3 Leadership Lessons from Moneyball

Last weekend, I had the privilege of choosing the movie my wife and I would rent from Redbox. After receiving an Oscar nod and  hype from several friends, I decided to pick up Moneyball with Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill. Since I’m not a huge baseball fan, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but as I was watching, I noticed some really insightful principles for young leaders.

In short, Moneyball tells the story of the Oakland Athletic’s General Manager, Billy Beane, as he fights to make the team relevant without having a huge salary cap like other MLB teams.

I won’t spoil the ending for you, but here are 3 leadership lessons I picked up from the movie:

1) Adapt or Die

Early in the movie, Billy realizes the fact that the A’s will never be able to compete with teams like the Yankee’s because they can’t afford it. As Billy is talking with one of his head scouts, he makes the statement, “We either adapt or we die.” He realized if they wanted to put together a winning team, they couldn’t keep scouting the way they had always done it.

Right now, we’re going through one of the biggest shifts in business since the industrial revolution. In some ways, it’s beneficial for us to start our careers in such as transitional period. We’re eager to learn and can easily pick up on these new processes where people who’ve been in business for 50 years might struggle. However, we have to remember that we’ll be in their shoes one day and it will be just as important to adapt then as it is now. We must discipline ourselves to never get too comfortable with how we do things at the risk of dying when adaptation is needed.

2) Don’t give up on an idea even when “higher-ups” push back.

Billy recruits the help of a young baseball whiz, Peter Brand, played by Jonah Hill. Brand uses an unpopular theory of choosing which players to sign and play based more on mathematics than intuition. After Billy hires him to work for the A’s and they start to put together a team, the other scouts start to voice their disapproval. But, Billy sticks with the game plan of the young Peter Brand to build a team of “no names” and “has-beens” for the A’s.

As young leaders, we’re often in the role of Peter Brand. Coming up with new and innovative ideas some people in leadership roles above us don’t understand or support. While we understand how that feels now, it will be important for us to remember as we move into higher levels of leadership. Just because the idea comes from a lower-level employee doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea. In fact, it could change the entire organization or industry. Billy knew to stick with his gut even when higher-level scouts didn’t support the idea. We can’t let one person change our minds simply because they hold a higher level of leadership.

3) Be a sell-out

Once Billy decided to go “all in” with the idea, he gave everything he had to making sure it worked. When the formula wasn’t working, he stuck with it. When players weren’t living up to expectations or causing a disruption, he had the tough conversations. When things we’re working, he stuck with what he knew to be true.

If we’re going to make a real impact in our work, relationships and lives, we must be a sell-out. If we don’t believe in what we’re doing with 100% of what we have, no one will.

Any lessons from ‘Moneyball’ you can add? What are some other movies you’ve seen with valuable leadership lessons?