Tip for Baseball Executives: The Importance of the One-on-One Relationship

Marvin Miller is one of my favorite baseball figures of all-time. And about 10 to 15 years ago, I had the opportunity to correspond with him. Graciously, he wrote back to me.

One of the questions I asked was, “What was your underlying principle in your representation of the players?” He answered this question by stating the importance of a minimalist approach, no large staff or office, and maximizing one-on-one contact with members.

For Marvin, to achieve the organizational goals, he felt the importance of careful listening to members’ problems, their ideas for solutions, and their specific commentary about the performance of the union.

These are not new concepts, but increasingly these are core elements of strategic listening program within an organization, and many executive leaders — CEO or otherwise — recognizes the need to roll up their sleeves and engage in this manner.

What stands with me so much is the comment on one-on-one contacts. Even the way it is written in the correspondence calls my attention to that specific phrase. There is a history within scholarly leadership research of considering the one-on-one relationship between leader and member. And I’ve certainly observed other baseball leaders suggest the one-on-one is something less common than it once was.

I think that one of the reasons the one-on-one comments stood out so much to me is because it fits well with my own leadership beliefs. I’ve lived that belief so much that others have commented on it to me, occasionally as a negative because it pulls away from being able to reach larger audiences on a regular basis.

That said, there is plenty of support for the idea that relying and developing star players on your business team results in more impactful performance. I believe this to be true.

The question becomes… How many leaders believe in — and live — the one-on-one principle, the way that Marvin did?