“If you want to retain those who are present, be loyal to those who are absent.” -- Dr. Stephen Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

“Learning cannot be disassociated from action.” -- Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline

“The most important measures are both unknown and unknowable.” -- W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis

Be a Sport! by Kevin McManus

First published in Industrial Engineer magazine October 2003

With the major league baseball season now in full swing, and the NBA playoffs now coming down to the wire, it is even more difficult to resist using the occasional sports analogy. Unfortunately, I have been coached over the years to avoid using such analogies in the business world, primarily because they are not suitable for a diverse audience. In other words, some women (along with men who don't pay attention to sports) do not want to hear sports analogies, because they cannot relate to them and in turn struggle to see the importance of the comparison.

I understand these differences in perspective and opinion, but at the same time, I feel that we are missing out on a lot of possible learnings by avoiding sports analogies all together. We can learn and explore both good and bad business practices by comparing sports to business, in and in many cases, we can reach our audience more effectively, and increase concept retention, by comparing sports to the business world.

I am personally as obsessed with sports as I am with continuous improvement in the business world. While I really cannot explain the genesis of this strong preference, it is easy to put into words why I think sports and the business worlds we work in are more similar than different. Most importantly, sports is a business where people use processes to get results. I doubt that any of us would argue that point, or the fact that the companies we work in are one and the same.

One of the most important things I like about sports is that compared to most businesses, sports teams do a much better job with performance measurement. They employ the use of balanced scorecards for both individual and team performance measurement. We often hear of ‘five tool players' in baseball or how success in the NFL requires top performances from the offense, defense, and special teams, not just one or two of the three groups.

Sports people really use data to understand the systems that they work with each day. They measure performance in countless ways, both as they recruit prospective employees and as they assess personal and team performance from game to game. You can look at a box score the next day and really see what happened. Imagine the benefits we could obtain in our own companies if we could watch our own company's version of ESPN each day.

Sports also serve as great examples of process capability. You would not expect to see a soccer team score fifteen points very often, just as you would not expect a pitcher to pitch a no hitter every time out. Because we spend a lot of time studying sports data and building theories about why certain sports systems behave as they do, we do not expect to see performances that extend well beyond the norm of what is possible. In business however, we often behave in an opposite manner when we regularly expect levels of performance to be reached that appear to be beyond what is possible to those on the front lines.

One of the best examples of using sports analogies that I have employed personally occurred when I worked for a trucking company. We had 23 freight terminals in our system, and while each terminal had its own unique system features, the ownership tended to expect the same level of performance from each terminal. After using a baseball analogy where I compared the average run output for different stadium designs, I was able to show the owners that system design features do affect output and performance, even in a trucking company.

I also really enjoy watching how talent is regularly monitored, measured, and utilized in the sports world. In business, we rarely assess talent in a meaningful way, even during the all important hiring process. Instead of making someone perform a trial set of tasks that we will be expecting them to do each day, we accept their resume and interview versions of what they can do for us. Sports teams are consistently tracking the physical and mental potential of their employees, and using this information to make daily lineup decisions.

Sports analogies do not have to be seen only in a positive light however. In the case of coach Mike Price and the University of Alabama, we had the chance to see what happens to a sports team when its leader falters from an ethical perspective. Over the last five years, we have unfortunately seen several examples of how labor negotiations can be botched and otherwise improperly managed. We also get the chance to witness on a consistent basis the actions that are either taken or not taken to improve the value that a fan (the customer) gets from attending a sporting event.

The greatest negative found in sports however is the extensive use of ‘ one winner' systems. Competition is great for developing a fan base and increasing sports revenues, but it can easily erode teamwork in a company. Systems that allow one person to win while the rest lose are not representative of the types of approaches we should adopt from sports. We can learn a lot about how to do not things in business by studying the world of sports, just as we can learn some best practices.

I believe that personal biases towards sports analogies will continue to shift towards the positive in the coming years. Gender equality in sports may be an ideal, but at the same time, there are several women out there right now that are demonstrating to the men that they can compete on a similar level in a variety of sports, especially when the players are non-sports professionals. As women continue to establish their new position in the sports world, we will become more accepting of sports analogies in the business world.

The most compelling question to ask however is “Why do sports teams invest the effort, time, and money that they do to measure personal and team performance?” Is it the amount of revenue that is at stake? Is it simply the carrying forward of a measurement culture that was started at least 100 years ago? I think the amount of revenue at stake does matter, and years of culture cannot be easily undone. The answer however I think is much more simple. Sports teams measure as they do because they get results from their efforts. Are you realizing similar benefits from your measurement efforts?

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“The only thing I know is that I do not know it all.” -- Socrates