The Moneyball Principle
The “Moneyball” phenomenon, building a baseball team based on advanced sabermetrics rather than traditional data, has gone beyond baseball and is now invading other sports, including soccer. Liverpool FC, an English soccer team, is inventing its own version of Moneyball sabermetric principles and is building other rules in such as ‘we will buy no player older than 24 years old’. As these principles continue to morph sports clubs are putting a little more thought behind merely using the data to make decisions.
The Moneyball idea has obviously grown since the book turned Oscar nominated film became something of a common idea. No matter how big the idea of sabermetrics or data analytics gets most folks aren’t ready to disengage their heart from making decisions. Sure looking at the data to make decision is obviously a good idea but shouldn’t the heart be involved too?
Here’s some data from a recent survey of 720 senior-level execs at companies with annual revenues upwards of $500 million:
Sixty-two percent of business leaders said they tend to trust their gut, and 61% said real-world insight tops hard analytics when making decisions. And they’re willing to put their money where their mouths are, with 68% saying that the potential reward for going out on a limb – leading with their hearts, in essence — outstrips the fear of failure or being blamed for making a bad call.
(via Mashable)