Stats Vs. Soul
The above Facebook status update by my friend Alan Warms caught my eye yesterday.Rodriguez has been an MVP, will likely hit 800 Home Runs, has 5 tools and a great glove, great run production, speed and career stats. Even at his advancing age, he has pretty good speed. Jeter? He has one thing: Soul. Great heart. Rodriguez broke his contract and wanted to leave the Yankees as Alan wrote, and was welcomed back with open arms and a huge contract. Why? because when the GMs and Arbitrators line those stats up on a sheet, Arod is at the top of the charts. Jeter? No MVPs, no batting championships or home run crowns. The arbitrator might not look on him kindly if it ever came to that. Oh, those 5 World Series Titles? A career Yankee? One of the "core4"? Playoff clutch player? Leaving it all on the field or bloodied in the stands? You can't bet on that for future run production as Jeter ages. This is where the Yankees have gone wrong and, frankly, where much of the business world has gone wrong.
Baseball is a team sport. Fantasy baseball is a statistics game. On a team, in a grueling 162 game season and long playoffs, heart wins more games than home runs. It does not make the highlight reel but it does impact your team/business in a real way. It is not an accident that Clemens, a pitcher with a great fastball and great career stats, won his World Series on Jeter's team. Same for Arod, Sabathia and others. Soul wins games, produces clutch hits and rallies the team to 9th inning comebacks. That is Jeter and it is why he is the most valuable player in baseball. No crises, flashy stats, public marital spats or dramatic run-ins with agents. Just steady as she goes with a feisty competitive soul, loyalty and team spirit.
When I look at an entrepreneur or a business, I am looking for Jeter, not Arod. Building a start up or any business is grueling like a 162 game season and worse. You need a lot of heart to push through tough situations and you need to step up in clutch negotiations and critical product and partner decisions and make the tough call to bring home the run. Your job as an entrepreneur is to make the people around you better, not win the MVP. You want to hire people who are better than you (You can bring Arod onto the team), who leverage your heart and win championship after championship. The flashy VP of Sales may be paid more in the short term but when you win, your equity pays off better and it should be obvious who is the soul of your start up. The business world has gotten too focused on stats and not on what matters, which is soul. When baseball players say that they understand that baseball is a business and hence accept the financial decisions that come with it, they are right. Baseball's business like other business is now, all stats and no soul, and that is what's wrong. I want entrepreneurs and businesses with deep Jeter souls who make everyone better and just win team championships.
Baseball is a team sport. Fantasy baseball is a statistics game. On a team, in a grueling 162 game season and long playoffs, heart wins more games than home runs. It does not make the highlight reel but it does impact your team/business in a real way. It is not an accident that Clemens, a pitcher with a great fastball and great career stats, won his World Series on Jeter's team. Same for Arod, Sabathia and others. Soul wins games, produces clutch hits and rallies the team to 9th inning comebacks. That is Jeter and it is why he is the most valuable player in baseball. No crises, flashy stats, public marital spats or dramatic run-ins with agents. Just steady as she goes with a feisty competitive soul, loyalty and team spirit.
When I look at an entrepreneur or a business, I am looking for Jeter, not Arod. Building a start up or any business is grueling like a 162 game season and worse. You need a lot of heart to push through tough situations and you need to step up in clutch negotiations and critical product and partner decisions and make the tough call to bring home the run. Your job as an entrepreneur is to make the people around you better, not win the MVP. You want to hire people who are better than you (You can bring Arod onto the team), who leverage your heart and win championship after championship. The flashy VP of Sales may be paid more in the short term but when you win, your equity pays off better and it should be obvious who is the soul of your start up. The business world has gotten too focused on stats and not on what matters, which is soul. When baseball players say that they understand that baseball is a business and hence accept the financial decisions that come with it, they are right. Baseball's business like other business is now, all stats and no soul, and that is what's wrong. I want entrepreneurs and businesses with deep Jeter souls who make everyone better and just win team championships.
posted by Michael Eisenberg at 9:30 AM
2 Comments:
The soul/sales conflict is in the essence of the words.
Most stats figures in business are related to sales (and profits), while the soul of any good company is its product. Selling your product then is selling your soul.
In the arts and culture, there is a known phrase : the artist does not wish to sell his soul.
The internet solution is giving your product for free (facebook, google, twitter etc') for consumers, and get your revenues from other companies.
This enables internet companies to focus on the most imporatnt KPI there is, reach the maximum amount of users engaged with your product.
Seems like the world is in the right direction of soul over stats, and stats are changing so fast all you have left is to bet on soul. Bill gates, Steve jobs and most netrepanuers in tech are soul players, not stat players.
The VC industry is the fuel for any soul company, so we hope you get more home runs so you can finance some more soul enterprises.
Luckily, interest rates are going to remain low for the next decade, so VC's just need to get 10-15% returns to get more money.
John -
Love the comment and equation of soul=product and stats = profits. I also think that soul = values which is ultimately good for business.
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