Contract renewals can lock in pricing that no longer fits

By Brian Smith, Founder, IA Business Advisors | Coauthor, The “I” in Team Series

I have been watching the buildup to this year's World Series with considerable interest, and not simply because I enjoy baseball. There is something happening in Major League Baseball that I believe every business owner, executive, and leader should take a moment to consider.

The Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays are competing for the 2026 World Series championship. Both teams finished the regular season with impressive records. Milwaukee won 103 games, while Tampa Bay won 98. Yet neither team ranks among the top half of Major League Baseball in player payroll. According to published 2026 payroll figures, Milwaukee ranks 19th among the 30 MLB teams, while Tampa Bay ranks near the bottom, at 28th.

Think about that for a moment.

Two organizations operating with substantially fewer financial resources than many of their competitors have reached the pinnacle of their profession. They did so while competing against organizations that can spend hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire some of the world's most talented individuals.

How does that happen?

I believe the answer goes well beyond baseball, and it speaks directly to a philosophy my daughter Mary and I have spent years developing and sharing through our three-book series, The “I” in Team.

Moneyball Was Only the Beginning

Many of you know Moneyball, the story of the Oakland Athletics and their efforts to compete with baseball's wealthiest organizations by evaluating talent differently.

The premise was relatively simple. If you cannot outspend your competitors, you had better learn how to outthink them.

The Athletics challenged conventional thinking about how baseball teams evaluate players. Instead of relying exclusively on traditional measures of talent, they looked for capabilities and contributions that other organizations undervalued.

The results helped change how professional baseball evaluates players.

But I believe there is another lesson here, one that extends beyond statistics, analytics, and finding undervalued talent.

Understanding an individual's value is only the beginning. Understanding how that individual influences others' performance is where organizations begin to realize their greatest potential.

You can acquire exceptional talent and still build an ineffective organization. I have seen it happen repeatedly throughout my career. You can also take individuals who might not be considered the most talented or expensive in their profession and build something extraordinary when you understand, develop, and bring together their individual capabilities effectively.

That is where our philosophy of Individualism comes into play.

There Is an “I” in Team

For years, we have been told there is no “I” in team. Mary and I respectfully disagree.

In fact, we believe there is an “I” in every team, and that “I” underpins its success or failure.

In our books, we distinguish between an individual (lowercase i) and an Individual (capital I).

An individual is one person acting alone for the benefit of themselves and/or others.

An Individual is a collection of individuals acting together as one for the benefit of the collective and/or its members.

A family is an Individual. A business is an Individual. A baseball team is an Individual.

The distinction matters because organizations do not possess talent, character, accountability, or influence independently of the people who make them up.

Those qualities originate with individuals.

When we bring individuals together, their capabilities, behaviors, attitudes, decisions, and influence combine to create something greater than any one person could accomplish alone.

But that outcome is not automatic.

Simply assembling talented people does not create an effective Individual. Anyone who has managed an organization long enough knows that. Leadership's responsibility is to understand the individuals who make up the organization and develop an environment where their collective influence produces positive results.

The Most Expensive Individual Is Not Necessarily the Most Valuable

Professional sports offer an interesting perspective on compensation because they show what organizations will pay for individual talent. 

In business, we do much the same thing.

We recruit executives with impressive résumés. We compete for individuals with specialized expertise. We offer compensation packages designed to attract people we believe will improve our organizations.  

There is nothing inherently wrong with that approach. Talent has value, and organizations should be willing to invest in it.

However, over more than three decades of advising businesses, I have learned that an individual's compensation, credentials, or past accomplishments do not necessarily tell us how that person will influence the organization they join. A highly talented individual can have an extraordinarily positive influence on a team. That same individual can also undermine an organization through poor communication, lack of accountability, an unwillingness to collaborate, or an inflated sense of personal importance.

Likewise, someone whose contributions might initially seem less significant can become one of an organization's most valuable members because of the consistency, reliability, knowledge, and positive influence they bring to others.

The challenge for leadership is recognizing the difference.

The question shouldn't simply be, "How talented is this person?"

It should also be, How do this person's talent, behavior, and influence contribute to the success of the larger Individual?

Those are two very different evaluations.

Building an Individual Requires More Than Acquiring Talent

In our third book, Responsible Influence: Build the “I” in Team, Mary and I explore leaders' responsibility to develop the individuals who make up their teams.

One lesson I have learned throughout my career is that leadership isn't simply about directing people toward an objective.

It is about understanding them.

What are their individual strengths? What motivates them? How do they communicate? Where do they struggle? What influence do they have on the people around them? Are they positioned to contribute their greatest value?

And perhaps most importantly, does the organization understand how those individual capabilities work together?

Consider a baseball team.

A great hitter cannot win a game without others' contributions. A pitcher depends on the individuals playing defense behind him. A manager must understand not only each player's capabilities but also how those capabilities complement one another in different situations.

The same holds true in business.

Your best salesperson cannot consistently deliver results without an organization that can fulfill the promises made to customers. Your accounting team cannot provide meaningful financial insight without timely and accurate information from operations. Your operations team cannot succeed if leadership keeps changing priorities without explaining why.

Every individual influences others' performance.

This is why I believe organizational effectiveness depends largely on how well leadership understands and manages that influence.

That is also why hiring more expensive talent isn't always the answer to an organization's performance challenges.

Sometimes the greatest opportunity is already sitting inside the organization, waiting for leadership to recognize it.

Accountability, Consistency, and Culture
In Individual Influence, we discuss accountability, consistency, respect, and situational awareness as essential elements of developing our influence.

In Positive Influence, we explore how communication, assumptions, behaviors, and reactions can either strengthen or undermine our ability to influence others positively.

In Responsible Influence, we apply those concepts to team development and organizational culture.

These are not simply philosophical concepts. They have very practical consequences for organizational performance.

When individuals understand what is expected of them, accept accountability for their actions, communicate effectively, and consistently follow through on their commitments, the entire Individual benefits.

When they do not, the consequences extend well beyond their individual performance.

I frequently remind leaders that accountability isn't just about identifying who did something wrong. Accountability is equally about recognizing what needs to be done, accepting responsibility, and ensuring commitments are fulfilled.

Consistency is equally important.

An organization cannot build trust when expectations change without explanation, commitments are routinely missed, or accountability depends on who happens to be involved.

Culture develops through the collective influence of these behaviors.

We should be careful not to assume we know everything about the Brewers' or Rays' internal cultures simply because they are successful. But their results give us a compelling reason to examine how organizations identify talent, assign responsibility, develop people, and coordinate their collective efforts.

Every business leader should be asking those questions.

What Can Business Leaders Learn from the 2026 World Series?

I don't believe the lesson from this year's World Series is that organizations should spend less money on talent.

Nor do I believe it demonstrates that highly compensated individuals are somehow less valuable than those earning less.

The lesson matters more than either conclusion.

Financial resources provide organizations with opportunities. How effectively those opportunities are converted into results depends on the individuals involved and the influence they have on one another.

Organizations with significant financial resources can build exceptional teams. Organizations with limited resources can do the same.

The difference often comes down to how effectively leadership understands and develops the people within the organization.

If I were sitting with a business owner today, I would encourage them to consider several questions.

Do you genuinely understand the individual strengths and challenges of the people who make up your organization?

Have you positioned those individuals to contribute their greatest value?

Do they understand how their responsibilities influence the success of others?

Are you developing a culture where accountability, communication, and consistency are expected from everyone, including leadership?

Are you measuring organizational effectiveness solely by what you invest in people, or are you also examining how well their individual contributions work together?

These are not always comfortable questions. In fact, the answers can expose some significant leadership challenges.

But they are necessary if we want to build organizations that consistently achieve their objectives.

I Am We

One foundational principle of the “I” in Team series is “I Am We.”

Each of us is the sum of the influences we have experienced throughout our lives. We bring those experiences into every organization, relationship, and team we join.

We then become part of the influence others experience.

That is an extraordinary responsibility.

It also presents an extraordinary opportunity.

When we recognize that each individual matters, that each individual possesses unique capabilities, and that every individual's influence contributes to the larger Individual, we begin to approach leadership differently.

We stop viewing people exclusively as positions, salaries, or resources.

We begin to understand them as individuals whose collective influence determines what our organizations can accomplish.

Whether Milwaukee or Tampa Bay wins the World Series, both organizations have already shown that spending the most money isn't a prerequisite for reaching the highest level of competition.

For me, that is a timely reminder of something Mary and I have spent years encouraging leaders to recognize.

There is an “I” in team.

In fact, there are many.

How we develop, support, and bring those individuals together may be our most important responsibility as leaders.

I matter because my influence matters. So do you. And so does every individual on your team.

Brian Smith is the founder of IA Business Advisors and coauthor, with Mary Griffin, of the three-book series The “I” in Team: Individual Influence, Positive Influence, and Responsible Influence..

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