A quick note before I start today because I feel a little background information will help clarify some of the shortcuts I take in the post.
The post below is about Moneyball. Most of this book focuses on Major League Baseball's Oakland Athletics and their methods for hiring players. Baseball teams are structured a little differently than most organizations so when I say they 'hire' players, I refer to how they draft, sign, and trade players to fill out their rosters.
The structure of professional team sports also allows anyone to assess the performance of any other team's players by simply watching games. In the context of a professional baseball team, I consider all of these activities- anything undertaken to better assess a player's ability- as part of what I'll refer to as 'the hiring process'.
Thanks for reading. Back on Friday with my October reading review.
Tim
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My very first post introduced a concept I called 'life changing books'. Recognizing that I might disappoint readers who set lofty expectations based on this eye-catching (or perhaps eye-rolling) title, I made sure to clarify that these posts would only describe how the featured book led to a tangible change in my life. (1)
I started with this gimmick because I wanted to write about Michael Lewis's Moneyball. This book, I knew, changed my life. Thus, the 'life changing books' gimmick was a convenient and even semi-logical way to justify starting my blog with a tired topic.
Once I started writing, I recognized very quickly that I was mistaken. This book did not change my life, at least not in the way I thought it did when I started writing. It helped me pick a major, I suppose, and it gave me something to discuss with fellow baseball fans (I liked baseball back then). Those were not the life changing kinds of things I wanted to write about.
I struggled with the post a little longer before shelving it for a future date. I wrote about tipping instead. (2)
This inability to write the Moneyball post seemed a failure at the time. When I look back at that exercise, however, I no longer frame it as a failure. In fact, I recognize a certain degree of wisdom in the way I stopped writing when I realized I was unready to write. (3)
In choosing to stop writing, I conceded that though this book might have changed my life, I was yet unprepared to articulate how. It clarified for me that the story I envisioned about its impact on me was not the same story as the one I was attempting to write. There was something missing in my understanding of how the lessons from this book altered my way of looking at the world. Without this understanding, the post was impossible to finish.
At various points over the course of the past year, my thoughts drifted toward this book and the general concept of writing a post about it. Eventually, I noticed a trend- Moneyball came to mind whenever I started to think about hiring (or more generally, how people fill open positions).
In a way, hiring is the essence of this book. Hiring is the theme that underlies each section of the book, the thread that connects one story to the next. Lewis explores the different ways baseball teams approach the question of who to hire next- evaluating performance, imagining ways a change in role or position could impact a player, accumulating data from interviews, tests, or assessments- and paints a compelling portrait of how difficult a task this is for these teams.
On the surface, the book simply observes how data analytics reshaped the hiring process for baseball teams. There is discussion of different statistical techniques and examples of successful players that no one except the database guru with his laptop computer (Paul DePodesta) predicted. Sometimes, the book focuses on details such as those above regarding the team's specific methods. But it always ties back to how the method impacts a team's hiring decisions.
The key insight is delivered about halfway through. As I recall, the comment was along these lines- 'if you rule out a given group of people for a job, you lessen the likelihood of finding the best person for the job'. It could be rephrased- if you consider all types of people for a given job, you will have the best possible chance of finding the best person for the job. In a competitive environment, such thinking will lead to an edge over those who choose to eliminate people from consideration for non-performance reasons. (4)
I have thought about this one idea so often this year. (Given how many job descriptions I have read this year, I suppose this is not a stunning revelation.) I note how many companies and organizations utilize all available means to find the best candidates to hire. They do so with what I see as genuine intent to expand their applicant base as much as possible.
But I also note that most sentences in job descriptions serve the purpose of exclusion. Some go to such lengths that the wording generates confusion (example: 'required- at least three to seven years of experience'. So, wait, at least what part of the range??).
I find myself increasingly appreciative of expressions that beckon the hesitant forward, phrases like 'recent college graduates encouraged to apply', that sort of thing. Often, I wonder which companies are inadvertently discouraging the best candidates to apply through lengthy, intimidating, or over-specified job descriptions.
The presidential election brought the same idea to mind on many (many, many) occasions. From one point of view, there has been no better time to point out the truism that 'anyone can become President in America'. After all, the top candidates for election were a woman and a complete political outsider. A victory for either would have made history. They campaigned throughout the year to fill the seat vacated by Barack Obama (the significance of his 2008 election victory requiring no further discussion in this space, one populated with my savvy, politically-astute reader(s), of course).
And yet, there are some restrictions in place. There is an age limit (thirty-five) and the office is open only to natural born citizens. Those who have served at least two years as the president can only be elected to the office once more. There are reasons for these restrictions. But ruling out so many candidates without regard to merit does, mathematically speaking, make it less likely that the best candidate for the job is running. (5)
I thought of it once more as reaction to one of Malcolm Gladwell's podcast episodes reached my ears. Apparently, this show took a very unflattering look at how some colleges and universities choose to spend their money. I did not hear the episode and I therefore will refrain from commenting directly about the specifics.
However, it did bring to mind a point not directly related to that episode (though hearing about it obviously triggered some kind of association in my head). Let's suppose two schools are identical in every way. One admits students on a need-blind basis (decision makers are unaware of a student's finances until a decision has been made on the applicant) and the other does so on a need-aware basis (a student's finances are not considered yet decision makers acknowledge being aware of it prior to finalizing a decision on an applicant). Which of these two schools will admit better students?
The idea came to mind whenever an Uber driver came close to running me over as they cut off the bike lane on the way to a passenger pickup. These ride-sharing companies are doing nothing that a cab company could not imitate. But the basic philosophy of the hiring practice is different- Uber has made it possible for just about anyone who wishes to become a cab driver to become one at low additional cost. A cab company cannot flexibly adjust its workforce in the same way Uber can to match the ebbs and flows of demand. The threat to Uber comes not from the traditional companies that know the industry best but rather from those who draw their employees and contractors from an equally wide applicant base.
Today's post is my second attempt at writing about Moneyball. Prior to February, I saw this book as a source of inspiration for studying statistical concepts or seeking analytical solutions to thorny problems. Today, I see a story of how hiring practices in one industry (to the extent that baseball is 'an industry') were further democratized by a team willing to consider a wider pool of potential hires than their competitors. Doing so gave them a competitive edge that immediately paid dividends on the field of play.
This general lesson about biases in the job market and the value of thinking on your own to overcome these biases proved valuable in ways many times more valuable than leaning the statistical nous required to calculate home run statistics. The idea extends beyond hiring, which is good because not everyone cares about hiring the next intern or data analyst or backup left fielder. It comes into play anytime options are being considered and the likelihood of arbitrarily ruling things out exists.
I guess, looking back, I cannot be entirely sure just how well I used to do when it came to considering the fullest pool of options for a given decision. That makes it tougher to quantify the extent to which this book did impact my thinking about this idea. However, the clarity of thought that comes from asking 'am I eliminating options based on merit only' is one of the most valuable techniques I try to use. Moneyball, without a doubt, confirmed my need to explore in that direction.
Footnotes / imagined complaints
1. Life changing books? No, I do not recall...
To those who worried (or hoped) that this feature disappeared quietly into the night- worry (or hope) no more. Despite getting distracted over the course of 2016 with posts about 'more important' topics such as brackets, soccer tournament analogies, and fake conversations about marijuana, I am confirming today that I intend to continue posting these little retrospective reading reflections. Since I
But it will return, you have my word on that.
(For whatever my word is worth, of course.)
2. Tipping, that was fun. Perhaps I should have called this the 'net worth changing books' series...
If I tip three times a week and I tip one extra dollar because of that book...
3 x 1 = $3 extra dollars per week
52 weeks in a year --> 3 x 52 = $156 dollars per year
Read the book about six years ago, so...
6 x 156 = $936 extra money spent due to this book (so far). With that money, I could hire a skilled writer to ghostwrite this blog for me (probably would bump the quality up a bit, for sure).
I suppose I could go on to calculate how much money that would be if invested conservatively over the next forty years. I'll spare everyone that exercise. We all got bored learning about personal finance in school.
3. You don't learn this kind of thing in school...
I imagine the concept of not writing is very difficult to fully understand for any eager student. (In fact, I barely understand it right now- I have no idea if what I am writing in this footnote is relevant in any way to anything).
Most of my experience writing anything involved actually writing- never was I assigned a paper in which I was instructed to think of a topic, struggle with it, and then stop until I was ready to actually write about something I understood.
I suppose such an assignment would be impractical in an academic setting. What a shame it would be to learn at the expense of practicality. This means the challenge to learn this particular lesson falls into the category of what must be learned beyond the confines of the syllabus.
4. Process over results...
This line narrowly edged 'focusing on process over results' as the line I remembered best from the book. This particular quote was delivered while one of the A's player evaluators watched one of the players striking out (again, the 'if I recall correctly' caveat here since I am trying this from memory).
Applying this mentality in the baseball context meant that if a player took a good swing at a good pitch yet missed, there was no need to fret. However, a player who succeeded despite taking poor swings as a hitter was cause for concern, not celebration, among the decision makers in the Oakland front office.
5. What, you want me to show my math?
Here is my math...
x = DID YOU SEE ANY OF THE CAMPAIGN?!?
