Boston Red Sox: Is Their Poor Team Chemistry Related to Their Lack of Success?

As a business major, I have learned a lot about the various theories that underlie running a successful operation.

In one particular class, you could summarize the entire message pretty much in one way: If you keep your workers happy, they will do better work for you.

Of course, this isn't just some one random observation. Jamie Doward of The Guardian wrote this article about Professor Andrew Oswald of the Warwick Business School. His research has pretty much focused on the relationship between productivity and happiness.

"We find that human happiness has large and positive causal effects on productivity," said Oswald's team. "Positive emotions appear to invigorate human beings, while negative emotions have the opposite effect."

With that thought in mind, is it really that surprising that the Boston Red Sox are having so many issues this season?

Again we have drama in Boston, but the players are largely behind it this time. According to Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports, near the end of July, several members of the team went directly to ownership about a variety of issues focused on manager Bobby Valentine.

Obviously, when a bunch of players is going directly to ownership to complain about the manager, team chemistry cannot be at a high point.

In baseball, there is apparently some debate as to whether or not chemistry is really a valid factor in team performance, but the Red Sox seem to help reinforce the theory that it is important.

Of course, there are other potential indicators for lack of success, such as the frustration from underachieving, but there does seem to be pretty strong correlation in this case between the general culture of unhappiness and the lack of success at Fenway Park this season.

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