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10.08
Be Part of
the Best Team
By Dan
Solomon
Media and communications are
changing as a result of technological
advancement and societal change. The lines
between information and experience are blurring.
Things that were once small and isolated can now
become big and connected with little effort. How
people get and share information is the product
of networks and conversations — no longer
dictated by a few voices or following a linear
path as they once did. Everything is moving
faster than ever.
When building and managing a
team to successfully traverse this rapidly
changing landscape, it is important to keep
these concepts in mind:
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Everything is fragmented
and blurred. It is necessary and
expected that our society will evolve, and
the impact of those changes will be felt by
all organizations. But never has our society
changed so quickly, and never have
organizations been so dramatically impacted.
We are all challenged to adapt in ways, and
at levels, not previously imagined. And with
little sense that the chaos will settle down
any time soon, it is important that new
frameworks for operating — and succeeding —
must be developed and managed along the way.
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Small can be big. As
Chris Anderson noted in his book, The
Long Tail, culture and economy are
increasingly shifting away from a focus on a
relatively small number of "hits"
(mainstream products and markets) at the
head of the demand curve, and toward a huge
number of niches in the tail. As a result,
what you sell is different, and
how you sell them is different. The
services you offer have changed. The
expectations of those who shop, share and
create are shifting as well. New markets
have been created, for products and ideas
alike, and organizations must determine
whether to participate, and if so, how.
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We are all connected.
Technology has fundamentally changed our
culture. The online world is about
connection, community and conversation. And
as with the online world, so goes much of
what the rest of the world thinks and acts
on. What we know about each other is
changing, or in some cases just being
learned. How we think, and the decisions we
make are increasingly driven by many voices
rather than a few. Total control has been
replaced by greater understanding and
participation.
An important technique to
survive and thrive in this new world is to be
part of the best team. This is true for the
simple fact that nobody can be good at
everything.
Let’s compare a typical
organization to a baseball team. On a ball club,
teams have players specialized in almost every
position. Nobody is more specialized than the
pitcher. There are starting pitchers,
long-relief pitchers, middle-relief pitchers,
short-relief pitchers and closers who are hired
and paid to do just that job. The closer, for
example, is typically brought in to pitch one
inning, a couple of dozen pitches at most. His
role is to preserve a win for his ball club.
In an organization, you always
want to build the strongest possible team. As a
part of that team, there are always spots for
someone to fill a specific role. Organizations,
in other words, are always looking for a closer
(or maybe more than one). But there is a problem
with this model. In baseball, the closer is only
good in one situation — the ninth inning when
the game is close and a save is needed. If he
pitched the night before, he might not be
available or have his best stuff. If he didn’t
pitch the night before he might take a little
while to find his groove when one mistake can
cost his team a victory. The closer is great
when he is pitching well, but his capabilities
are pretty limited. Similarly, as the
marketplace changes dramatically, even on a
daily basis in some organizations, that
specialized employee is only moderately useful.
There is an alternative. Perhaps
nobody can be good at everything, but consider
Pat Venditte, a student at Creighton University
and a pitcher on the college’s Division 1
baseball team. Venditte is ambidextrous. He
throws left-handed to lefties and right-handed
to righties, and effectively. According to the
Creighton Department of Athletics, Venditte is
one of three known ambidextrous pitchers in
college baseball today. He wears a special glove
that has two thumb holes and four fingers so he
can switch hands at will. In 2006, he pitched
both left-handed and right-handed in 22 games.
In 12 of those appearances, he struck out
batters by using both arms including one game
where he struck out two batters left-handed
before switching and striking out the last
batter right-handed — a total of 10 pitches.
The New York Times wrote, “Venditte is
smoothly proficient from both sides. His
deliveries are not mirror images of each other:
as a right-hander he throws over the top and
relatively hard, up to 91 miles an hour, with a
tumbling curveball; as a left-hander, he relies
on a whip-like sidearm delivery and a biting
slider.”
How did Venditte become such a
versatile player? Surely he is gifted beyond the
average athlete. But the truth is, he worked at
it. At the age of three, with his father's help,
Venditte threw a football left-handed to build
strength and muscle memory. He would punt
footballs left-footed to develop the leg kick
needed for pitching. And how has he become so
effective? The coach of the Creighton baseball
team has put him a position to succeed. Because
of his versatility, Venditte is easily the most
valuable pitcher on the Creighton ballclub. If
he continues to improve, he may someday be a
major league pitcher, assuming that baseball’s
trend toward specialization has some loopholes
in it.
An organization's ability to be
competitive at what it does rests on acquiring
the right talent, deploying it properly, and
continually evolving to meet changing needs and
situations.
Organizations do not have to
offer everything on their own. “To build or buy”
has long been a common question. More
importantly, the current media environment
expands the pool of partners. You have an
opportunity to combine your expertise — share it
up and down the line of experience, and maximize
the elements that each partner specializes or
focuses on.
In today’s rapidly changing
communications environment, it is your
responsibility to undertake the hard work to be
part of the best team, whether your colleagues
are sitting next to you or half-way around the
world.
Excerpted from Media Rules!
Mastering Today’s Technology to Connect with and
Keep Your Audience by Brian Reich and Dan
Solomon, published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Comments may
be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org.
Opinions expressed are the
author's.
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