During Game 6 of the World Series in 1986, I paced around the living room of the family I was babysitting for. The New York Mets did the seemingly impossible, and forced a seventh game, where they won their second World Series.
I was in sixth grade and had no idea that more than 35 years (and counting) would go by without another Mets championship.
The 2022 season was energizing and full of hope as NL Manager of the Year Buck Showalter had the club finish with a .623 winning average and second in their division. I loved watching Showalter night after night in the dugout scribbling in his little notebook; he would exercise calm and then purposefully get himself riled up and indignant when called for.
At one of Showalter's first press conferences in March 2022, he shared his thoughts about motivating players: “I'm not big on putting all these sayings up around … Mark Twain … They read them one time, and then they're just wall space. If I would have one, if I put it up it would say: ‘Play Better.' I mean it, I mean really. You control it. Play better.”
Well there you have it, play better.
In case you want something a little more philosophical or inspirational, here are a few of my favorite quotes about baseball.
I chose these because they offer solid advice, and make a lot of sense for product management work and digital transformations.
(P.S. Mets owner Steve Cohen is pulling out all the stops this year, so once again, I have hope. Let's go Mets!)
Babe Ruth on Striking Out
It's a long game and nobody bats a thousand. All teams need to value continuous improvement to succeed — and even to survive.
The Babe also said: “Yesterday's home runs don't win today's games.” And “It's hard to beat a person who never gives up.”
Don't rest on your laurels. Keep swinging.
Tommy Lasorda on the Odds
Statistically speaking, you're gonna win some and lose some. You need to lose to learn, so the question is: what are you going to learn and how do you apply it to the next attempt?
Building a culture of experimentation, one that rewards failure as part of the work, is the only way to win in business and in life.
Another great Lasorda line: “Listen, if you start worrying about the people in the stands, before too long you're up in the stands with them.”
Taking Risks
You cannot play it safe and expect to drive real change. And you certainly can't play it safe and have big wins.
Corporate cultures are often extremely risk-averse, hindering innovation.
Some of the common symptoms? Scrambling to try to do everything rather than taking time to choose what not to do, a perfectionist culture where individuals are afraid to make mistakes or to admit they don't have all the answers, and avoidance of trying new ways of solving problems.
Leaders may balk at the idea of “slowing down to speed up,” but there are consequences to not taking enough time to understand your competitive space and make sure you're solving the right problems.
There are no shortcuts.
“We got the teamwork, to make the dream work”
Way before A League of Their Own, Coach Buttermaker (Walter Matthau) was one of the funniest baseball characters of all time in the 1976 kids' movie The Bad News Bears.
The film made Bizet's Carmen opera overture familiar to every kid in America and was filled with zingers and heart.
Winning games and winning at business are both all about teamwork. I love this idea that the whole team is responsible for a win as equally as a loss. Healthy teams support one another and learn together.
Business leaders need to empower teams to self-manage for success with the right values, resources, and strategic vision so they can deliver for the business or fail together.
Yogi Berra on Mindset
And just for laughs, a reminder that skills matter, but mindset matters even more.
Leaders and talent recruiters, please stop hiring just for skills and domain knowledge. You need team members who are willing to try new things, fail, and learn from those experiences.
A growth mindset and high EQ are non-negotiable skills for product managers and technical leaders.
The term “soft skills” is all wrong. It sets both talent and recruiting up to assume these skills are not as valuable as “hard” skills. In reality, people who are adaptable and emotionally intelligent are the ones who can help your business grow and transform.
Maura Charles is the founder of Keep it Human. As a Product Leadership Coach and Consultant, she is on a mission to help teams and organizations embrace human skills like communication and emotional intelligence in their ways of working.
She brings 25 years of experience as an editor, product manager, and digital business leader to bear on the challenges of building human-centered high-performing tech teams.
If you'd like to develop more human business and tech teams that hum together to drive results, check out Keep it Human and follow Maura Charles on LinkedIn.