In 1977, Bill James published his first Baseball Abstract, in which he quantitatively demonstrated the inadequacies of these measurements and proposed vastly superior tools. For example, he asked, why does a pitcher get credit or blame for his team’s ability to play defense behind him, score runs on the days he takes the mound, and hold the opponent down after he departs the game? Why don’t we instead evaluate his performance based on those results he can control?
It took decades for James’s ideas to catch on, even though his theories enjoyed empirical support and vastly more predictive value than the tools in vogue. Teams, journalists, and fans denigrated his disciples as lonely eggheads disconnected from real life, and rejected the growing body of research supporting what came to be called “sabermetrics.”
The opposition to the facts James had unearthed could not be sustained for long. The marketplace rewarded early adopting teams and punished those beholden to discredited, old modes of operation. This is famously documented in Michael Lewis’s book, Moneyball, which inspired the 2011 Oscar-nominated film. Spurred by the success of low-revenue but sabermetrically-savvy teams, all thirty Major League franchises now employ whole departments of “sabermetricians” to support their player evaluations and decision-making.
The Implications for Business
American business is in the midst of a similar evolution in the field of workplace dynamics. Studies in the field of neurological science are clear about the human brain’s intrinsic need to feel safe and secure at an emotional level, to feel connected to others and a valued member of a team, and to operate in an environment that is predictable and consistent.
Empirical evidence demonstrates that workplaces recognizing these needs in the way leaders lead are far more likely to build high-performance cultures that enjoy superior recruitment and retention of employees, discretionary effort from engaged team members, and improved bottom lines.
This leadership science is a powerful and pervasive game changer. Aon Hewitt’s Global Employee Engagement Survey involving more than seven million employees shows firms with the highest engagement scores enjoy revenues on average four-and-a-half times higher than those with the lowest scores.
The Evolution Has Begun
Great leaders understand how engaged employees are the foundation of high-performance cultures and that attaining this level of execution trumps the best business strategies. They are becoming acquainted with the leadership science that drives engagement, and learning to equip their managers for the complex demands of building a workplace culture that satisfies the brain’s most essential needs.
Most of the corporate world remains intransigent. A recent Gallup poll of businesses found that 70 percent of US workers do not feel engaged in their work. Those figures are not very different than they were a decade ago.
That will change, because in a marketplace facing a permanent condition of talent and labor scarcity, the metrics of business success will be defined more by neuroscience than leadership legend and canards. Using a leadership science approach, I have personally seen businesses have a 30% improvement in the number of engaged employees (on average) in one year; one recent pharmaceutical company increased employee engagement by 75% in just 3 years.
High-performance cultures are winning in business.
As in baseball, it is just a matter of time until businesses adopt a science-based approach to leadership. This year’s World Series champions, the Houston Astros, went all-in on accepting empirical evidence. And once they did, they transformed the game’s worst team into World Champs.
