As I write this, the baseball playoffs have just begun. And it occurred to me that baseball teams offer a few lessons in business management from which we can all take a little batting practice.

There is more than one way around the bases: When you take the New York Yankees who have a huge customer base and therefore a huge bank roll, that allows the team’s management to put together a great team by buying great players. On the other hand, my hometown Colorado Rockies have spent years building an instructional league because of a financial need to “grow their own” great players. Both approaches work but each have their own challenges in business as well as baseball.

Clearly, if you have a bunch of big name players, your toughest job as a manager might be working around egos and the associated drama. This type of business team needs to work together, and the loss of a key team member may result in a large loss in productivity. This environment may not be conducive to new, young members getting off to a good start, and your key employees may be constant targets for competitors’ recruitment efforts. If you can resolve these problems, it is likely to get you to the “playoffs” every time.

The other approach of growing your own team requires a completely different skill set and presents its own challenges. Management must have an effective way to measure the core values and strengths of a potential teammate before risking the expense and effort to bring that person “up through the minors.” If we don’t have this in place, we risk program fallout and potential morale problems from the rest of the team. Another problem comes in knowing when to “call up” a player. When we are training new employees, it’s almost an artform knowing when to let them out on their own. Wait too long and you risk them moving to another team. Start too soon and too many strikes may accumulate and the teammate may consider leaving the game altogether. I speak from experience — my father and I have run a training camp for young upcoming technicians for many years. Just like for any baseball manager, the job is part psychology and part experience.

Naturally there are combinations of both teams that require us to possess all kinds of seemingly opposing skills. A great manager can spot a player who is either just about to come out of or begin a slump and help that player accept and correct the behavior at its root. In these times when our employees are experiencing at least as much stress as we are, what a gift we can give them by simply being a better manager. In the words of 20-year Pittsburgh Pirates longdistance home-run hitter Willie Stargell, “When they start the game, they don’t yell, ‘Work ball.’ They say, ‘Play ball.’” Perhaps the best business lesson we can all learn from baseball: play it well and it won’t feel like work. ◽