Overcoming Adversity & Seizing Opportunity with Super-Agent Nez Balelo

04/16/20 • 49 min

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Nice guys finish first. Nez Balelo is a Major League Baseball super-agent, representing such players as Japanese phenom Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels, Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers, Arizona D-Back' Adam Jones and many more. Balelo also stands out as an anomaly. Raised in San Diego Ca, first-generation Portuguese descent where his family migrated from the Madeira Islands in Portugal and was raised in the Commercial fishing industry, Balelo would become a promising MLB infielder before a devastating accident cut short his playing days.

Adversity and opportunity became the catalysts for Balelo positioning himself as one of the most humble, venerable, and successful professionals in all of sports. After a horrific accident took him permanently out of the lineup, Nez focused on his entrepreneurial skills and opened up a development baseball school outside of Los Angeles called West Coast Baseball School.

At the same time accepted a job with the Atlanta Braves in a Hybrid development, Scouting and consulting role. After a 10-year run working for the Braves and learning the Organization business along with building and purchasing numerous baseball facilities, Balelo took his drive to another level and walked away from the Braves and Sold all of his schools and branding license and started a Sports Agency. Balelo brought with him several players who he developed during these years to start the Agency who all made it to the Major Leagues. After 3 years Balelo already established himself as a name in the Sports agency world having numerous first-round picks and players already entering into the Major Leagues, was asked to join IMG Sports group in a Senior Executive position which eventually moved over to CAA Entertainment to start the Sports group in 2006.

As a major player with Creative Artists Agency (CAA), Nez Balelo helps keep CAA Sports atop the standings in MLB player signings. When it comes to the dotted line, Nez is the penultimate example of how MLB players are represented and supported. Instilled with dedication and tenacity from working alongside his father, Balelo knows how ethics, mindset, commitment, and staying active play such a vital role in the prosperity of your organization that led him to the rightful place on Forbes “Most Powerful Sports Agents in the World” list.

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Creating a Fearless Organization With Amy Edmondson

Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School, a chair established to support the study of human interactions that lead to the creation of successful enterprises that contribute to the betterment of society. Edmondson has been recognized by the biannual Thinkers50 global ranking of management thinkers since 2011, and most recently was ranked #3 in 2019; she also received that organization’s Breakthrough Idea Award in 2019, and Talent Award in 2017.

She studies teaming, psychological safety, and organizational learning, and her articles have been published numerous academic and management outlets, including Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Harvard Business Review and California Management Review. Her most recent book, The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation and Growth (Wiley, 2019), offers a practical guide for organizations serious about success in the modern economy and has been translated into 11 languages.

Her prior books – Teaming: How organizations learn, innovate and compete in the knowledge economy (Jossey-Bass, 2012), Teaming to Innovate (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Extreme Teaming (Emerald, 2017) – explore teamwork in dynamic organizational environments. In Building the future: Big teaming for audacious innovation (Berrett-Koehler, 2016), she examines the challenges and opportunities of teaming across industries to build smart cities. Before her academic career, she was Director of Research at Pecos River Learning Centers, where she worked on transformational change in large companies. In the early 1980s, she worked as Chief Engineer for architect/inventor Buckminster Fuller, and her book A Fuller Explanation: The Synergetic Geometry of R. Buckminster Fuller (Birkauser Boston, 1987) clarifies Fuller's mathematical contributions for a non-technical audience. Edmondson received her PhD in organizational behavior, AM in psychology, and AB in engineering and design from Harvard University.

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How Businesses Need To Start "Tightening Up Into Letting Go"

In the midst of this economic uncertainty due to this COVID-19 crisis, I thought it would be good to bring on two seasoned marketing professionals to discuss what we should be focusing on now.

This episode is full of actionable tactics, strategies, and pivoting mindsets that will allow you to better deal with our new reality.

Mike Snyder is a managing partner of RSM Marketing, a firm of 35 professionals working across six brands. RSM has offices in Wichita and Kansas City and has clients nationally through its novel Outsourced Marketing Department through a flat-fee subscription service.

John Hanley is Senior Vice President and Director of Marketing for Equity Bank, a $4-billion regional community bank. John leads all marketing, communications, messaging, media, public relations and brand strategy throughout Equity's network in Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.