Film Room - Fred Claire

Brian Johnson (00:15.186)
Hey, listener, good to have you here. Welcome to Talent Chasing, where we bring real world stories from the fields, from the courts, and the pitches of Major League sports. And then we combine those with the offices of corporate talent. It's our job to amplify those hidden stories and finding, retaining, and motivating the best talent in the world. Because no team exists, as we know, anywhere without great talent. My name is Brian Johnson, former Major League Baseball player and scout.

Jasper Spanjaart (00:42.316)
My name is Jasper Spangiot, I'm a journalist and filmmaker.

Chad (00:45.439)
And I'm Chad Sowash, recruitment industry veteran. And this episode is part of our film room series where we break down our favorite parts of the big interviews that we've done. Kind of like breaking down big plays in the film room after a big game.

Brian Johnson (01:00.862)
Debrief.

Jasper Spanjaart (01:01.038)
It's sort of debrief. Yeah, highlight tape debrief. We settled on film room because it's a great sort of nugget to what we're doing. And in this week's film room, we're breaking down our interview with Fred Claire. Fred Claire transformed the Dodgers in the 80s and 90s from one of the worst teams in the MLB to a World Series title winning team. Just an incredible like story, incredible guy. First sound bite ready to go, Chad.

Chad (01:18.338)
Boom!

Chad (01:49.879)
We suck.

Jasper Spanjaart (02:52.494)
For me, just, I love that. How do you expect me to catch everything? Well, yeah. I think what I love most about what he said is sort of the expectations we place on others, right? Because we, we all know it's almost every company in the world has, has that problem of, of how do you deal with mistakes and how do you create a culture where it's okay to make mistakes? And, know, for, for all we know that guy might've hit 20, you know, 200 and he did, we, wasn't performing to the ability that he could have, but.

How do we create that culture where we say, right, mistakes are okay, but you need to be self -aware in that sense. Like you can't go, well, you expect me to make every, I do every presentation right. Like how do you, how do you create that culture?

Chad (03:39.105)
I think first and foremost, we've talked about this on other podcasts, practice, practice, practice, right? mean, and that's something that you see with sports, military, you don't see it as much in corporate culture today. We almost expect everybody to show up game ready. And it's not the case because generally you're going from company to company, they're entirely different teams, right? So you have to practice different. You've got different schemes.

So yeah, that to me is the big key is your expectation as a leader. But also I think what Fred was looking for here and he didn't really say it, but what really got me was the guy's mindset, right? Do you expect me to catch them all? I should expect myself to catch them all, right? I should be pissed at myself for missing that, right? So I think from a mindset standpoint as a leader, that's when you go in and you're like, okay, look, your head's not in the right place. You're not in the right place. So

Jasper Spanjaart (04:15.97)
Yeah, exactly.

Jasper Spanjaart (04:21.506)
Yeah.

Chad (04:33.857)
You know, again, training, scheming, and then also mindset, so important for business and hell in sports, right, Brian?

Brian Johnson (04:42.482)
Yeah, absolutely. I think in sports, it's kind of the expectation, right? The guy saying, hey, you think I need to catch everything. That guy's not thinking about a championship, right? Fred Claire has to get a championship in order to keep his job. We got to win in order to keep his job. That center fielder told him, hey, my expectations were I'm just happy to be here. I'm just, right? I'm just a guy. So, but what stood out to me was I really appreciate what Fred was talking about. Fred was not a former player.

Chad (04:55.222)
Mm

Jasper Spanjaart (05:01.262)
I'm just a guy, yeah.

Brian Johnson (05:10.388)
Fred was not a baseball guy, he was a journalist. Fred was not an analytics guru that was 20 years old from Yale or wherever, right? But he was a great leader in that he was able to evaluate what he had. He understood the mechanics of the industry he was in. He understood what it takes to be a winning team, championship team. So he understood it without having to play it at a high level. And I think that's important because again, I say this all the time.

Chad (05:18.945)
Yeah.

Brian Johnson (05:39.804)
A lot of times in baseball what we have now, we have a bunch of leaders that have never really played the game. So it's like having the Ford Motor Company that makes cars be run a CEO who's never had a driver's license, right? Because they missed the nuances of what Fred Claire talked about. He talked about up the middle, I need to have a good defense and a good player, solid player in center field, the center of the diamond, because that's where most of the action occurs. I need a shortstop center of the diamond where most of the action occurs. And therefore,

Chad (05:55.397)
Mm

Brian Johnson (06:08.596)
Those are the most important access, I'm sorry, access, most important backbone of my team to have a good solid player there all the way up the middle. And I thought being a leader, being able to identify that and show respect to the guy even now 25 years later, to not put the guy's name out there, not embarrassing him, but making decision, the mechanics of a team. I need to make a move. Here's why need to make a move. Let's move on.

Chad (06:30.347)
Yep. Yeah.

Jasper Spanjaart (06:31.235)
Very true.

Chad (06:39.245)
Agreed, agreed. All right, Brian, let's hit your clip. Here we go.

Brian Johnson (07:00.734)
That I just love that music to my ears because because it's the language you have to be able to read the language of the business that you're in. You have to be able to identify and be able to understand not what the numbers say. Yeah, the numbers are important. Again, I'm not an anti analytics guy or anti data guy. We need it. It's great for our society and whatever industry you're in. However, don't fall in love with the data. Don't fall in love with the numbers.

Chad (07:03.799)
Ha

Brian Johnson (07:27.474)
You have to be able to understand what's in between the numbers. What is happening? What's the culture like within your organization? What is your team like? You may have, there's been several sports teams over the year, all over the years, all over the world, right? Whatever sport, you name it. Everyone has tried to do the, put the greatest players in the world on the field at one time. It just doesn't work. You need something else. You need to be able to have them operate as a team. And that works no matter what industry you're in.

Chad (07:58.529)
I think trying to assimilate this to what's happening today is that people are looking at AI as kind of like the new data for some reason. So everybody's focusing on the AI, the AI, the AI. And it's not really the AI. Let's say, for instance, that's going to take your job. It's going to be the person who knows how to use AI that's going to take your job. The same thing with data. The people who know how to crunch the data to be able to

Brian Johnson (08:07.646)
Mmm, yeah.

Jasper Spanjaart (08:08.57)
yeah.

Chad (08:26.935)
to package it and get it ready for the AI, right? Those are the people that are going to take your jobs. The AI, the data is not going to take your job. The big key here though, is you've seen this Brian, companies lean way too hard in one area. So they might be leaning too hard on the data. And I am seeing today, there are companies that are leaning way too hard on AI, and it's failing them.

Jasper Spanjaart (08:52.44)
Mmm.

Chad (08:54.657)
And it's failing them because AI is a puppy. AI and so is data. It's going to piss on the carpet, right? It needs some things that you need to train that puppy. You need to get it right. You need to get it packaged. in itself, the data, the analytics in itself doesn't show the entire picture, much like the AI is not going to do the whole thing, right? There's a compliment that we have, especially from a leadership on the business side and sports side.

Jasper Spanjaart (09:22.004)
And it's still about humans having to read the data, right? Because we've seen so many of this stuff come by where it's just like AI machines being able to extract all the data and giving you advice. And I'm like, hold on a second. Where's the human thinking in that? Where, you know, and I love how Fred talks about the character of a player and you can really, you can really see that he was a, you know, being a journalist that might have helped him a lot in his career.

having to interview so many different people. You get a read on what type of people there are in the world. And you're not in your Excel sheet thinking about these players in terms of numbers because that player might have awesome numbers or that salesperson or that recruiter might have awesome numbers. But if that person has a shitty mentality, probably not gonna get you anywhere or it's even gonna be bad in your team. But it's just, think from that point of view.

seeing how he built the Dodgers, like let's give him a lot of credit because I don't think he would take it for himself. I know everyone knows that Los Angeles Dodgers is one of the most successful teams in MLB but they stunk when Fred Claire took them over. They were a very, very mediocre team and I've seen plenty of mediocre teams in my life, being a Jets fan, being a Marlins fan. I love mediocrity, absolutely love it.

Chad (10:18.817)
Hell yeah.

Chad (10:28.781)
Yes.

Brian Johnson (10:30.215)
Okay, sorry.

Chad (10:38.477)
You adopt them is what you do.

Brian Johnson (10:39.296)
Yeah.

Jasper Spanjaart (10:43.176)
I adopt mediocrity, but that was a mediocre team and he just took that team from being one of the worst to being the best team in MLB. And I think we can all, we definitely all need to listen back to his interview because we can learn a thing or two from Fred.

Chad (10:58.625)
Well, I'm going to go ahead and start my clip because I think it segues very nicely. So here we go.

Chad (12:13.837)
Okay, so I love that clip so much because it just shows that learning everything about a company, an industry, a sport, building networks and relationships in that segment is the key. And I have younger professionals ask me all the time how they can become successful. And they don't like the answer generally because there are no easy buttons. I've been in this recruitment and talent tech space for over 25 years. I have the experience, the networks.

Jasper Spanjaart (12:31.181)
Hmm.

Brian Johnson (12:35.166)
Mm -hmm.

Chad (12:43.029)
And only because of that, in the time that I've put in, have I become successful. So Fred got to that GM job because he knew the business, he knew the right people, and that takes effort and time. So Jasper, as the youngest one in the room, so when you hear those types of things, does it kind of make you crumble a little bit? Say, shit, I still got a long way to go.

Jasper Spanjaart (13:03.405)
Yeah.

Jasper Spanjaart (13:07.168)
No, and I absolutely love that stuff. Because it's, mean, I'm a guy, don't want to take a shortcut, even if it's presented to me. Like I'm a type of guy that I want to work for it. I feel like I want to have a sense of I need to deserve this. I can deserve this. And I think it's just, it's absolutely true, your observation, like so much, there are no shortcuts. There just, there aren't any.

Chad (13:09.292)
Ha

Jasper Spanjaart (13:32.396)
You need to work, you need to find the right people. You need to learn from the right people. Have that type of mentality where you are willing to learn at a young age, later age, doesn't matter. I think it's just so important to have that bit of Fred Clare in you. think that's my takeaway.

Brian Johnson (13:48.436)
Yeah, that's a great way to put it. I would agree with both of you. think also there's responsibility. I think there's a lot of talk about mentors, leadership, leadership, mentors, leadership, leadership. But I think there's a responsibility for those that are being led, right? Because we all should be, we all are capable of being leaders and of being followers. Like I'm good. I can be a leader anywhere you want, any to any.

any process you want, any job you want. I'm good. I'll take the horns and lead if you want me to. But I'm just as happy being number two. I enjoy supporting my leaders and supporting other leaders. I enjoy being in that that supplemental role. And I think oftentimes we kind of forget there's a responsibility, as Fred pointed out, to listen, to sit, shut your mouth, get off your phone, pay attention to what somebody is saying. They're giving you

Jasper Spanjaart (14:40.398)
Hmm.

Brian Johnson (14:43.726)
money by the by the advice and wisdom they're giving you. They're giving you money and currency that you can cash in when you get the opportunity to be a leader. And I think sometimes we forget that.

Chad (14:56.621)
I agree 100%. I agree 100%. Again, another wonderful interview. This one with Fred Claire. Just go ahead. If you haven't listened to it yet, go back and listen to it. but listener, that's the end of this film room. We appreciate you checking in. and if you're looking for more amazing interviews and play by play breakdowns are going to be coming, going to be coming soon. plus check the back catalog, go to talent chasing .com and we'll see you next time. Thanks for, thanks for showing up guys.

Jasper Spanjaart (15:25.4)
Peace.

Chad (15:26.923)
Later.