by Peter A. Arthur-Smith, Leadership Solutions, Inc.®

“Many bosses have this attitude that anyone is easily replaceable; like gloves, they can hire someone even better.” An astute comment by an executive on LinkedIn..

He went on to say; “#1 reason why executives fail: inability or ineptitude in retaining top talent.”  Such thoughts caught your writer’s eye because he was reading so much about the Yankees’ team travails this season. What started out looking like a potential winning team at the beginning of the season was looking much in jeopardy just prior to the playoffs.

To be fair, the team has experienced some bad luck with key injuries like Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez and Didi Gregorius. However, the team also lauded its bullpen at the season’s onset and felt it had great pitching potential in its farm teams. It was also placing great faith in Aaron Boone, its rookie coach. All along, owner Hal Steinbrenner has been obsessed about retiring the team’s former ace pitcher Sabathia at the end of the season, which has cost the Yankees a fortune through a lucrative contract over the past 10 years – by way of Hal’s legendary father, George. This has led General Manager, Brian Cashman, to be restrained in bringing in expensive outsiders wherever possible.

Again, Boone, despite the promise of his “name,” doesn’t have things too easy by the fact that he’s under constant scrutiny from so many critical fan-eyes, including this writer, dogging his every move.  Such behavior is goaded along by likely the most oppressive sports media marketplace in the US. New York sports’ journalists are constantly harping on about who should be on Boone’s team, who isn’t performing, and how he should be coaching the franchise.

Just imagine if you, as leaders, constantly had this glare looking over your shoulders. General Manager Cashman comes in for the same treatment; perhaps even more so based upon his key position within the organization. Hal Steinbrenner, the owner, does too, although he’s somewhat more removed from it while living in Florida. The pressure to keep cycling through fresh blood and replacements – also especially true with publicly owned organizations – can be very intense.

All of this publicity creates a recipe for team churn, notwithstanding inevitable game injuries. Your writer is convinced some of these injuries might not be so prevalent if the Yankees didn’t have so many inexperienced players; who can become a little bull-headed in their youth. Your writer sometimes wonders whether coaches do enough to educate these youthful players to take care of themselves better. At the other end, with aging-out players like Sabathia, they become injury prone with over-used bodies. So, all in all, the Yankees have come in for more than their fair share of churn.

Even so, when you look at their arch nemesis, Boston Red Sox, who’ve done especially well this season and who also have an intense media market, ferocious fan base and rookie coach; it would appear to have held its team together much better over the duration. Right now it’s looking like a particularly strong contender for the World Series final, by dint of holding its crew together so well.

Meanwhile the Yankees pitching rotation continues to look vulnerable with erratic performances from aces like Severino, Sabathia and Tanaka. Its supposed ace closer Aldois Chapman, who always appears to operate in an over-the-top manner, has also been kept out with injury and erratic performances. So it brings in other try-outs like Cessa, Losisga, Britton and others. On the batting side, you see names like Voit, Higeshicka and Hechavarra…all unknowns.

Even though there maybe justification for all these ongoing seasonal changes and insertions, it must make it awfully difficult to build team spirit. This compares with the last time the Yankees won the World Series back in 2009, when there was remarkable stability and experience within the team. Many of those team members had been around the team for many years: like Derek Jeter, Andy Pettit, Paul Ryan, Hideki Matsui, and Mariano Rivera. This season’s main contender, Boston, has shown good stability, too; so it remains to be seen if that stability will pay off…they have broken a number of records in the process, including the number of games won in one season. The Yankees, by contrast, have just clinched one season record: for the number of home runs in one season, now standing at 266.

There are a number of realities when you have to cope with such churn, which include:

» It doesn’t really give people chance to know and trust each other, especially in tight spots.

» It doesn’t give team members the opportunity to mentor each other.

» It doesn’t allow them to build strong bonds and team spirit to handle the highest forms of competitive pressure.

» It doesn’t permit overall confidence building through witnessing competent leadership decision making.

Maybe, Aaron Boone and his team will pull-it-off, given its close of season performance against Boston and its home-field advantage against the Oakland As in the division playoff. It will be really interesting to see which team cracks first in the Division first-round series between Boston and the Yankees, with Boston as hosts, within the next ten days: assuming that works out to be the case. There’s one caveat: In the penultimate season game, Sabathia, the unofficial captain in the locker room, came to the defense of one of his team-mates who was hit by a “stray” ball from a Red Sox pitcher. Right after, Sabathia retaliated with a nasty pitch against a Red Sox opponent. Sabathia was thrown out of the game, but his team unified behind his perceived heroics. Who knows how that will galvanize his team during the playoffs?

Ultimately as a team leader, whether that be leading a junior or senior team, you are likely to gain the most team traction when you have not only formed a talented team but have also stormed with it. Storming, over a certain period of time, allows members to learn about and come to terms with each other. That can be a tough to achieve with so much churn, since it doesn’t allow team members chance to work through their differences, and then settle down into a norming mode. Churn constantly interferes with that. This writer has often observed stability within teams that perform well.

Having said all that, it is valid to disengage a team member who is disruptive, not pulling their weight, or who is clearly a misfit. In such instances, the overall leader needs to judiciously negotiate an exit strategy for that member, so that the remaining team can move on.

Referring back to that LinkedIn contributor quote at this article’s outset, the person continued: “…convinced they can hire someone better. They (bosses) are fooling themselves and do a disservice to their companies. A good employee has knowledge of systems, products and processes. They have trusting relationships with clients and co-workers that take years to build. When you lose a good employee, you lose part of your culture. You lose part of your company.”

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