The Enterprisers Project recently caught up with Brian Shield, VP of IT at The Boston Red Sox. An industry veteran who spent nearly 14 years as CIO of The Weather Channel and also oversaw IT at FTD, Shield talks about two markets where great talent is always valued: Major League Baseball and IT.
The Enterprisers Project (TEP): We get a lot of feedback from people we talk to about how tight the IT talent market is. Do the same kind of conversations go on in baseball?
Shield: Absolutely. I’ll give you a classic example. This year The Red Sox acquired David Price. He’s a top-tier pitcher who most recently played for the Toronto Blue Jays. But more than his success as a pitcher, he’s also very highly regarded as a clubhouse leader. Finding really capable baseball talent combined with someone who’s a leader and a motivator in the dugout is the holy grail for what sports teams desire. That’s particularly true with a young team with limited veteran leadership.
TEP: So one of the reasons Jason Varitek was such a valued captain on the team was because he was a great leader as well as a superb player?
Shield: Yes, absolutely. And you see so many examples of great players that are just not good leaders, not good role models, and having them on your team is challenging. The average rank-and-file fan probably thinks that because they’re good on the field, a player must be a good leader in the clubhouse. Oftentimes it’s just the opposite. There are plenty of examples in sports where the perennial all-star puts up great stats, but at what cost?
TEP: That practitioner-leader model is probably just as difficult to find in IT.
Shield: It is no different in the field of technology. Even though there’s a shortage of talent in general, trying to find those technology people who have exceptional domain skills combined with that rare blend of leadership and motivational instinct is what differentiates good employees from all-stars. You can’t teach your average person to hit a 95-mile-per-hour fastball no matter their enthusiasm nor commitment to the sport. The same applies to exceptional leaders. You can refine an employee’s or a player’s skills, but you can’t make them something they’re not.
TEP: To extend this metaphor further, we hear a lot about trying to develop the talent you have as a way to manage the external talent shortages. Are there similar parallels with how you develop baseball talent and IT talent?
Shield: There are, in fact. Obviously, baseball and sports in general continue to improve on the tools and techniques they use to get the most out of a player. The field of player development in sports is leveraging analytics, biomedical inputs, strength and conditioning, nutrition, behavior psychology, sleep studies, etc. to keep the player in great condition, extend their career and allow them to maximize their potential. Every player has a plan, and every plan is a mix of quantitative and qualitative goals. While organizations cannot afford this attention to detail for every employee, as leaders, we need to create plans and more importantly the “shared” goals and values that allow our associates to realize their potential and score some wins for the team.
