As I began reading “Moneyball” I felt I was about to embark on an epic tale of baseball and its many well-known characters. This is what I like most about Lewis’ writing – he really brings people to life. In addition to the details of business operations, Lewis describes larger than life personalities and what drives them to success within their oversized visions of their world.

In any ordinary industry the Oakland A’s would have long since acquired most other baseball teams, and built an empire.

I’d like to make something clear to begin with – I don’t watch baseball and the last game I went to was over 10 years ago. But Michael Lewis has written about business for years (his articles are frequently featured in The New York Times). Being the avid business reader I am, when this book came out I was interested… until I saw that it was about baseball! Nonetheless, I bought it because I like to read about business, non-fiction and Mr. Lewis’ work (in roughly that order!)

“Moneyball” is non-fiction of the highest caliber. It’s investigative and expository and you’ll easily see why Mr. Lewis got the cold shoulder from the normal reporters who cover baseball, not to mention the team owners.

Why is that? Well, because he said: “The Emperor’s Not Wearing any Clothes!” He’s a skinny journalist from a Yankee rag poking around the old boys club and he’s digging up award-winning dirt other journalists won’t cover.

Like what, you might ask?

Specifically, that big name baseball teams are spending about $ 3 million dollars per win. And the Oakland A’s average cost per game won by direct comparison, is about a half a million.

How’s that for award-winning business reporting?

Not only are the numbers humongous, but the ego-driven attitudes of scouts, owners and (you knew this) players defies all reason!

Here’s what Michael Lewis found:

This is just bad business to begin with, not to mention a bad investment on the part of the business/team owners.
What makes this book really interesting to me is that Lewis beautifully analyzes the whole “what’s working and what’s not” aspect of business.

In one excerpt he writes about baseball abstracts by a not disinterested baseball statistician named Bill James:

This book is a treasure trove of the business indicators. I’m talking about those indicators not taken into account by managers running everyday businesses. Failure to do that wrongly consumes tens of millions of dollars annually! This is an amazing exploit. Not only are the numbers humongous, but the ego-driven attitudes of scouts, owners and (you knew this), players defies all reason!

In another example, high school kids are routinely recruited and attracted with large signing bonuses and given years of training only to find that they’re a complete wash-out before they even get to play A-Team ball. Does this indicate a failure on the part of the owner, the team, its trainers or managers? Are the managers making the wrong draft choices? As Lewis helped me realize, is this a clear manifestation that the scouts are simply using the wrong criteria in the first place?

What Lewis discovers is what Billy Beane, General Manager of the Oakland A’s, already knows: The scouts and the criteria they have been using for years isn’t accurate enough. It doesn’t tell the whole story. It’s just another opinion costing the teams owners millions upon millions of dollars every single year.

Not that all the important numbers aren’t available. Even as a baseball misanthrope like myself knows that the industry of baseball hordes and spews statistics constantly. What’s not funny is that the wrong things have been analyzed for years. This discovery has lead Billy Beane (with the help of a computer wielding Harvard graduate, Paul DePodesta) to the necessary analysis. He makes his comparatively measly budget work for him and bring his team, the Oakland A’s, to the finals.

There are examples in this book that remind me of badly managed businesses outside of baseball. The good news is that there are answers too. And they all speak to the regular accumulation of information and the analysis of that information in a very specific way to attain a profitable result. Isn’t that what we all need to do in our businesses too?

Well, I’ll leave that answer to you! Read this book. Read it for fun. Read it to improve your business. But in all cases – read this book because Lewis is a fantastic writer … about a lot more than just baseball!

Karl Seidel is a business coach who works everyday with business owners and managers like you. He develops profitable and efficient systems to free you up, so you are not chained to your work!

Contact Karl at 818 761 1376 or email karl@auditable.biz if you have comments or want to talk about your business.
Visit our site @ http://www.AuditableBusinessSolutions.com.