Management Wisdom from the New York Yankees' Dynasty: What Every Manager Can Learn from a Legendary Team's 80-Year Winning Streak »

LANCE A. BERGER is a management consultant to Fortune 500 companies and has served as a consultant to Major League Baseball. He specializes in talent management, change management, and compensation. A former general partner for the largest compensation practice worldwide, the Hay Group, he is the author of The Talent Management Handbook, The Compensation Handbook, and The Change Management Handbook. He has been a featured speaker at the United Nations, The Conference Board, and the American Management Association.

DOROTHY R. BERGER is a consultant in talent management. She co-edited The Talent Management Handbook, The Compensation Handbook, and The Change Management Handbook.

At the heart of the Yankees' dynasty is the organization's incredible track record in managing talent. The Yankees know how to find, nurture, and retain stars and superstars better than anyone else. Lance Berger shows that, contrary to popular belief, the Yankees' talent management secret isn't their payroll. In fact, most Yankees superstars—including such greats as Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, Derek Jeter, and Bernie Williams—have been developed internally, not bought or traded from other teams. The Yankees' secret weapon, described in this book, is its sophisticated talent management system.

Great businesses emulate the Yankees by finding and keeping the best and brightest talent available. You don't have to pay Yankee-sized salaries, but Berger shows that any business, in order to be successful, needs to develop or hire away from the competition at least one superstar. He explains the Yankees' management strategy for balancing superstars with stars, solid performers, and other key role players, and techniques for developing a deep talent pool. Applying these smart principles to the business world, Berger shows you how to cultivate winning values from the top down; how to establish a standard of excellence above and beyond your competition; and ten other timeless principles that make the Yankees a powerhouse year after year.

The Yankees, in the context of this book, serve as a metaphor for sustained organizational and business excellence. The iconic characters, from owners to managers to players, who have served in the Yankees organization for the past eighty years are symbolic of the types of people we manage and work with every day in our work environments. If you want to build your business into a championship organization, Management Wisdom from the New York Yankees' Dynasty will show you how to step up to the plate and swing for the fences.

Summary - Soundview Executive Book Summaries

At the heart of the New York Yankees' dynasty is the organization's incredible track record in managing talent. The Yankees know how to find, nurture and retain baseball stars and superstars better than anyone else.
Author Lance Berger is a management consultant to Fortune 500 companies and has served as a consultant to Major League Baseball. After looking deeply into the history of the Yankees' organization, Berger discovered that many of the same principles that made the Yankees great were also driving the success of business clients. These core principles are based on leadership, processes and culture, and have evolved over the past eight decades during the team's remarkable history.

In Management Wisdom From the New York Yankees' Dynasty, Berger offers time-tested management techniques that can turn any team in sports or in business into a long-term winner. He also shows that, contrary to popular belief, the Yankees' talent management secret isn't their payroll. In fact, most Yankees superstars including such greats as Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams have been developed internally, not bought or traded from other teams. The Yankees' secret weapon is the sophisticated talent management system Berger describes.

How an Organization Dominated Its Industry for 80 Years
It is rare for a company to dominate an industry for more than a few years. Time changes both customers and technologies, and allows new competitors to rise. This makes the Yankees' record over the past eight decades all the more amazing. Since 1921, the Yankees have been in the World Series 39 times and have won the championship 26 times. There are few American corporations that have been a dominant force for more than eight decades.

No matter whether you love or hate the Yankees, it is clear to anyone who looks at the team in an objective, businesslike manner that it is not just another sports team. There is something special about the team that allows it to win no matter the changing players, managers and owners. The secret is a set of 14 principles that represent the Yankees' best management practices. These principles emerged under the leadership of owner Jacob Ruppert in the 1920s and have been refined by owners and management ever since.

The 14 management principles from the history of the team's success are applicable to any organization. You don't have to be a Yankees fan or even know anything about baseball to benefit from the management wisdom from this sports dynasty. You just need an interest in building a competitive advantage in your company. The Yankees, in the context of Management Wisdom From the New York Yankees' Dynasty, are a metaphor for sustained organizational and business excellence.

The Big Yankee Management Myth
Not everyone agrees that the 14 principles are the basis of the Yankees' eight-decade track record. One common (and misleading) myth is that the Yankees could simply buy superstars. But this is a very simplistic way of looking at Yankee success, and it dismisses many core values and guiding principles of the dynasty. If you don't look beyond the myth that the Yankees simply buy all the best players, you will deprive yourself of powerful management knowledge that could help your organization build its own dynasty.

There is a perception that the Yankees' team is comprised of all superstars. The reality is the Yankees are a superstar team rather than a team of superstars. It is true that organizations need some minimal level of payroll to have any chance of competing on an ongoing basis with Yankee-like opponents, but it's not necessary to have the highest payroll. The secret to the Yankees' success is not mythical. It is a result of a set of 14 sound business practices for managing talent that were applied over an 80-year period. A shrewd manager can use the Yankee principles to create a winning tradition in his or her own organization. Copyright © 2005 Soundview Executive Book Summaries