Question to HR pros: Have you read the book Moneyball by Michael Lewis? If not, stop and order it now.
I know. KD talks too much about sports. HR pros, especially the women in our industry, don't connect with you when you talk sports, KD. Blah, blah, blah...
Couple of things on that front. The majority of my readers are women in Talent Management, Human Resources and Human Capital, and as it turns out, a lot of them get offended when people say that they don't like sports. Additionally, Moneyball is required reading even if you don't like sports.
Why is Moneyball required reading? Because it's about thinking differently related to valuing talent. It's a compensation, culture and recruiting story with a limited sports backdrop. Talent acquisition, background check and talent sourcing at it's finest.
Plus, the movie that comes out later this year based on the book stars Brad Pitt. Interested now ladies? Trailer appears below (email subscribers may need to click through), take a look and let's break it down after the break.
Moneyball fans - what did you think?
Here's my thoughts - I love Pitt in the role and Jonah Hill is easy to like in anything after seeing him for the first time in Superbad. I like the vibe of the first minute of the trailer and then the movie takes a left turn...
...into doing the whole Billy Beane (character played by Pitt) is going to get fired thing... You've got Jonah Hill in the #2 role and Pitt's got a history of doing understated comedy very well - why make it a drama? I'm not asking for the Oakland A's version of Major League, but don't get serious with this cast in place.
Your thoughts? I'll be going to see it later this year even with those reservations in mind....
I've always like Moneyball when the book came out. The problem I'm going to have is how to approach the ending. It's clear Billy Beane was a creative GM, but there are 2 problems arising: One, the Florida Marlins and Tampa Rays made it to the World Series. Tampa is the subject of Jonah Keri's book, The Extra 2%, that overtakes Moneyball as the best sports book I read, although there are similar traits.
The second problem is Billy Beane became big-headed and an egomaniac after the book was released, although he had 1 successful season after the book was released (2006). This movie would of been effective in 2005. Now? it seems outdated.
Posted by: Tracytran | June 21, 2011 at 09:15 AM
Pitt - no way... Clooney, Maybe...
Posted by: Jeff Haynes | June 21, 2011 at 02:22 PM
I agree this is an important read, beacause it's about getting out of the box. Sports history wise it may be a bit dated, but I would look beyond that. I remember the 2002 season and it was fun to know the backstory.
Posted by: Ginny Conboy | June 21, 2011 at 03:08 PM
Question to HR pros: Have you read the book Moneyball by Michael Lewis? If not, stop and order it now. I know. KD talks too much about sports. HR pros, especially the women in our industry, don't connect with you...
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Question to HR pros: Have you read the book Moneyball by Michael Lewis? If not, stop and order it now. I know. KD talks too much about sports. HR pros, especially the women in our industry, don't connect with you...
Posted by: bactrim online | June 22, 2011 at 08:08 AM
Biggest problem I have here is that this glorification of Billy Beane as some sort of genius manager/executive is flat-out wrong.
Take a look at Beane's track record at Oakland -- how successful have his teams been? The dirty little secret is that they have not been very successful at all, never making it to the World Series and only the the League Championship Series on a single occasion.
In the meantime, Beane has churned through various field managers and players, even firing the manager who got him to his only League Championship Series shortly after getting him there. Beane's a control freak, pure and simple, and I wonder -- how does that make him such a damn genius?
Beane is only held up as such because Michael Lewis seems to think so despite all the evidence to the contrary. I'm sure the Moneyball movie will be entertaining, especially with Brad Pitt in it, but all it will do is simply glorify Beane even more for doing a job that a helluva lot of other people could have done a helluva lot better.
Moneyball is a great concept, but Michael Lewis has hyped Billy Beane to build it up for no good reason except that it eventually helped get a creatively bankrupt Hollywood establishment to pay him millions of dollars so they can make a movie about it instead of Transformers 5.
Like most things from Hollywood, Moneyball the movie will have little to do with reality or life as we know it. Don't say you weren't warned.
Posted by: John Hollon | June 23, 2011 at 10:55 AM
Wow... Big picture here folks. Did anyone notice how haggard Philip Seymour Hoffman looks? I give him two years, check that, 15 months tops.
Posted by: G Money | June 29, 2011 at 05:04 PM
this is a fantastic book with TONS of relevance in online retail, where i recruit.
ecommerce is all about the metrics: conversion rate; monthly unique visits; bounce rate; average order value; and more. billy bean's approach could be easily modified to recruit in direct marketing, ecommerce, online marketing, and any other industry where people keep score.
and with increasingly broad/deep analytics packages, companies will learn to apply these lessons to other functional areas as well (hr; accounting; law; logistics; manufacturing; procurement; and most of all; leadership.)
I can't wait for all of those 'unintended consequences' as people work to game the system!
HarryJoiner.com
Posted by: Harry Joiner | July 04, 2011 at 04:20 PM