Organizational Executives vs. Baseball Executives

The team owner sits in a private, exclusive area at the stadium to watch the game. They have made it to the World Series, where everything rests on this final game! If his team wins, all the pride, prestige, and monetary rewards will follow. If his team loses, well, it’s a very different story then. He reflects on the players and managers he and his executive team chose, the amount of practice everyone put in, all the other untold but critical decisions they made, and hope it’s enough. Everything is on the line–reputation, millions of dollars, even the future. The pressure of the team’s performance in a game this important is enormous, and the owner feels it acutely! 

That’s undoubtedly how you feel as an executive when you sit in the C-Suite and are responsible for deciding which projects to fund and which to kill. So much is at stake! At the end of the year, when it’s time for financial reports to be published, you reflect back on whether you made the right investments in the right people and projects, and whether you did enough to get the team over the line and keep stakeholders happy. Consider the following similarities between baseball owners and organizational executive leaders: 

There are some teams that you can count on year after year to be successful.  They have talented players, a good manager, a fan-friendly stadium, and strategies for the team to make an impact in the community.  Someone at the top is steering the organization to success. Not by winning a game or deciding which pitcher to start, rather by providing the vision for all to follow collectively.  The successful MLB team will no doubt have an Owner who is committed to success.  The same holds true within organizations.  When the CEO is committed to winning you see a shared vision, and a buy in from Managers and PMs to achieve that vision.  Each layer of the organization has the proper tools and they all work together to achieve a common purpose. 

The third layer of the organization is absolutely critical to the success of the organization.  Without a shared vision the organization is rudderless and left to compete against organizations built for success from the top down. 

What can help you make sure you are investing in the right people, projects, and generating value at the end of every project? Every month this year, we will publish articles to help you make the hard Executive decisions necessary to keep your business profitable and sustainable. Look for topics such as successful Executive Sponsorship, how to choose the right projects, and digging deep to understand what’s really going on in your organization, to name a few. At the end of the year all of this great content will be compiled into an eBook that you can use to set your organization up for success. 

We’re excited about this new approach to deliver valuable content. Share what you feel should be included, and we’ll be sure to package it up and bring it to you in your nice, private skybox at the field!