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Sandy Alderson discusses strategic planning
The Business of Sports: How Analytics and Business Discipline Transformed Major League Baseball
Richard "Sandy" Alderson, the Chief Executive Officer for the San Diego Padres Baseball Club, is formerly the Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations for Major League Baseball. Alderson joined Major League Baseball in New York in 1998 after spending seventeen years with the Oakland Athletics Baseball Club. When he joined the A's, he had very little in common with typical Major League Baseball executives. Instead of rising up through team management as a former baseball player, his background as a former Marine Infantry Officer and a Harvard Law School graduate was unique.
Unorthodox at the time, Alderson's approach launched a new business paradigm. As chronicled in the best-selling book, Money Ball, Alderson's tutelage helped transform the A's into a leading baseball club, where they won four American League West Championships during his tenure (1988, '89,'90,'92), participated in three consecutive World Series (1988-90) and captured the World Series in 1989. Additionally, the A's farm system produced three consecutive Rookies of the Year from 1986-88.
How was Mr. Alderson able to achieve such success, especially with a team limited in resources? On June 14th, 2006, Mr. Alderson shared his secrets to attendees of the Association for Strategic Planning's monthly professional speaker series. The ASP is a non-profit professional organization dedicated to enabling people and organizations to succeed through improved strategic thinking, planning and action. The association, founded in 1999, provides opportunities to explore cutting-edge strategy principles and practices that drive success in the business, government, and non-profit sectors.
This event represented the first time strategic planning was explored from a sports perspective. As perhaps the first baseball executive to incorporate standard business practices into everyday baseball operations, Mr. Alderson proved the ideal authority on this topic. Accompanied by Jeff Overton, Executive Vice President, Business Operations for the San Diego Padres, Mr. Alderson engaged the audience with an insight into the strategic plan that he has established for the San Diego Padres. "Good outcomes can come out of poor processes. Bad outcomes can come out of good processes. Businesses of all kinds need to be able to evaluate the process (define it), and adapt and change with various circumstances," he told the audience.
Mr. Alderson spoke about the four primary elements to the Padres' strategic plan (Team, Fans, Community, and Ballpark), and the goals identified to support their interests. He highlighted initiatives that he introduced to standardize practices within the organization, such as creating a Player Development Manual that is provided to every member of the operations department and all players. This manual covers team philosophy, strategies, standard operating procedures, and expectations. He emphasized the importance of reaching out to the community and establishing the Padres' ballpark as a sophisticated entertainment venue and asset to the surrounding region.
Concluding his presentation, Mr. Alderson spoke of the importance of every business never becoming content with its operations. There are always processes that can be improved upon, and Major League Baseball is no different. He agreed that performance-enhancing drugs are an issue of great concern for the sport, and one that needs to be afforded primary attention. He also noted the need for MLB to focus more efforts on growing the sport internationally. The World Baseball Classic proved very popular with the fans, and is a first step toward this goal of internationalization.
A special thank you goes out to the San Diego Chapter of the Association for Strategic Planning for allowing the students of SDSU's Sports MBA program to attend this amazing event. If you would like to learn more about their Association, or attend one of their events in the future, feel free to check them out at www.strategyplus.org/index.shtml. |
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