I can’t embed the video, so you’ll have to hit this link to view it.
How many of our athletes, much less our companies, would go to this extent? Of course, in the NFL the stakes are high – revenues this year are expected to hit US$9.5 billion. When the returns are enormous, it’s worth examining every competitive advantage no matter how small.
But I think the underlying message has some value as well, and is more generally applicable – measure, measure, measure, execute, then measure again. This goes back to the beginnings of operational research in WWII and the heart of Japanese Kaizen. You can only improve if you know what you’re doing. As a society, we need to become more comfortable with statistics, with measuring things and establishing benchmarks. There’s a danger in overly obsessing over numbers, but that doesn’t mean they have no value.
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This reminds me of the Moneyball methods in managing baseball teams were they buy 'runs' rather than players.
ReplyDeleteBut can't help agreeing with you on your comment about being comfortable with statistics. Somehow our society hasn't managed to get past hyperbole and rhethoric, so we usually have discussions that degnerate into emotional and rhetorical arguments that is merely anecdotal and doesn't look at the data.
Waiting for the day when we can all talk rationally.