Moneyball

Introduction Moneyball is a movie about an Oakland baseball team that is in serious trouble and is losing series in the American League division. The team is also in serious financial trouble. This report looks into the review of the movie through the eyes of management. Management is the reason the A’s are in so much trouble both financially and in terms of performance, which is when Beane comes in.Advertising We will write a custom term paper sample on Moneyball specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The movie revolves around his life in line with the team since he is the general manager running one of the poorest of teams meaning he cannot solve his team’s financial issues by buying players since the money is not there (Mcneill, 2009). This is very frustrating because he wants the team to perform yet he cannot buy better players. If different results are to be achieved, then things should at least be done differently. B eane knows that he has to do something different but he is not sure what he must do different. He meets young Brand who gives Beane a way forward, sabermetrics, which is a statistical analysis of baseball. This is what the young economist thinks will work for the team. This is because the traditional way of viewing player is not efficient enough leading misjudgment of the value of player. Some are overvalued and other undervalued. The decision that Beane make reflect his life as a professional player, taking us back to his time. All this changes when he adopts the new style of managing the team rather than throwing dice he decides to go with analytics to see if it will help the team win. This is when they set out with Brand to assemble a dream team composing of players that no one wants. This is done with the smallest of budgets. The rest of the workforce does not understand his reason but he tries his best to make them see that n the long run the organization we gain. He meets oppo sition from those that prefer the old way of doing things. This is a movie of not just baseball but also management. Solution 1 Solution 2 Billy Beane’s leadership styles and motivation styles Starting with Fredrick Taylor’s management theory of improving economic efficiency, this is to ensure minimization of waste and maximization of labor productivity. This management style is all about managing talents. Taylor in his theory puts emphasis on performance measurement and being very objective while examining talent.Advertising Looking for term paper on art and design? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Talent management is very vital in any business setup. For example, we see that Beane and his assistant Paul did not just guess but they used the statistics, which would ensure that they were in a better position to win. This was applied on the offensive side which was something to do with the on base and the out base . They made sure they positioned themselves to win the game. This gave them an easier job in finding extraordinary players. Autocracy in management can be a double edged sword since the manager makes decisions unilaterally. The subordinates are not give much consideration in the decision making process. This might display the confidence level manager of the business but also can put the company into a lot of trouble since the subordinates can decide to detach themselves. Autocratic decisions may not be very healthy for the business especially if they are emotional which most are. A perfect example is Beane laying off some players because of their behavior at the lounge. Although this brought up issues with his general manager Phillip it was a good calculated decision giving the team a sense of direction. Communication is very important in management. A manager who does not show effective communication skills cannot lead his team to great success on projects, this is impossible to ac hieve without first building a strong rapport. As demonstrated in the movie, Beane make a conversation with his team in a very short span of time and three of his players swing into action, this he could not have achieved without the rapport first. Encouragement and motivation is vital in leadership; ability to inspire others to achieve greatness even when it is impossible. This is reflected when Beane turns a catcher, Scott Hatterberg into a first base and he understood for him to do that he must build a little confidence in Scott. This is why he leads the coaching staff in cheering for Scott when he makes the smallest of progress in practice. Yes I think that his style is suitable since it allowed the manager to bring in a new system that would transform the team into a winning one. He was also able to produce a team that was now capable of winning against the â€Å"big fish† of the league having in mind no one wanted these players since they were viewed using the old tradi tional method as being of no value. His management style was only suitable at the time because looking at his style critically. Beane’s concept of sabermetrics and other financial analyses was revolutionary in propelling the team to the top. He used a method that can be dangerous in other fields, low risk and high reward. So we can say that his management style worked for him at the time and could only be applied in baseball. This is because in business for instance is like trying to invest in a low-budget stock of a company that is just staring.Advertising We will write a custom term paper sample on Moneyball specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Solution 3 Billy Beane’s analysis styles and Statistics calculation styles to form a winning team, the differences between his strategy and mainstream’s strategy Beane uses sabermetrics in his analysis of the records of both the players and what they are worth. For us to get some insight into how this analysis works we must first understand the game of baseball. This game stated in the 18th century with the creation of the National league around 1876, it constitutes of 28 professional team and some participate in the national or the American League. The game has millions of fan in America and around the world. The game is played with two opposing teams with nine players on each team. Some of these players just to mention a few may include; baseman, pitcher, catcher, second baseman, right, left and center fielders. The score are in runs. The most important fact that is captured in analysis is the numbers of the game that are recorded. This is either during the game or after the game. These numbers mean so little to a manager who believes in insight rather than analytics. How the pitcher and batters perform is assessed by such number and this is what sabermeterics is all about. For instance, while batting, efficiency of the batter is what is the mean ? That is established by dividing the total at-bats by how many hits he has achieved. This data is then used to find out the player’s opportunity and his capabilities. Such information is used to establish the total worth of the player and the manager decides whether to sign him or not. When it comes to the difference between Beane’s strategy and the mainstream strategy, we must note that beane concentrated on getting the job done other than other issues involved, that is why he makes it very clear to everyone that winning was their number one priority. Factors like the welfare of the workers would come next. As we do comparison of the two strategies we are likely to note that the mainstream was kind of convectional and believed that of one t do well money must be involved and a lot of it (Mcneill, 2009). We should also note that there is a difference in the taking of risks and reward expectation. Beane one hand believes in low risk and high reward while the mainstream on the other hand believes in equality between the risk you take and the reward you get. For instance, let’s say there is a player who is 39 year and in the resent past has not been very successful with at least a hit out of 17 at-bats. This player is in trouble for refusing a suspension due to failing a drug test. In main stream strategy no one would want to sign such a player but Beane takes a risk and gives him half a million contract. Beane’s has done the analysis that when this player gets back to shape ticket sale will go up and he can serve as a mentor to young upcoming players.Advertising Looking for term paper on art and design? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Solution 4 Relationship and effects between Statistics, information, and management Statistics has become very vital to both information and management. Statistic can also be referred to as data and companies are investing millions of dollars in data. For example, a company will take it time to accumulate some data on the different marketing approaches and before even the time deadline it had previously set expires it will analyze the numbers; this it to derive information out of this data. A proper example is how dell used a matrix approach worldwide that was about advertizing agency. This was to analyze dell sales for each region and the information derived was used to fine-tune its promotions. The fact that first they started with looking at statistic then created information and finally used that information to make an informed decision cannot be ignored. It could be a strategy that will see them increase their margins considerably. Organizations have become very dynamic and loo king at what the effects of statistic, information and management are, we note companies in many industries produce the same goods or offer the same services. In addition they use the same technologies. For a firm to make its way to the top, then it has to do something different from its competitors. This must be in the business processes which must be properly analyzed and information derived from such data. The information must be used by management in their decision. The business process should include knowing what the customer wants and prices clients want to pay for the products. This establishes a proper system in form of customer relations management. This can be incorporated in an elaborate Enterprise resource planning system. Such systems are very vital in achieving core competence in an industry with same products and services. As such they should be given the utmost interest and attention and should be well exploited to realize profit. Managers have been able to use the u se statistic in order to make decisions that have impacted positively on their organizations not just in organization but also in sports. A good example is the manager of St Louis Cardinals using analytics plus intuitions to establish when to substitute a highly charged player into the field of play or whether he should hire a professional expert due to low morale level of players. As we can see data combined with management can produce results but we must not also forget that it has to be done carefully since error can lead to high impact of failure. This impact of failure would be very difficult to recover from. Conclusion In conclusion it is very true that not only fan of baseball have something to learn from this movie but managers have a lot to learn in terms of leadership styles, motivation style and the use of information. This movie looks at the relationship between leadership and successful initiatives that managers can pursuit. There is a good example of also bad behavior as a leader and what it can cause the organization. Arrogance and being insensitive to the welfare of other can be a recipe for failure as demonstrated in the movie by Billy Beane where at some point tried to prove to everyone that he was better than all of them. It does not matter what our view of the movie are what really matters is the lessons learnt from the movie and what we can derive from Billy Beane’s role as the manager of the Oakland team. Further more if we can be able to implement these lessons to our organization and transform those organizations (Mcneill, 2009). References Arnold, R. A. (2010). Macroeconomics. Chicago: Cengage Learning. Barro, R. J. (2008). Macroeconomics: A Modern Approach. Chicago: Cengage Learning. Mankiw, G. (2006). Macroeconomics. New York: W H Freeman-Usa. Mcneill, S. C. (2009). Research Methods: Third Edition. Chicago: Cengage Learning. This term paper on Moneyball was written and submitted by user Taraji Michael to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.