Published in 2003, Michael Lewis' Moneyball charts efforts by the Oakland Athletics baseball team to use analytics and statistical methods to assemble a competitive team on a comparatively small budget.

This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross G, Owen, Ross D and Nahdia share their thoughts on the book and it's relevance to L&D and HR professionals. We discuss:

• how General Manager Billy Beane transformed his team's approach to scouting talent
• the impact of statistics and subjective judgement on decision making
• the challenges inherent with implementing a statistical approach to L&D.

Show notes

Moneyball, by Michael Lewis, is available from all good booksellers.

Some of the criticism directed at Moneyball is covered in The Atlantic: theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/09/the-many-problems-with-moneyball/245769/

For details of Mind Tools' 77-page workbook, 'Becoming a Positive Leader' - free to new members - visit MindTools.com.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Owen discussed potential UI improvements to the Tesco loan calculator: chrisannetts.com/blog/tesco-loan-calculator 

Nahdia discussed the colour of Sesame Street's Big Bird across different cultures: buzzfeed.com/natashajokic1/big-bird-international-colors 

And Ross G revealed that he'd had a most epic morning listening to Hidden Citizens: hiddencitizens.com/ 

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit emeraldworks.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.

Connect with our speakers

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers on Twitter:

• Ross Dickie - @RossDickieEW
• Owen Ferguson - @OwenFerguson
• Ross Garner - @RossGarnerMT (new handle!)
• Nahdia Khan - @_nahdia_khan