Dr. Joel Shapiro | Kellogg School | What an NFL Injury Analysis Can Teach Business About Resilience
CMO ConfidentialShow Notes
A CMO Confidential Interview with Dr. Joel Shapiro, Managerial Economics & Decision Sciences Professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern, formerly Varicent Chief Analytics Officer. Joel discusses his NFL study including why some teams handle injury better then others, the idea of finding variables which can't be seen by the naked eye, and his conclusion that resilience has a lot to do with planning, resource deployment and the foresight to think about potential problems. Key topics include: the importance of back-ups; the ability to find business problems that can be solved with data; and how to use data and AI to predict "bad stuff." Tune in to hear about the "percent cash wasted measure," and how Joel's class beat Las Vegas on predicting last year's NHL playoff teams.
**What NFL Injury Data Teaches Business About Resilience — with Joel Shapiro (Kellogg)**
Northwestern Kellogg’s Joel Shapiro returns to CMO Confidential to unpack a surprising finding: predicting player injury isn’t a “failed use case” — and the lessons translate directly to how leaders design resilient organizations. We cover the data model behind injury prediction, Joel’s “percent cash wasted” metric, the real effect of injuries on winning (including offense vs. defense), why backups matter, and how to build purposeful resilience across sales, supply chain, and leadership. Plus: a student project that beat Vegas and a fearless (and funny) Super Bowl take.
Chapters 00:00 Intro — Why this episode matters for executives 01:10 Joel’s remit: turning data & AI into business outcomes 03:19 Injury prediction isn’t a failed use case 05:45 Why the NFL: clean injury data and an 11-year dataset 07:32 What the model outputs: games likely to be missed 08:51 “Percent Cash Wasted”: paying for injured players 10:15 Do injuries really impact winning? The curve is flatter than you think 12:19 Offense vs. defense: wasted cash effects aren’t equal 13:47 Healthy one year, injured the next: who stays good? 14:36 The lever that breaks teams: losing a highly paid QB 15:25 Purposeful resilience vs. “toughing it out” 16:34 Backups matter — translating roster depth to business 18:29 If you can’t prevent every injury, recruit for availability 19:17 Business translation: resilience in sales, supply chain, and leadership 21:42 Treat resilience as strategy, not back-office insurance 24:22 Which companies are structurally resilient (and why scale helps) 24:49 Joel’s bold pick: the Bears’ weird start and a playful prediction 25:36 Data, betting, and integrity — what changes as information improves 27:25 Students vs. Vegas: NHL playoff models that won 28:20 How much data it really takes (rows, columns, and what matters) 29:54 Wrap and where to find more CMO Confidential
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