Building Championship Teams
I recently rewatched the movie Moneyball. It’s on my top-five baseball movies list.
It’s loosely based on a true story about Billy Beane, the former General Manager of the Oakland A’s, and his attempt to rethink and reshape team building, based on sabermetrics and advanced baseball statistics to evaluate players.
The problem they were trying to solve was how to find the best players, within their budget.
This is something that happens ten thousand times a day in the business world. Most companies are not the Yankees or the Dodgers and don’t have similar payroll budgets. Most have to find the best they can, for less.
I started Velocitality after spending over two decades building championship teams and cultures in the restaurant industry, with this exact mindset. A-players drive results. An A player is only an A player, if they fit within the budget. Finding the best people at the right price is critical.
Most recruiting companies out there look at resumes for about 10 seconds before determining yes or no. Most know nothing about the industry that they recruit for. If yes, these companies send that resume in a stack of 10 or 20 to the employer, leaving the employer to do all the work. These recruiting companies mistakenly think that more is more.
Big mistake.
At Velocitality, we go past the surface of the resume to do deep-dive interviews. We separate the pros from the pretenders. We find those A Players evaluating 10 leadership attributes. If we recommend a candidate to an employer, you can bet that we’ve done the work. At Velocitality, it’s not about quantity, it’s about quality. Sometimes, work histories and backgrounds line right up, and sometimes we find A players with unconventional backgrounds or work histories.
In a key scene in the movie, Billy, played by Brad Pitt, sits at a table having a meeting with his team of traditional baseball scouts. Billy listens to the conversation around the table as his scouts talk about potential players. The scouts list their reasons why they should consider particular players: “This guy has a good body.” “That guy really looks the part, good jaw.”
One of the conversations goes as follows:
• “I like Perez.”
• “He struggles to hit the curveball.”
• “We can work on that.”
• “He’s got an ugly girlfriend.”
• “What does that mean?”
• “Ugly girlfriend means no confidence.”
• “Well, he passes the eye-candy test, he’s got the looks to be an Oakland ballplayer.”
As absurd as all that sounds, similar conversations happen every day in the world of staffing and recruiting.
Billy Beane had to take the time to recalibrate his staff to what they were trying to accomplish. Boiled down to the simplest terms, the goal for the team was to buy wins, at the lowest possible price. In the end, the Oakland A’s won the same number of games that year as the Yankees.
The Yankees paid 1.4 million per win. The A’s paid 260k per win.
The team went away from the old approach. The players weren’t runway models. Some were not physically attractive. Some were asked to play positions that they hadn’t played before. Some threw funny. Some were past the usual retirement age, but they won.
I have had a ton of conversations with potential clients/employers that are looking for a recruiter to find candidates with very specific features. I’ve heard it all.
• “We want someone with 10 years of experience at one company.”
• “We only want people with drive thru experience.”
• “We don’t want anyone that’s married.”
• “We don’t want anyone that’s overweight
• “We only want to interview women.”
• “We don’t want to talk to anyone over 40.”
It’s a lot like that initial meeting Billy Beane had around the table with his scout team.
At Velocitality, we have the ability to find the runway models sure, but what we are most passionate about, is finding the A players that will help companies achieve unprecedented success, within budget. A players come in a variety of sizes, colors, backgrounds and ages.
• Tom Brady was 43 years old when he won his last Superbowl.
• Spud Web was 5’ 6” and won the NBA dunk contest.
• Kurt Warner went undrafted and is in the NFL Hall of Fame.
• Jim Abbott was born without a right hand but pitched a no-hitter for the Yankees in 1993.
Company leaders that limit themselves to the 30 year old, six foot, blond hair, blue eyed, gym rat prototype to fill their Director of Operations role, have simply not spent enough time evaluating what’s most important.
For all the employers, all of those Billy Beanes out there that are looking to build exceptional teams for less, that are in it to win the sales and profitability contest, instead of a beauty contest, Velocitality is here for you.
Velocitality is BY FAR the best value in the recruiting business.
Chris Jacobs
CEO | Velocitality
Chris@Velocitality.com
www.Velocitality.com
