Last week Major League Baseball announced that the 2020 Major League Baseball season, which had been delayed as a result of COVID-19, will begin on July 23.
To successfully play baseball in an environment that has been and will continue to be so heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic requires the adoption of a number of changes.
Some of the more important baseball game specific ones are:
- Each club may invite up to 60 players to their pre-season training camp that starts on July 1
- They will be required to winnow that down to 30 for their opening day rosters, but they will be able to carry up to three supplemental players
- A designated hitter will be used in both the American and National Leagues
- To make things more exciting, in extra-inning games, starting with the 10th inning, teams automatically will start with a runner on second base
- Various pitching rule changes have been implemented, including that pitchers must face at least three batters unless the inning ends, or they get injured
Unprecedented Challenges
The pre-season training period will be shortened to just three weeks and the regular season greatly reduced to 60 vs.
the normal 162 games. This will result in the season being like a baseball sprint and if a team gets “hot”, it could make it to the playoffs, whereas a “cold” streak could spell doom for a team.
Add to these changes the fact there will be few or even no fans in the stadium and the challenge of how to play a baseball game while “social distancing” means that keeping the players fully motivated and engaged will be a real difficulty for coaches.
The result of all these changes and obstacles will mean the coaching staff will face enormous challenges in trying to produce a satisfying experience for the baseball players, fans in the stadium, and viewers at home.
With these constraints and the various rule changes, a premium will be placed on the personnel coaching and managing the teams because they will need to make sure their team is performing at the top of their game every day.
This means the need for coaching will be more important than ever for baseball and the use of effective coaching skills will be a must.
However, the need for proper coaching is not just applicable to the world of sports, it is necessary for the business world.
In a similar way, providing proper and effective coaching to your personnel is a must for them to come up with innovations for your company.
Just like baseball coaches will need make sure their players are fully engaged in the baseball experience, so a company needs to ensure its staff is fully engaged and performing at top of their innovation game so they can produce effective innovation results.
Ongoing Coaching
Innovation Consulting and Business Planning in Atlanta, Georgia
To create a successful and sustainable innovation program you must provide ongoing coaching and guidance to your staff because – like a roaring fire that is blazing at one time, then a short while later is a mere shadow of what it was, so innovation within an enterprise can dissipate quite quickly.
Coaching starts with changing the mindset of personnel because people and their organizations largely focus on and protect their current operations rather than pay attention to developing new ideas. The larger and more successful the operation, the bigger the problem in getting people to focus on new ideas and opportunities.
A key piece of altering people’s mindset involves how they look at “problems”
When most people run into a difficulty or impediment they think “obstacle”, whereas when an innovative person runs into the same situation they think “opportunity”.
Training needs to be provided on how to see every problem that one encounters as an opportunity for an invention or innovation. This is because many people view problems they encounter only as adversities, nuisances, or obstacles to achieving their goals. In turn, they feel these are situations that they need to just put up with or work around, instead of seeing them as circumstances that are ripe for a potential solution.
Fanning the Flame of Innovation Within Your Company
This means that coaching must address individuals, the group in which they function, the entity’s overall culture, its 
innovation strategy, and the environment in which it operates.
Innovation coaching can follow various different paths. For instance, internal innovation mentors can be utilized to keep people on track. This approach was used by Whirlpool, Inc. when the company trained certain employees to be I-Mentors for working with internal teams to nurture and foster innovation within the company.
Or an approach similar to the one Intuit uses can be followed that utilizes multi-day “lean start-ins” that gather “intrapreneurs” from across the company to train and coach them how to apply rapid experimentation to develop new products, services, and business models.
Outside experts can also be utilized to speed the entire innovation process. An example of this is Kimberly-Clark which promotes one-day “Expert Acceleration Sessions” that bring in hand-picked outside thought leaders.
Where to Start
Begin by coming to the full realization that innovation is not a once-and-done process. Successful innovation requires ongoing coaching, guidance, and encouragement of your personnel. A company needs to commit to a long-term innovation strategy and develop a budget for the continuing training and allocation of the resources this will require.
Next, determine what your ongoing innovation training and coaching process will look like. This includes the development of internal innovation support personnel who will aid your entire organization in moving forward with your innovation program. The utilization of outside experts can be used to speed the innovation process.
If you could use assistance with effectively providing ongoing coaching and guidance to your personnel in their pursuit of innovation, please contact us using the information below so we can be a resource to you in this all-important area.
Fountainhead Consulting Group, Inc. is an Innovation and Business Planning firm. During the past 17, years we have shown over 1,200 companies how to achieve their goals by using our unique, comprehensive, and systematic FastTrak Innovation Program™, Innovation Academy™, and Structure of Success™ methodologies. Using the components in these methodologies, each month we examine an aspect of how to transform your business or organization into a true 21st Century enterprise.
Office: (770) 642-4220
www.FountainheadConsultingGroup.com
George.Horrigan@FountainheadConsultingGroup.com
Tags: entrepreneur, front end of innovation, innovation, invention, small business consulting, small business planning, start a business
