As far as A players are concerned, do we really consider someone to be an A player because they had the high LSAT or GMAT score that allowed them to get into a ‘top’ grad school over the individual who is equally as accomplished in terms of academics and professional experience? Do we want a stepford community or a diversified workforce?

In any event, I love this article–and not just because I’m an Oakland A’s fan and found Moneyball to be fascinating! After all, the true fans are all about the game, not the money the sport generates.

I also respect Enterprise. It was the first company that I knew of that valued college graduates with a humanities education (being able to think, write, and speak effectively are underrated skills and are often more important than being an excel monkey or coder).

I think we all know that there is good, great, and good enough, and which to select varies by the context.

I’ve been mulling compensation- and (’Moneyball’) since Hunter talked about it a few weeks ago- it seems the jury is still quite out on Moneyball- and that there is something unusual happening right now in the way people are getting paid.

A subjct for a future blog post….

Great subject Dave- but dont try to sell this to Wendell Williams !

What Billy Beene, the general manager of the A?s, looks at are the ‘behind the scenes’ stats that you don?t find on the sports page. Things like who hits in the clutch, who can draw the most walks, who never commits an error in the last 3 innings, etc.

The A?s send out their scouts and assign their interns to either go get this info or to sit down and create the metrics for it. So that, in the war room during draft day, the info has been identified and organized and displayed in a manner that ‘business decisions’ can be made?intelligently.

So?in workforce world?where and how do you get those ‘behind the scenes’ numbers? Or, are you going to just look at the sports page on someone?their resume? Keep in mind the source of that information?the candidate.

Just think if Barry Bonds got to write his own articles for ESPN. ‘Steroids? What steroids? My head grew 3 sizes naturally.’ – lol

So getting these numbers today mostly comes down to reference checks which have become legally hard to do. I don?t think your general corporate recruiter would ‘push the policy’ of a company that says, ‘Sorry, we can just give employment dates and if they are eligible for re-hire.’

During my third party agency days, we could not even submit a resume to a hiring manager unless we had talked to their bosses at 2 of their last 3 employers and got a full review of the candidate. If their company had a ‘no reference’ policy?we called them at home. If we couldn?t get it?we dropped the candidate. If your candidate was good?their former bosses wanted to help them. FYI, I don?t remember any of our placements/contractors getting fired. It was quite the opposite.

What continually blows my mind today is that in a lot of companies their standard procedure is to do a reference check towards the end of the hiring process and not at the beginning. When I see companies that make offers to candidates that say ‘offer pending reference check,’ my jaw drops. If it comes back negative?wow?think of all the money and time that just got wasted that could have been stopped with a simple 5-10 minute call. The call duration of negative reference checks don?t last very long.

Anyways?its this deep background information that Moneyball preaches. There are countless tools in the Talent Management Systems (TMS) industry to do this for internal talent (I?m not sure how well any of them work). But, unless you have figured out a way to identity and track work history on external talent, applying the Moneyball techniques to recruiting will prove difficult because the ‘gut feelings’ you get during an hour interview just don?t count.

Regards,

Certified Yankee Hater

To your point about maximizing the market opportunity, Oakland also has territory issues that have been imposed by MLB. Then again, the Dodger have a value that is less than half the NYY.

However, here’s where the A/B issue comes to light – could Oakland increase their value if they had different people in marketing? How is it that the Yankees continue to separate themselves from the pack in terms of value despite the restrictions (e.g., revenue sharing) place upon them by MLB? When value increases and debt/value decreases, someone is really performing…

The lesson here is that (a) measurement will solidify intuition and (b) what is defined as successful requires multiple metrics – some of which may fly in the face of the very intuition.

I do come across Type B employees and feel strongly they may be in some cases better suited to the company and far motivated to do a great job. I personally to not like have to professional deal with Type A candidates because in most cases they are arrogant and feel they are entitled to the job. The question of whether or not they are the best fit is debatable.

There is certainly a strong proccupation in business to Higher type A players………the companies themselves are vulnerable to low productivity and possibly turnover. Type B players tend to be more reliable and loyal in most cases. We are not certainly here to generalize……..but having the best and the brightest and the smartest employees does not guarantee instant productivity or instant increase of sales revenue. It certainly creates a lot of corporate politics and endless debates amongst the elite employees while the TYPE b are busy doing the job.

I would say that the measure of the success of a general manager is in putting the best team on the field. beyond that, NY is obviously the beneficiary of a better location and bigger market opportunity than Oakland – and there’s not much else Oakland can do but put the best team they can field out there. Imagine how little attendance they would get if they had a horrible team and how little they would be worth. In all, I think they’ve maximized their market opportunity, even though in dollars and cents, NY will always come out on top.

Enterprise has also maximized their market opportunity – which can in this case be measured in dollars and cents. They are the biggest and in my opinion the best rental car company in the industry.

According to Forbes, the NYY had a 2005 value of $950M, revenues of $264M; the OAK, a value of $185M, $116M revenues – and carried a greater debt to value load. In 2000, the NYY franchise was valued at $548M, OAK at $134M.

Now which franchise realized a more impressive business performance?

I would never hire anyone I thought was less than an A-player simply based on competencies and potential. If they haven’t yet realized that potential (cough, cough…sorry for using our brand statement), that’s fine (though sometimes challenging to convince the hiring managers). I LOVE the idea of helping them reach that place at my company. B-player experience is just fine by me, especially if they are early in their career and convince me that they are capable of more and know how to get stuff done.

Without the so-called ‘B-players’, who would the ‘A-players’ be leading? All of the pedigree MBAs that come in stating that they want to work on ’strategy’ (let’s hear it for execution, folks…it’s where the rubber meets the road and we all have to do some of it…I’m personally OK walking to first base) or ‘own a P&L’…it makes my eyeballs roll to the back of my head.

There’s lots of room for A-players, but the proof is in the pudding. Everyone who comes in the door has the opportunity to be A-B-C or D players.

Great article, Dave.

I did not mean to imply that Enterprise – or the A’s -are settling for second best. They just have different definitions of what makes an employee great and how to build effective teams. I use the term ‘B player’ to describe how other teams might view their players.

I have a different perspective on what you are calling ‘B Players.’ The Oakland A’s and Enterprise Rent-A-Car define talent differently than their competitors. I think their goal is still to hire the best, the ‘A Players,’ it’s just that their definition of an A Player is different. They excel because they have a different perspective, based on research, about what it takes to be a successful, or star, employee in their organizations.

I’m not sure they are settling for second-best at all, and their business success actually seems to show that they are, in fact, getting a lot of high quality players onto their teams.

Bill

UNIQUE talent that fits together to become a intellgent and forward moving team within your organization can be just as effective. I think that too often, hiring authorities get wrapped up in this ‘A game’ and boot out B players who can be valuable pieces.