Hope is not a strategy, but it's a necessity

The Blue Jays lost last night. I actually didn’t think that would happen. I was so convinced they would be the top team. They’d come back before time and time again and in my mind, this game was no different.

For those of you who know me, you know how much baseball fills our day-to-day life. We spend our summer on the diamond cheering our son and have been doing that for 2/3 of our kids for the past 15 years.

I have arrived at a conclusion, based on what I have observed from watching baseball for so many hours. Many of you in healthcare know the famous line, “hope is not a strategy” as an Institute of Healthcare Improvement mantra (although it is actually used in a wide variety of business contexts).

What baseball taught me this season is that trust, safety and hope are the necessary leadership ingredients that lead to improved outcomes.

I watched John Schneider (the general manager) do what I, and many others, perceived was “nothing” when things weren’t going well. When hitters would struggle, he kept them in. Errors were made, no changes. Pitchers were struggling, he would calmly wait and watch.

“I trust these guys”. He would say. “I have confidence in what they do”.

In the past few weeks Schneiders long-game has been revealed much like a Ted Lasso finale. To him, trust is a verb. It meant he understood that each player knew the role they played, and what they had to do to succeed, and help the team succeed. He demonstrated that day in and day out. And with that trust comes hope. In March he said, “I’ve quietly got a really good [freaking] feeling about this team. Seriously.” (For those of you who know his interviews, you know he did not say freaking).

With that hope and the deep trust, the team had the permission to work through hard times, to believe in each other – to learn as a group. That is safety. Mid-season they started to see results, and the opportunity to think…“we can do it”.

There are 162 games in a season. In the beginning of April, anything can happen. The Blue Jays came in last in their division last year, and so in April, no one thought they would be a contender. When the players were allowed to work through issues, to fail, to pick each other up, they improved as a team.

But they needed hope. Without hope, there is no reason to keep improving and to achieve.

The hard thing about that loss is that for a moment, it signifies the end of hope. There are no more games, no more innings, no more possibilities of a home run, an artful strikeout or an athletic catch.

And that loss of hope is crushing.

But John Schneider, in what he called his “first team meeting of the year” that occurred right after the loss last night, reset the possibility of hope. “Because I believe and trust in every single one of you,” he said, “because you shown yourselves you can do it.” That hope starts again as of today.

Anything is possible in baseball, and in life. And yes, hope is not a strategy, but magic doesn’t happen without hope.

There are 99 days left before pitchers and catchers report for spring training. I’ll be counting down the days and hoping for another beautiful season.