Moshidora - Episode 3

Despite seeming borderline disastrous and a sign of an impending implosion, the big row at the end of Moshidora's second episode has in fact galvanised the team thanks to that airing of all of its proverbial dirty laundry.

Thus, what we see as this third instalment begins is a baseball side full of motivation and willingness to trail and improve... until exam time rolls around and practice stops.  Ten days later, a very different set of players return to practice, with their motivation shot to pieces and the hard-working atmosphere that went before replaced with one of relaxation and apathy; indeed, some of its number are barely even turning up at all while others pay more attention to other classes.

So, how to fix this malaise?  Eventually, Minami realises that the problem is that (in Drucker's terms) the team has lost its "consumers" by failing to provide for their needs and requirements - in short, something needs to be done to make practice sessions feel "fresh" and more interesting once again.  For this task, Minami recruits Ayano to siphon ideas from the team coach (as these two individuals understand one another better), and the result is a slew of concepts surrounding the idea of splitting the team into three sections and effectively having them compete against another as well as them themselves.  The result is a reinvigorated interest in practice... at least, it is for all but Yunosuke, whose previous failures for the team still haunt him until some serious persuasion from Minami.

All in all, this was another enjoyable episode of Moshidora - its core concepts are certainly important material for any business (where keeping people from going stale is far, far tougher than it is running a sports team), and the idea of making good use even of failure is something that gets forgotten about and passed over way too over in my experience where people are too busy to sit down and ask exactly why something didn't go to plan.  In a similar vein, trying to remove the fear of failure to enable a person to perform better and live up to their potential can be very difficult indeed at times, especially when the stakes are perceived as high for whatever reason.

Thinking about it, I rather wish the average business was as easy to turn around as Moshidora's baseball team; we'd probably all be wealthy people if so.  Regardless, this series is still feeding my mind and making me think about things I probably wouldn't otherwise, which is enough alone to make watching the show feel like a positive experience.