Books of the month: What I just read

Whenever I sat over lunch with my friend Marty Cole, z"l, we talked shop.  He was a sales manager constantly looking to bring out the best in his team and in himself.  He loved ideas and was a "student of the game" who always believed we could improve.  I'd like to describe myself the same way.  I just finished reading the last book he suggested to me, Moneyball by Michael Lewis (soon to be a major motion picture starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill).  Through the story of Billy Beane, Oakland A's general manager, Lewis presents important lessons for organizations and their leaders:  Too often we make major decisions based on nothing but gut, intuition, emotion or appearances. It's not how much money you spend but how you spend it.  Leaders who are willing to break the "rules" (not literally but in terms of industry culture) and use good, measurable, outcome-oriented information to make decisions that contravene the accepted wisdom of their industry can succeed far beyond expectations.  The "club" of industry insiders will reject that success and explain it away irrationally and emotionally rather than admit their own failure (or, the old guard will always dismiss the new guard and the more the new guard succeeds the more hysterical the old guard will become).  Luck and "the human element" can mess up the best scientifically based and perfectly executed theories.  Describing pitcher Chad Bradford, Lewis shows how self-doubt and insecurity can destroy the future success of a person whose past performance otherwise seems to guarantee it: "Chad doesn't know that he will retire batters at such a predictable rate that he might as well be a robot. As a result, he might not do it." The story of Scott Hatteberg teaches how people can grow and improve with the help and support of others.  Hatteberg's wife spent weeks hitting ground balls to him so he could learn to play first base and thereby stay in pro baseball and his fielding coach practically manufactured his skill at picking up difficult throws by constantly calling Hatteberg a "picking machine."  Moneyball has lots of great stories for leaders trying to navigate new territory.  There is applicable material here for the synagogue and Jewish organizational world.  Take Marty's advice and mine: Read it before the movie blows it for you.