even if you're going to make the decision in favor of the numbers, you have to actually
spend time with the people, build trust, you know, let them know that they're cared for,

that their love regardless.

And I, only can imagine

where that goes going forward.

Obviously it's a movie and who knows what the actual historical arc is, but those sort of
moments, I think, are when our character develops, when we recognize that what we've done

in the past hasn't necessarily been the actual right way to do it.

And to Billy's credit, he's humble.

He's always willing to learn.

He's always willing to think that somebody else could have a better idea than he has.

And I think this is him learning from Pete here a little bit.

that maybe getting closer to the players isn't a bad thing.

Even if you have to let them go, know, leaning into the emotions is a part of being human
and every human craves it in a way.

if you're going to be in a leadership role, if you're going to aspire to leadership, you
can't avoid that responsibility.

You can't avoid the chance that you're going to have those moments where you've got to
give somebody really bad news.

You've got to make a really hard decision.

Right.

And it's, and that because

The whole team, the other 25 people are depending on you to make the right decision,
right?

Like it's better for the team to have the real picture you just traded for.

Like that was the whole point was like trying to get the right people in the room to have
the best chance of winning the game.

but if you're going to do that, you don't, you're not off the hook for then you had to let
somebody go.

those kinds of obligations are going to fall on you as a leader and you can't shy away
from them.

It's tough because in each individual situation, it's not obvious what the thing is to do.

But I think if that's the case, we're always looking for models or frameworks here on
Wonder Tour.

And the framework is actually kind of obvious.

The framework is, get the information, gather the information, right?

What is the outcome that we're trying to drive?

What?

Yeah.

And then what are the inputs that we have?

Like what do we have control over?

How do we manage this situation?

You need all that information in order to make a good decision.

But then you also need to just consult the people.

You need to just be there with the people.

it's not going to be easy necessarily to make a decision exclusively on the numbers and
then consult the people.

Or there's, it's, there's definitely times, Brian, I'm sure you've had to do the same
where you need to prioritize the people over the numbers.

There's absolutely times where like the numbers say we should do one thing.

Mm-hmm.

what I'm going to propose we do instead is take care of the people and how to navigate
that.

What we talk about, I don't even know where it's from, but there's a idea of leading at
the edges.

And a lot of the best leaders that we have followed and aspire to be like led at the
edges, right?

They lead between being visionary and seeing things at a high level, seeing over the hill,
but they also

take accountability for their decisions, and they spend time with the actual people.

Right.

And I think that's, and the one caution I want to say is that's not the same as
micromanaging, right?

Leading at the edges is not getting into everybody's business every minute of the day and
questioning their ability to do the job.

Right?

The leading at the edges part is about ensuring alignment.

It's making sure that everybody knows what they're trying to do and why, and knows how it
fits into everything else so they can make decisions in the moment.

Cause you can't lead at all the edges all the time, by definition.

You can't be in all those places.

Right.

So the point of getting out to the edges is not to catch them screwing up.

It's not to show them that you're better at something than they are.

It's not to try to micromanage it, to avoid mistakes.

It's to ensure alignment.

And that's, yeah.

do see Billy in like that montage section in the movie have some good examples where he's
going and spending time with the older, player and he's telling him, you know, we what's

in it for him, what's in it for Billy, he's laying the cards on the table.

And sometimes as a leader, that's what you do.

You lay the cards on the table and let everybody know what's actually happening.

And you just try to gain alignment.

Like you said, and there's other times when

What you're going to need to do is you're going to need to sit in there and explain the
numbers, right?

They're going to be a numbers oriented person or somebody whose job it is to deal with the
numbers.

And so you just got to explain the finances or you've got to explain like, Hey, this is
the metric that we're trying to hit.

Like, do you understand how this connects to the job that you're doing?

Yeah, show them the film.

Like this is what happened when this thing happened and what we really wanted was X, Y,
and Z.

And here was the opportunity.

you know, show them the data.

Yeah.

So think, yeah, this is, this is a great example movie of that, of the constant moving
back and forth between the zoomed out, the numbers, the abstract conception of the

business and zoomed in the people, the hands-on relationships, the alignment of
incentives, the alignment of purpose.

It was really fun to watch.

that's.

You know, and I think that's a good challenge for us, or practically right on a daily
basis is like, what percentage of your time are you spending?

Like thinking about the big picture, looking at the numbers, looking at the strategy,
thinking about how your organization could be working better than it is today.

And then what percentage of your time are you like checking to see if it's actually doing
those things on the ground and making sure everybody understands what, where you're going

and why.

Like, and if you're only doing one or the other, you may be missing the opportunity to do
what.

what we see Billy being doing in this movie.

Yeah, you've got to align the dreams top to bottom in the organization.

I know that's going to seem like a completely out of left field thing to say here, but
it's kind of what it is, right?

Because your strategy and your vision that you're assuming collaboratively coming up with,
as we see Billy and Pete doing here for the organization, that's important.

That's your dream.

But if that dream isn't aligned with the dreams of the individual contributors, the
players, the coaches at some point.

it's not going to work.

So you have to actually do the work to create the vision, but then you have to do the work
to align the vision.

And then, by the way, there's another communication mechanism back up where sometimes the
players and the coaches are going to have a vision and the right thing to do, or even the

smart thing to do is to find a way to incorporate that back into the overall vision and
dream that we have.

And it's inherently iterative, right?

Like we talked about earlier, like it's, it's going to fail the first time it's going to
fail the first 30 times, it's going to be worse before it gets better.

Right.

But nobody else is going to get to that better state, except the people that are willing
to question blowing things up.

The people that are willing to question trying things in a different orientation.

And that's the message you've to keep sharing is like the whole point of this is that
we're not playing the same game everybody else was playing.

We've got this new insight and we're going to leverage that and we're going to be trying
this new thing and it's going to be great.

Like that has to be the message.

Like that has to be the message.

It's awesome Brian, another great episode.

loved Moneyball.

Yeah, so it was fun to revisit this one.

hadn't seen this one in while.

So this was really cool.

All right.

Well, that's all for this episode.

Thank you as always for joining us on our continuing journey to become better leaders, to
lead wisely.

We hope you'll join us next week.

In the meantime, just remember, as always, character is destiny and character can be
cultivated.