There has been a lot written about the Book and the movie “Moneyball”. In fact, it was nominated for 6 academy awards and grossed more than $100M at the box office. I’ve seen it several times and even if you are not a sports fan, you will enjoy this movie. As long as you like a good story about a single father who over comes odds and changes the rules for success in the face of denial and lack of faith of others.
Sound like a business angle to you? Definitely! There is one quote from the movie that particularly resonated with me. Billy is trying to work with his scouts on acquiring talent for the next season and can’t seem to get his philosophy and strategy through to them and keeps getting criticized by his staff. He finally says, “If we try to play like the Yankees in here, we will lose to the Yankees out there!” I work at a medical device start up and of course we are up against a lot of challenges similar to a small market professional sports team going against the larger more powerful multi-national competitors. If you are at a small start up like me, you can’t play against your competitors using their playbook, you have to create the new rules of engagement. Unfortunately, since you are at a small company you don’t have the budget or resources to create tactics at will or hire high-powered ad agencies. Fortunately, whatever you decide is feasible and best strategy can be executed with lightning speed because you don’t have the size and layers of a large company. You’re not playing like your competitors and your moving fast to beat them in the market using your own ‘new’ rules of engagement.
Billy also uses the work ‘play’ when he tries making his point about how to succeed against the big boys. I don’t think he used this word only because his context was sports. The pre-existing rules in whatever market (game) you are competing in (playing in) are essentially a game. This means that even your company or your strategic approach can change the game if you are able to lead your team and your company to a different level and change the game! Before the big companies you compete against realize your new strategic approach, tactic, selling channel – whatever – are stealing market share they won’t be able to deal with this new challenge before you score and change the game in favor of your new company – what new challenge? YOU!
There has been a lot written about the Book and the movie “Moneyball”. In fact, it was nominated for 6 academy awards and grossed more than $100 at the box office. I’ve seen it several times and even if you are not a sports fan, you will enjoy this movie. As long as you like a good story about a single father who over comes odds and changes the rules for success in the face of denial and lack of faith of others.
Sound like a business angle to you? Definitely! There is one quote from the movie that particularly resonated with me. Billy is trying to work with his scouts on acquiring talent for the next season and can’t seem to get his philosophy and strategy through to them and keeps getting criticized by his staff. He finally says, “If we try to play like the Yankees in here, we will lose to the Yankees out there!” I work at a medical device start up and of course we are up against a lot of challenges similar to a small market professional sports team going against the larger more powerful multi-national competitors. If you are at a small start up like me, you can’t play against your competitors using their playbook, you have to create the new rules of engagement. Unfortunately, since you are at a small company you don’t have the budget or resources to create tactics at will or hire high-powered ad agencies. Fortunately, whatever you decide is feasible and best strategy can be executed with lightning speed because you don’t have the size and layers of a large company. You’re not playing like your competitors and your moving fast to beat them in the market using your own ‘new’ rules of engagement.
Billy also uses the work ‘play’ when he tries making his point about how to succeed against the big boys. I don’t think he used this word only because his context was sports. The pre-existing rules in whatever market (game) you are competing in (playing in) are essentially a game. This means that even your company or your strategic approach can change the game if you are able to lead your team and your company to a different level and change the game! Before the big companies you compete against realize your new strategic approach, tactic, selling channel – whatever – are stealing market share they won’t be able to deal with this new challenge before you score and change the game in favor of your new company – what new challenge? YOU!