People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. 
I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring. - Rogers Hornsby
One of the real privileges and joys of my life is coaching my eight and nine-year old sons' various youth sports teams.
And with springtime that means Little League Baseball.
This Saturday was a particular delight, as after playing our game, I took my sons and a few of their teammates to watch an exhibition game between a local traveling team and an all-star team from Tokyo, Japan.
These Tokyo youngsters were not just any team, as last summer they won the famed Little League Series, prevailing in a 16-team tournament that started with over 30,000 teams from 75 countries.
Watching youth baseball at any level is a treat, but the team spirit, precision, and respect with which the Japanese kids played the game was mesmerizing.
And for those that subscribe to the view that the "American Way" has come too much to mean "everyone gets a pat on the back and an attaboy for trying” - with a deleterious impact on our competitive drive - well then the contrasting styles (and results) between the American and Japanese teams were proof positive for that view.
A few vignettes:
- After each inning, the Japanese youngsters would sprint off the field into an attentive semi-circle around their coach, remove their hats as a show of respect, and stand quietly with eyes up as their coach instructed them for the inning to come.
- While, when their teammates were at the plate, the American players too often sat and chatted in their dugout, the Japanese players were on their feet, attentive and cheering.
- When an umpire called a close play against them, there was no eye-rolling, no demonstrative shoulder shrugging, only a fast hustle back to the dugout.
- At the end of the game, the Japanese players went to each section of the crowd and collectively bowed and thanked the spectators for attending and cheering.
- And my favorite as a beleaguered youth coach constantly searching for lost gloves, hats, and gear from my notoriously absent-minded players, all of the Japanese players' was exactingly lined up, cleanly packed, with a stray ball nowhere in sight.
- Perhaps a bit more controversially, when one of the Japanese players made an error (remember these are 11 and 12 year old boys!) instead of a "get the next one" as would be typical for an American coach, from the dugout came a roar and that player sprinted off the field, replaced and not seen for the remainder of the game.
Yes, here was a team that played the game with hustle, teamwork, respect, and an awesome will to win.
And well beyond baseball, isn’t that the kind of team that any manager in any field of endeavor would be thrilled and honored to lead?
And wouldn’t that be a team - just like those Japanese boys vanquishing 30,000+ teams on their way to a championship - that would just crush the competition?
Yes, this is of more than just passing cultural interest, as in our modern market the consequences of weak performance come harsh and fast - talented global competitors ready and eager to pick off dissatisfied customers, flaming online reviews diminishing reputations and brands, margins squeezed from above by customers unwilling to pay much for mediocre experiences, and from below by a fatness encouraged by a usually defended as virtuous managerial "light-handedness."
Please let me stop and stress that this is not a “Fuddy-Duddy” formulation, blaming the "kids" for all the ills of the world.
Having now coached a lot of American children and managed as many American young people, I assure you they all want and respond well to expectations of hard work, decorum, and measurable, concrete results.
No, it is the leaders and managers of organizations that need to do the daily hard and energetic work of setting team and individual objectives, of rewarding great performance and setting consequences for results that are lacking.
The great news is that not only does a higher accountability, "tough love" culture like this lead to better results (of course), not only is it more respectable to all the stakeholders of an organization, but...
...it also creates the best kind of fun.
The nutritious fun of working hard toward a goal and accomplishing it.
Of delivering more and more “low cost, high quality” value to customers.
And just like those Japanese baseball players, the fun of winning in the places that matter most, on the scoreboard and on the bottom line.