David Novak 0:03 

Welcome to How leaders lead where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world, I break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple that you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. Today's guest is Rob Manfred, the Commissioner of Major League Baseball. Have you ever been in one of those situations where you had to make a tough call, and you know, that no matter what you choose, someone's just not going to be happy? What are you supposed to do in those moments? Well, Rob, Manfred is no stranger to this dilemma. Each and every day, he has to manage relationships with 30. Team owners, the players, the fans, the union, what you're going to hear in this conversation is how Rob finds common ground to keep moving forward. Finding common ground is not always easy, but it's a skill that I've found in so many of the leaders I respect, baseball fan or not. I know there's a lot for you to learn about leadership from today's conversation. So let's get right to it. Here's my conversation with my friend, and soon to be yours, Rob Manfred.

Rob, I gotta tell you, I'm blown away. You know, as a commissioner, your signature is on every baseball. What was it like the first time you saw your signature on the ball,

Rob Manfred 1:31 

I was elected in Baltimore. In the summer of 2014, I came back. And the very first thing that happened that morning was someone from our licensing group showed up with a bunch of index cards telling me, I had to sign these cards, pick a signature and get it to rolling so they could start making baseballs. And it was kind of the moment when it hit me that, you know, I actually did get elected, you know, it's a very strange thing. And then you know, you get prototypes, they send you an example of what it's going to look like, it was kind of neat. I had a chance to give that very first baseball to my father before he passed away. So the signature thing means a lot to me.

David Novak 2:11 

Oh, absolutely. That's a great story. And I'm glad you were able to do that. I'm sure your dad was so proud of you. You also get to hand out the World Series trophy as the Commissioner, tell us about the first time you did it. What's that experience? Like?

Rob Manfred 2:24 

There was a great experience as well. You know, the first year that Kansas City Royals won the World Series. And David glass, the lead owner of the Royals, was just a fantastic leader. If you want to talk about leadership, I mean, did phenomenal things for Walmart, and then was really kind of the center of the industry with a couple of other owners for years and years. And if I could have picked somebody to give it to he would have been really high on the list. So it was a fun thing to do.

David Novak 2:56 

That's great. Rob, I want to get into how you lead. But first, let me take you a little ways back. Tell us about your upbringing. Did you want to be a major league baseball player, I can tell you one thing I ushered in, I thought I was destined to get there until I got to be in about seventh grade.

Rob Manfred 3:10 

I liked all sports, you know, really liked baseball, played basketball, play tennis all the way through college. But I think we all get to that point. At some age where we realize it's not happening for us in any sport, and we kind of move along. But I was fortunate. You know, I grew up in a small town and there was lots of opportunity to participate. I had a very athletic, focused family. I think my sister 118 letters in high school, that'll give you an idea of I mean, we played everything.

David Novak 3:43 

So I play golf with you, Rob, what the hell happened to you?

Rob Manfred 3:47 

I don't know I'm lousy. I don't want to tell you.

David Novak 3:52 

Now, before you were Commissioner, you were a world class lawyer and negotiator tell us a story from that part of your life. That accelerated your career trajectory and prepared you for the job you have today.

Rob Manfred 4:04 

I was fortunate to get a start in Baseball, baseball came to Morgan Lewis and Bockius, the firm where I eventually became a partner as a client, and I quite literally got assigned to Major League Baseball. I was an associate at the time. And, you know, the senior partner called me and said, You're gonna start working on this. So it was a huge break, I went through two rounds of negotiations as an outside lawyer, the 8990 ones and then the strike and 94. And, you know, I saw things during the strike in 94, that I wasn't really in charge, but I was senior enough that I had an opportunity to observe, you know, what the decision makers were doing, how the decisions were getting made. And I saw some things that convinced me that if I had a chance, I could do it a little better. So eventually, in 1998, I took the job in house as Major League Baseball's chief labor person and You know, that Job was kind of the job where people want to end their careers, you know, no one and they had a lot of success, every single negotiation up to then had ended in a labor dispute. And nobody had lasted in the job more than five years. There were a lot of people saying to me, you know, you got a great career here at this love from what are you thinking about? Why are you doing this? But, you know, I'd seen enough of it. And I thought that that I had a chance to make a difference in terms of the labor relations in the industry, got there got lucky. On a couple of fronts. At the union, there was an emerging young leader by the name of Michael Wiener, he was, he'd been like three years behind me at Harvard Law School, really bright guy, talented guy, I got a chance to work with him over the years. And you know, we had a pretty good track record, we made four or five deals without any labor dispute, and kind of started to turn the labor relations around a little bit.

David Novak 5:53 

That's funny that you talk about getting all the people that got fired before he got the job, you probably got more calls of condolences, and congratulations, when he got that job.

Rob Manfred 6:02 

I know, people really thought I had kind of slipped the disc and made a bad decision. You know, the other thing that I should mention, you know, I took the job when they elected Commissioner seemed like he had been acting and he became the permanent Commissioner. And, you know, Bud was a huge influence in my career, you know, he was supportive of my efforts in the labor area. And then, as time went on, he started to purposely and I didn't understand this at the time, but purposely broadened my portfolio so that I might have a chance to do something beyond the laborer job.

David Novak 6:39 

Rob, you are promoted to Chief Operating Officer by Bud Seelig, who, who was a car salesman, and you're a distinguished lawyer, that sounds like what could be oil and water to me how to to work together? And and what big lessons did you learn about leadership from but I think,

Rob Manfred 6:54 

but and I got along well, because we thought in ways that were complimentary. And what do I mean by that? You know, he thought about issues one way, and I thought about them another and overtime, we kind of found a way to work together to get to, you know, I think what, in a lot of cases was a good answer, I'll give you a great example, from a leadership perspective, Bud is a what I think of as kind of a retail leader, you know, he led the group, by one on one conversations with individual owners, he didn't like to be 30 of them in a room, you know, back and forth and get into a consensus. His style was, you know, everything was wired in advance, he all with individual conversations. You know, in contrast, I like to have a back and forth with the 30. You know, you have to be prepared to give and take, but I do think it builds a deeper consensus among the group if you go through that process.

David Novak 7:56 

So you basically work for the 30 owners, you report into them. And you also have to represent the players, the fans, and you have to deal with the union, it seems impossible to keep everybody happy. I mean, you ultimately report to the owners,

Rob Manfred 8:10 

the governance structure is actually interesting and worth talking about. So you get a elected by a three quarter vote of the owners. So you need 23 votes, the day I was elected, there were actually three candidates, you could only stay on the ballot, if you got at least 10 votes in each round. So I got I think, 21 votes, you need 23. I got 21 votes in the first round. It went, I think, seven more rounds, everybody else went off the ballot because obviously, if I got 21, no one else got 10. And they went, I think seven more rounds before they got over that hump of 23. And there was actually a point during the day, it was a very long day, I was upstairs in a hotel suite where Commissioner ceiling and build the winner of the cardinals who were running the meeting, Bill was the head of the selection committee came upstairs and said, Look, you know, I don't know how long we can keep taking these votes. You know, I mean, I just think we can't stay here forever. But we did get over the hump. I've had five year terms, I've had two of them. I'm in the middle of the second one. And the interesting thing about the governance structure is to get reelected, you only need a majority vote. And to me the significance of that is it gives you a lot more flexibility in terms of how you deal with the group of 30 You're not always out there wondering am I going to keep 23 votes if I want to keep the job? A majority, you know, if you can't get a majority, you shouldn't have a job. So I think the governance structure is designed to give the commissioner a degree of independence from at least some factions within the ownership group. Yeah, makes

David Novak 9:49 

sense. And you mentioned this a little bit earlier, but your legal and negotiating experience has been instrumental in forming new collective bargaining agreements in the past and you've done it on three different occasions. I think What's your key to negotiating and building consensus? When people are obviously coming at issues with different perspectives and agendas? What's your approach?

Rob Manfred 10:09 

I am old school. I think in terms of negotiations, I really believe that the kind of theory that underlies the National Labor Relations Act is correct. And that theory is essentially, you know, you have an obligation to go in a room and exchange views in a robust way, and try in good faith to find common ground. And I really do believe that that exchange of views in the room is crucial to moving people towards the center towards an agreement. I'm a huge believer in momentum in the process, that people being engaged involved in the process on a consistent basis, creates a momentum towards agreement that's really, really vital. And I think the negotiation we had this past winter is an example of when those two things are not in play throughout the process, it can make the process very difficult. I'll give you an example of that, David, I think that because of the pandemic, a lot of the early rounds of negotiation were done on Zoom, and you just cannot have the same kind of exchange on zoom that you have in the room.

David Novak 11:24 

Oh, that's very interesting. You know, when I was Chief Operating Officer of Pepsi, Rob, we dealt with unions. And I have to tell you, they put the meanest, toughest guy up against us as their mediator. I mean, it used to drive me crazy. How do you deal with personalities that are just you're not going to want to have dinner with these people? And how do you deal with people like that, and not make it personal?

Rob Manfred 11:46 

You know, I've been fortunate I've had a range of people on the other side of the table. I mentioned Mike wiener before, that was a relationship that was based on a lot of professional respect, we weren't friends. As a matter of fact, I think the only thing literally Michael and I had in common was we both love Bruce Springsteen. That was that was one common point, right? We didn't have one. But um, you know, when you get into that kind of relationship with a union leader, where there's professional respect, when I say something to him, I know he's going to communicate it to his people accurately. And I think the opposite was true, you can have a very, very productive form of collective bargaining. In contrast, when you do have and I have had particularly more recently, more adversarial type relationships, I think the trick there is not to get sucked into the ad hominem, even when they do it. And it's really, really hard to do to just try to stay above the fray and stay on the issues. Right. When you get into that personal kind of engagement, it becomes a distraction from the process. You become

David Novak 12:58 

the 10th, commissioner of MLB. Was there any part of that transition? Rob from CEO to Commissioner that caught you by surprise, and you might not have been prepared for

Rob Manfred 13:10 

there were there were things that have been surprising to me, number one, from 1992. Until I was elected in 2015. I probably talked to Commissioner Seeley literally on average, five or six times a day. His office was in Milwaukee, I was in New York, and the bulk of the business of baseball, particularly once I went inside, was done as a result of communications that I had with him by telephone. I was concerned actually that, you know, that pattern was going to continue. And in fact, Commissioner Seeley has been kind of clue perfect on this issue. If you let me use that phrase. He's always available to me when I call him. He has been 100% supportive of everything that I've done. But he literally does not call very often. And that surprised me. He kind of backed away in a way that I'll always be grateful for. Secondly, I was concerned about how hard it was going to be to manage the owners. I'm lucky my ownership group. Certainly since I've been involved, the group right now is the best group we've ever had. And they have been shockingly supportive, unified. You know, we've had a couple of issues where there were divisions that we needed to work through, but far less than I anticipated.

David Novak 14:34 

We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Rob Manfred in just a moment. If you want to find common ground with the people you work with, it starts by making a connection. When I sat down with Lauren Hobart, the President and CEO of Dick's Sporting Goods, she has so much to say about how to do this. Well.

Lauren Hobart 14:52 

The weekly touch bases that I scheduled with each individual direct report of mine are the one thing on my calendar that I will protect No matter what. So you know, if I can't do anything in a week other than have one touch base meeting with everybody because I'm traveling or I'm unavailable, or meetings, that is what I protect, because that's where I really connect with people and also hear what's going on and get the real deal. So if you

David Novak 15:14 

want to be more effective at connecting with the people you lead, go back and listen to my entire conversation with Lauren, Episode 27 here on how leaders lead.

You know, Rob, I love to get inside the mind of how a leader tackles tough challenges. And one of the things I really admire about you is that you did a tremendous job attacking the whole performance enhancement, drug testing, you know, baseball, really needed to be cleaned up. And it was a big problem. But you know, you've made a lot of headway.

Rob Manfred 15:49 

It was an interesting process. I think that once the issue became public, kind of the good in humanity started to emerge. And what do I mean by that, we got help, because players started to become more supportive of our efforts, because they realized that if they didn't want to use performance enhancing drugs, they were at a huge disadvantage in an incredibly competitive environment, in terms of keeping their jobs. So as the players came to realize how corrosive this dynamic was, and by the dynamic, I mean, is, if some are using and you're not using, you're at a huge disadvantage, that produced momentum for change. Number one, number two, we did try to make change, make it in a timely way, preserve the integrity of the game, while giving people an opportunity to adjust. Right? You know, remember, players are products, right? I mean, when you think about it, the end of the day, that's what you got. And we wanted to get the game cleaned up without branding people in a way that did long term damage to them personally, and you know, by extension to the product. Now, that process wasn't perfect. There's certainly people who have borne the brunt of it and continued to suffer damage to their reputation. But I think the process that we went through, reduce that damage in a way that was really important. Yeah, it was

David Novak 17:25 

a great job. And as I understand that, you've got this game, it's deeply steeped in tradition. But I know you're also trying to lead the way in terms of innovation. How are you trying to drive innovation in the game, I do

Rob Manfred 17:37 

believe you can change in baseball, if you demonstrate that the changes you're talking about actually don't disrupt the core of the game. So how have we executed on that everything that we've tried to do? We have tested extensively in minor league baseball, some in the independent leagues, our mutual friends, Seth won his league have been huge supporters in terms of helping us to experiment in the Atlantic League, which is an independently if you experiment with things and people get to touch and feel them in minor league baseball does two things for you. They see it doesn't disrupt the real core of the game. And as players progress through the development system, they say, oh, yeah, you know, I pitched with a pitch clock and minor league baseball, it ain't the end of the world, right? It gives them a chance to get used to it, and it builds a consensus around the change. The second thing is you have to have a little bit of faith in the changes that your supporting. And the reason for that it's this, I'll take a little change, like a few years ago, in order to just move things along, we changed the intentional walk rule, you no longer had to throw four pitches, the manager just puts up his finger and the guy goes to first base. And literally we did all sorts of education on this, I think it's like one in every 1000 intentional walks, something happened other than the guy just go into first base, right? Somebody would throw the ball away or whatever. But you know, it's just very rarely happen. So we announced this change. It's unbelievable. You know, I have a very transparent email. It's robbed at manfred@mlb.com. And I do answer all my own emails, nobody screens them. I'm telling you, when we announced this change, David, you would have thought I had suggested that we should edit the Bible. I mean, it was like just me, you know, all sorts of name calling and you know what, you're ruining the game and blah, blah, blah. But what happens is people see it in action. They see that the game they love is still really exactly the same, and they get used to the change. So you're gonna have enough confidence in what you're doing to get through that initial phase of pushback on any change in baseball.

David Novak 19:53 

When I was a kid, I was a huge Yankee fan. I mean, I love Mickey Mantle. I remember crying when he hurt his ankle and Baltimore, you know, but I, I used to actually play hooky and stay home and watch the World Series games in the afternoon. And these days, kids and you know, adults like me, we have to stay up after midnight to really see the end of the game. How do you deal with this? Because I know that you're trying to build popularity of the game, especially with the youngest generation, what's the solution? In your mind?

Rob Manfred 20:23 

You have to start from the fundamental proposition that we put particularly playoff baseball, on television, at the point in time that the broadcasters believed the most people are going to watch the games. It's really that simple. I mean, those game times are driven by the desire to drive the biggest audience number two, you know, people get caught up on the World Series. But you know, you got to remember, we have a ton of playoff baseball that's played during the day, right, early rounds. I mean, we have a bunch of days where we have for broadcast windows, right? I mean, there is a lot of daytime baseball available during the playoffs. And the fact of the matter is, we do better in terms of the youngest demographic with nighttime broadcasts than we do with those daytime broadcasts, you know,

David Novak 21:13 

be view other sports as your competition or just how do you lead your team in terms of how to think about competition

Rob Manfred 21:20 

in terms of phantom validity. Football leads in all of the measures baseball is actually second 65 roughly million people go to see major league baseball games, and we do another 20 million in the minor leagues, nobody draws like that. No sport draws like that, just because of the bulk of our games, we think about competition, kind of a two levels, other sports. As the first level, we do feel like we are competing for the sports fans interest in dollars. But you know, particularly now, we think about it as a broader entertainment market place. And we're competing with video games, movies, any form of entertainment, we feel like we need to be competing. And that marketplace in particular is really, really competitive way more alternatives for people than you used to have. And everything that we do centrally, you know, our media policy, what we do with youth programs, you name it, is directed at building and maintaining that fan base.

David Novak 22:25 

Rob, you've you've been described by people who work for you and people who know you well, as a level five leader, you know, Jim Collins used to define that kind of leader in his book Good to Great, which basically, is your excellent what you do, but you don't have to be front and center all the time. You're humble enough to give other people the ball and the credit, what have you done to prepare yourself to handle the media and all the challenges that come with that role? That gets all the public attention, you know, something that you're not necessarily looking for, but it's a huge part of the job. Going back to

Rob Manfred 23:00 

college, I was a student research assistant for a professor by the name of Samuel Bacharach, who's written extensively on the topic of leadership. And Sam and I have stayed friends over the years, if I had to give you in a thumbnail, his theory of leadership is that there is a very personal aspect to leadership, and that is you have to have a vision. But more important than you having a vision or equally important to you having a vision is your ability to convince people that execution against that vision is good for them, that they have to buy in on some personal level that you know, yeah, I agree with him. That's where baseball needs to go. And that's enough, or I agree with him. That's where baseball needs to go. And you know, what, if baseball goes there, it's going to be good for me. You know, making that connection with the people that you're trying to lead, I think is really important.

David Novak 23:59 

What's something you've you've had to learn the hard way? What was a big miss that you really learned from?

Rob Manfred 24:04 

There's little things you know, I mean, obviously, I have said things publicly at times that I wish I had the particular phrase back, but forget the specifics of the phrase, when you get into the mode, particularly publicly, that you are defending yourself, you should stop, okay? Because in today's world, once you're in that defensive mode, people know it, almost without exception, anything you say is not going to make it better. And you just have to learn not to engage in those situations. And look, I'm the first to admit it. I have a combative aspect to my personality and when you know the institution's attacked or I'm attacked that you know, I do have this natural reaction to defend and I have learned over time, once you're in that defensive mode, exit stage, right Just leave it alone because you're not going to change it. You know, it's

David Novak 25:02 

safe to say Rob, the chief had some what I call high hard wins thrown to you since you took the job. And I want to have our listeners hear how you navigated through some of these challenging situations. You launched an investigation in the Houston Astros, the 2017 season. Now, I'm in Louisville, and we got the Kentucky Derby. Okay, Bob Baffert and his horse cheats, and they take away the title from them, you know, you kept the title with Houston. What was the logic there?

Rob Manfred 25:30 

I think the lodge was just we have never undergone what's happened on the field in any context. I mean, think about the Detroit pitcher Galarraga, who everybody knew, through a perfect game, except the umpire blew the last call, right. And the very last hour, he called the guy safe, and the guy was really out. And it was a perfect game. But it isn't a perfect game in the record. So there is this kind of fundamental tradition of not altering what's happened on the field. We never went back, for example, during the performance enhancing drug period have put asterisks on anything. Number one, number two, I think that if you go back through the history of the signs, feeling kind of saga, it was clear, Houston was not alone. And given the prevalence of the activity, and the impossibility to determining exactly how it affected the play on the field, I felt that was inappropriate to take away the World Series trophy. And you know, really, at the end of the day, 10 or 15 years from now, when you look back, the members of the Los Angeles Dodgers probably wouldn't have wanted to receive a World Series trophy based on it being stripped from the Astros.

David Novak 26:52 

If you want to improve as a leader, I have a great resource for you. It's called the weekly leadership plan. And it's an email that I send out every week with a simple strategy for how you can develop as a leader and get better results with your business to sign up for free. Go to how leaders lead.com/plan Again, that's how leaders lead.com/plan.

baseballs, you know, the baseball is the cheese side. They're under a ton of criticism right now. I mean, I even saw a story on an NBC Nightly News. What's the issue with the baseballs robbing? What's your take on the baseballs you're using right now? Is there a problem that needs to be addressed? Or is this much ado about nothing?

Rob Manfred 27:41 

I think there was an issue that we have addressed. Let me take you back 2019, we realized that it seemed like the ball was carrying further than it had in the past. Now remember, baseball's not like golf balls, were there mass produced, this is a handmade product, literally, you know, you go to Costa Rica, there are people sitting in a factory that put in the stitching in the baseball. So we hired some scientists, and they did a report, we were completely transparent. We made the report public. And the report really said two things. Number one, they said you have baseball specifications, right in terms of coefficient of restitution, and a variety of other factors. What has happened to you is your range, because it's a handmade product is pretty broad. And over time, you migrated to one end of the specifications, the manufacturing process, did you know human activity, nobody planned it, it just happened. Secondly, atmospheric conditions have more influence on the performance of the baseball than you have previously given credit for. So what do we do we get this report, we did two things worked with Rawlings, who manufactures our baseball great company, they came back to us and said look, we can make a change in the manufacturing process. You don't have to change your specifications, but we think we can move the distribution of baseballs from the far end here into the middle of the specification range and have them much more closely punched around the middle. We said hey, man, go ahead and do that. That process should have happened in 2020, which would have changed the ball for 2021. Unfortunately, we got halfway through the process due to the pandemic and we had a mix of baseball's out there and 21 but that manufacturing change has now been completed. And in 2022 All the baseballs are produced under that new process and they are in fact centered in the range of specification. As much more tightly Secondly, we began experimenting with human oars to deal with the weather atmosphere issue. We did it in five or six ball parts the first year really liked the results. We now have human oars in all 30 ballparks, they are stored in exactly the same conditions so that the ball should perform more consistently. I've been meeting with players I met with players on 14 clubs so far this year. I think that as long as we maintain consistency with where we are right now, the 2022 Baseball, we are going to be really good with the players and the controversy is going to die down. staying the same consistency is what the players want. And we think we're in a position to deliver that one remaining issue on the ball. And that's tech pitchers like a certain tackiness to the baseball in order to have better control over their release point in how the ball performs. Unfortunately, we got into a situation the last couple of years where it was almost like any other performance enhancement, somebody found sticky substances, that escalated spin rate. And then all of a sudden everybody's using these sticky substances. And of course, that's a violation of our rules. We began enforcing that rule spin rates dropped. We think that's a good thing. We are in the process of working with pitchers to determine you know, right now, we mud baseballs 30 People 30 Different ballparks literally rub mud from a single source on baseballs, we think there's probably a better way to get a tacky ball. That's more consistent. We actually have two prototypes out there one with a substance that sprayed on it the factory the other one with a different substance that will be rubbed down the ball. We think we'll get to an agreement with the players as to which is the best. And that'll be the last piece on the baseball hopefully putting the ball issue to bed.

David Novak 31:58 

You definitely know your baseball's there's no question about that. I'm impressed. You know, I'm gonna post this podcast All Star Weekend. And last year, the All Star game was pulled out of Atlanta to protest the voting reform law and Terry McGuirk a mutual friend of ours, the chairman of the Atlanta Braves, I know he's a close friend of yours. And he's against the decision. How much strain did that put on your relationship? Because I know you guys are good friends, and how do you navigate that and come to the final conclusion to take the game out of Atlanta, not an easy decision.

Rob Manfred 32:31 

I'll begin by saying probably in my professional life, and my personal life is one, nobody's been better to me. He's been a huge, consistent supporter of mine. You know, we manage he and I to get through what was an extraordinarily difficult process, where we had different points of view, with good communication. You know, I was completely open and honest with him about what I was thinking what I was doing. He gave me his point of view. And because he is the gentleman that he is, when he realized that at the end of the day, what I was going to decide, he accepted that and moved on, you know, right down to him calling. You said, you know, I'm in Atlanta, I have to say something about this for my fans. I said, yeah, get it, do what you got to do. And our relationship was strong enough that we kind of got past that or did get past it really, a crucial piece of it is me communicating with him about what I was going to do. So he wasn't surprised. And him communicating back to me when you know, as the example I just gave you like I have to say something publicly, that's going to be critical. You and me being you know, big enough to say I get it, go do your thing.

David Novak 33:42 

Well, you obviously did it well, because I see you guys on the golf course. And you're walking right next to each other, it's still getting the log. So that's good, you know, but I have to tell you, Rob, when I first started preparing for this conversation, I was thinking that you had the dream job. I mean, what kid wouldn't want to grow up be the commissioner of baseball, and then I see all the stuff you've had to deal with it your role, you know, taking all star games away baseball, we just talked about a few. We could go through 10 more. I mean, you've got some high hard ones coming to you all the time. I got to ask you a question. Is your job any fun?

Rob Manfred 34:15 

Here's the thing. People get focused on the hard stuff. And there has been you know, I've had a lot of difficult issues. Commissioner Seeley called me one day last year, he said, Why don't we do something bad in your younger years or whatever. You know, one thing after another for you, but when I tried to focus on the fact that there's way, way more fun aspects to the job than there are problems. You know, nothing in life is all good or all bad. And I'll give me I give you a great example. I had one of the greatest days you can ask for So I flew down to Tampa. I met with some players from the Marlins for about an hour and a half could not have been a more interesting, insightful educational exchange in terms of where the games going and what we should be doing. Finish there, went over to Steinbrenner field, met the first woman manager in the minor leagues, this young woman should be like the poster child for having faith in the next generation. I mean, she's breaking new ground. She's humble. She described how she got started by doing, among other things, research on eyesight and its effect on editing. I mean, talk about technically competent, clearly has earned the respect of players and then watched a minor league game, where I saw live for the first time the use of the current iteration of our pitch clock and the automated strike zone. Now if you're a baseball person, and I am like you, I was a Mickey Mantle fan, I could the Mickey Mantle thing we could talk about for 100 years. But that's just a great day, David. I mean, people shouldn't be that lucky to have a day like that in their careers. And you know, I have lots and lots of those days.

David Novak 36:11 

Yeah, that's great. And it's been a lot of fun for me, Robin, I want to have a bit more before I let you go back to work. And I want to do a lightning round q&a, you know, sorry, you ready for this? Yep. The three words that best describe you.

Rob Manfred 36:26 

That's a hard one. Engaging, I hope intelligent, and I hope principle,

David Novak 36:32 

if you could be one person for a day besides yourself, who would it be and why?

Rob Manfred 36:37 

I think it would probably be Fred couples. My Mickey Mantle in golf is Fred. I love the fact he's a huge sports fan. He's got this unflappable personality, great athletic skill, tremendously likeable, like to be that guy for a day.

David Novak 37:00 

What's your biggest pet peeve?

Rob Manfred 37:01 

I think my biggest pet peeve is the negative bent of the media in the United States today. The divisiveness, purposeful, divisive. pneus in the media, favorite major league ballpark.

That's a hard one. We got a lot of great ones. I think probably Colorado,

David Novak 37:18 

who's your favorite baseball player of all time, we might have Mickey Mantle

Rob Manfred 37:22 

it really easy. I see my first game in person David, Mike folks brought us down to I grew up in upstate New York down to Yankee Stadium, I saw a mantel hit a homerun from each side of the plate is the last time you ever hit two home runs in a

David Novak 37:34 

game. What's your superpower in your mind?

Rob Manfred 37:37 

I think doggedness you know staying on it just sticking with stuff with something about you that few people would know. I'm a pretty good Catholic. How

David Novak 37:45 

about that? That's a good one. You obviously you've got a demanding job with a lot of pressure. But I know you're really close to your family and your wife. How does your family come into play with all of what you have going on?

Rob Manfred 37:59 

My family has been unbelievably supportive in this process. And I'll tell you, I mean, all candor, David, you know, there's been times particularly you know, things like the All Star Game move where social media, regular media intrudes into your family life and your private life in a way that is really disturbing. And they kind of put their heads down and keep going all of them, including, you know, the spouses of my four children.

David Novak 38:25 

Yeah, that's great. And what's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to become a better leader?

Rob Manfred 38:31 

I think that understanding the people that you want to lead and what their needs are not just what you need from them, but what they need from you.

David Novak 38:40 

Last question, the state of baseball today and where you want to take it in your last few years as commissioner,

Rob Manfred 38:46 

look, I think baseball is in a really great position. I think we have content that is in high demand, both in the traditional media space in new media space, evidenced by deals with people like peacock and apple. My goal is I want to make sure that baseball stays the national pastime, you know, we're probably not going to be football in terms of popularity, but I think baseball has a cultural significance. That football it's never gonna have. And I want to make sure that sports stays popular enough that we keep that title.

David Novak 39:18 

That's great. And Rob, I want to thank you so much. I've learned so much from this podcast about you and how you do things. And but the thing I'm really most excited about is unlearning that you're actually having a good time at this job.

Rob Manfred 39:32 

More fun involved in this and people realize

David Novak 39:34 

that it really is. Thank you very much Rob. I appreciate it. All right.

You know, I just said it. But before I did this podcast and I did all my homework. I was really wondering if being the commissioner was any fun at all. The reason I do think it is fun for Robin Is because how he's learned to find common ground with the people he works with. He sees it as a challenge. And I don't know if you caught this, but Rob actually told us his email address in the middle of the interview. That was just a small example of how Rob approaches leadership. If you want to find common ground, you have to make yourself available to listen to others perspectives. So this week, here's something simple that you can do to apply what you've learned in this episode, I want you to take a page from Rob's playbook and make yourself available, you could do what Rob does, you could give out your email address to your customers. Or maybe you want to carve out some time with your team to listen to their feedback and get their unique perspectives. The important thing here is that you got to open yourself up, make yourself available, be vulnerable enough to listen to what people have to say, in order to navigate the challenges that you're up against in your business. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is the great leaders find common ground. Coming up next on how leaders lead is Don Sweeney, the former president, CEO of the National Restaurant Association,

Dawn Sweeney 41:13 

I remember thinking, I'm in this run, I really have something significant, I think to offer. I'm worried about the direction they're going. I think they're wrong. And I'm going to speak up, and I'm really glad that I did.

David Novak 41:25 

So be sure to come back again next week to hear our entire conversation. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders lead where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I'm making a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be