“Have the courage of your knowledge and experience. If you have formed a conclusion from the facts and if you know your judgment is sound, act on it—even though others may hesitate or differ.” ~ Michael Lewis

Why do people say they want to do things differently yet when it comes down to it they don’t? Social or peer pressure is probably one of the primary reasons. No one wants to be the person that tries and fails, even if in failing something new is learned. Sports is the perfect incubator to examine this phenomenon and I love reading articles and books that challenge convention and suggest new ways to do things. I love it not just because I love sports, but because I instantly begin thinking of how I can apply this to my own work.

Here are four I highly recommend:

Moneyball, by Michael Lewis: My all time favorite non-fiction/business writer. Lewis started a huge argument in baseball circles with the publication of Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. Lewis chronicles Oakland A’s manager Billy Beane and his, at the time, unconventional approach to scouting, signing and drafting players. It’s a baseball book, but really a business book that makes you think about different approaches to analyzing things.

“How David Beats Goliath”, New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell: Another writer who has come to fame by analyzing how systems work and decisions are made. In “How David Beats Goliath”, Gladwell uses the full court press in basketball to discuss how underdogs can win, using a 12-year-old girls basketball team as his example. After reading Gladwell’s article, if you want to explore the idea further particularly how it might work in the NBA, check out his online chat with ESPN.com’s Bill Simmons.

(An Aside: Both of these writers are economists, so “sports” is just the subject they use to examine larger economic questions.)

“A Few Baseball Ideas”, by Joe Posnanski: Sports Illustrated writer and former sports columnist for the Kansas City Star, Posnanski is an interesting and prolific blogger in addition to his “day job”. In “A Few Baseball Ideas” he asks why more lower tier teams are unwilling to try unorthodox things. There is a brief update on some of Lewis’s Moneyball characters, too. Posnanski’s conclusion: Because teams are afraid to try and fail.

“Shunning Onside Kicks”, by Peter Keating: ESPN writer Peter Keating does for the onside kick what Gladwell did for the full court press. More people should be trying them all the time, he argues, because mathematically over time it puts them in a better position. “Shunning Onside Kicks” appears in the August 24th edition of ESPN the Magazine, where I read it, but is available online for those “ESPN Insider” subscribers. Like the arguments presented above about other sports, Keating assumes that embarrassment or unwillingness to buck “tradition” are the primary reasons coaches don’t try this more.

By the way, the Keating article inspired me to try a new kickoff idea for my daughters 5th grade soccer team. I’ll let you know how it goes…unless it fails.