The Purpose Of: A Bullpen
I love baseball! Maybe even a little too much (just ask my wife for her opinion). I truly believe it’s the greatest sport in the world. I love the strategy and the skill it takes. I love that the best offensive players in the game are batting around .300. That means they’re only getting a hit three times out of ten at bats. In any other sport in the world that would be considered a failure. I love the constantly changing battle between a pitcher and a batter. As one starts to figure things out the other makes adjustments to counteract it all. Did I mention I love baseball?
I also believe there are a lot of leadership lessons to be learned from baseball. We could talk through teamwork or communication, both vital in baseball and in leadership. We could talk about the hierarchy that exists in baseball and in life. I’d like to, however, look at the idea of a bullpen. If you’re not familiar with baseball or to what a bullpen is, a bullpen is the part of your pitching staff that aren’t starters. They’ll enter the game later, normally around the fifth to seventh inning or so, and pick up wherever the starter left off. Sometimes it’s planned to when they’ll come in, as in, “we want our starter to only go so many innings,” and other times they come in when the starter isn’t quite hitting the mark as they need to. Either way, a bullpen is a vital part to the success of any baseball team. A good bullpen will keep games close or hold onto the lead while a bad one will cost you games. I think it’s sometimes an overlooked part to the game for many. But what does this have to do with leadership you may be asking?
To really understand the connection there’s one more thing about relief pitchers that come in from the bullpen, they’re always ready but don’t always get the call. They, along with the coaching staff and catchers are constantly preparing and training. Honing their skills and fine tuning their craft for a moment to be able to get into the game to show what they can do. Many feel that way about their positions or jobs, anxious to prove themselves. I’ve felt that way before. I’d like to break this down and look at it from both the leader’s perspective (the coach) and the followers perspective (the pitcher).
Let’s begin with the pitcher. As I said earlier, oftentimes people are just chomping at the bit to prove themselves and their abilities to their bosses, coworkers, and the like. That means we keep working and getting better at what we do. Relief pitchers and starting pitchers prepare and work in the same way. We sometimes feel overlooked and other times there are people that are just better in certain situations, we keep working. When a pitcher wants to get better at a certain pitch they go to their coach and ask them to work with them to get better. What if we could do the same? What if we went to our managers, bosses, pastors, etc. and asked for coaching so that we could do what we do even better? What that would do for our growth is probably obvious but what do you think that would mean to them that you would ask and especially when you follow through. We must keep working, keep preparing, and then when we have the opportunity, give it our all! What about the other side though?
Coaches and General Managers work hand in hand to build great teams. The coaches tell the GM’s what the team needs to be successful and then the GM does what they can to make that a reality. The coaches take what the GM has given them and trains them up to make that pitcher a winner. In businesses, both large and small, churches, and other organizations we typically try to recruit and keep good people. The managers are telling the bosses what we need and the bosses are trying to recruit just that. The question that must be asked at this point is, are the managers coaching? I often times speak and write from a church perspective and have said for a long time that when we have our “bullpens” deep and healthy it’s discipleship and if not it’s damage control. You can replace that word discipleship with the word leadership and it remains true. The best pitchers in baseball are working to coach and reproduce themselves in other pitchers. The best leaders are constantly and consistently reproducing themselves in others.
Make sure you have a solid bullpen. Always develop leaders, even if it’s to the point that you don’t need everyone right now. When you do you’re setting them, yourself, and your organization up for longterm success. Stay the course, you have what it takes!