The Joe Torre Story

So I figured that I would have an actual replacement manager to talk about today, but alas...

Forget, for the moment that Joe Torre was a baseball manager for the New York Yankees. Think about him as a Human Resources Manager. Now when he's hired for this role, no one thinks he can do the job. He doesn't have a good track record, he has a Boss who most people fear, and he has expectations to do well since the manager before him did so.

Joe Torre was not a manager who yelled at those under him or singled them out if they were doing bad. He rarely got fired up enough to get himself in trouble. He just sat there and was stoic: the same expression was on his face through the good times and the bad times. He excelled at shielding his employees from the overbearing media and the tyrannical Boss. He got to know his employees well and treated them with respect.

Oh, and he was good at his job. He spent 12 years as manager and all 12 years his group of employees finished in the top 8, 7 years in the top 4, 6 years in the top 2 and 4 years as the best. The means one third of the years he was in charge, his employees were the best of the best and half of those years they were first or second.

Joe Torre was fired after all this. If he were an HR Manager, would he be treated differently? Tomorrow we'll go further into this...