One of the best leadership lessons I’ve read this year didn’t come from a business book.
It came from a former Major League Baseball manager.
As the industry gathers in Pittsburgh this week for ABA’s BISC/BusMARC Summer Summit, I can’t think of a more fitting place to reflect on a leadership lesson that also began in Pittsburgh.
Clint Hurdle spent more than four decades in professional baseball. After an 11-year playing career, he worked his way through the coaching ranks before managing both the Colorado Rockies and Pittsburgh Pirates. He led the Rockies to their only National League pennant in 2007 and later guided the Pirates to three consecutive playoff appearances, ending a 20-year losing streak.
In 2025, Hurdle published Hurdleisms: Wit and Wisdom from a Lifetime in Baseball, a collection of the lessons he learned throughout his career. While there are plenty of memorable stories in the book, one in particular caught my attention.
Hurdleism #8:
“Let’s drop this old-school versus new-school debate.”
At the time, Hurdle was managing the Pittsburgh Pirates, while General Manager Neal Huntington was among the early believers in using advanced analytics to build a winning baseball team. Huntington had assembled an analytics department staffed by some of the brightest minds in the game.
Hurdle wasn’t immediately convinced.
As someone with more than 35 years of experience as a player and coach, he knew the game. He understood players. He trusted what he saw on the field.
The numbers? Not so much.
As Hurdle admitted in the book:
“To say that I bought in right away would be a flat-out lie. Actually, it took me two years in Pittsburgh to understand all the different metrics, what they meant, and which ones to value most.”
After the 2012 season, Huntington came to Hurdle’s home for what turned into a marathon strategy session. They reviewed the organization’s player development process, challenged each other’s thinking, debated ideas, and ultimately found common ground. As Hurdle described it, they “threw their egos out the door” and committed to doing what they believed would build a winning ball club.
By the end of the conversation, something had changed.
Hurdle didn’t abandon his decades of baseball experience.
Huntington didn’t insist the numbers alone had all the answers.
Instead, they became partners.
As Hurdle wrote:
“We truly became a partnership that day. I got on board with becoming analytically driven, and we agreed we would honor the human analytics of the game as well.”
Then came my favorite line in the entire book.
“Let’s all just be in school together.”
The results speak for themselves.
From 2013 through 2015, the Pirates won 280 games, reached the playoffs three consecutive seasons, and finally ended one of the longest losing streaks in professional sports.
Reading Hurdle’s story, I wasn’t really thinking about baseball.
I was thinking about our industry.
