Rouse on Transformation

I just finished reading Michael Lewis’ Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.  Lewis relates the story of the Oakland Athletics and their ability to use scientific management to maximize wins per dollar. I could not help but wonder how their empirically derived principles might apply to academia. What is the equivalent of On-Base Percentage for a university?  And, if we could agree on that, how would we align all of our resources to maximize this metric?

The essence of the book’s argument is that many of the truths that organizations embrace and use to guide decisions are, in fact, myths with no empirical basis in fact. Once you look at the data in detail, you can find what really matters. If your competitors continue to embrace the old (false) truths while you embrace the new empirically based truths, you can gain an enormous competitive advantage.

Of course, the priesthood associated with the old (false) truths will do their best to defend the dogma and discredit the new empirically-based truths, often without even paying attention to the source and nature of the new truths. They will attack the integrity and abilities of those presenting the new truths, typically dismissing them as uninformed and self-serving. (See pages 287-288 of Moneyball.)

But, transformation can happen. The Red Sox adopted the Athletics’ practices and, with a much bigger market and hence budget, escaped the curse of the bambino. For much less money, they relied on Ellsbury and Pedroia while getting rid of the high-priced Ramirez.  The Toronto Blue Jays, led by acolyte of Oakland’s Billy Beane, are similarly pursuing the new model.

I know that a university is much more complex than a baseball team, but I wonder if we are not often trapped by our assumed truths rather that empirically exploring what really matters and how the allocation of our resources could truly improve the value we provide.