Red Vs White

 

If you happened to be buying a new car you will expect to spend some time selecting the colour.  You also expect that the colour will have no effect on performance and reliability except in some minimal way. White cars keep cooler and red ones are more likely to have paint fade problems in the future etc, but overall one colour car will be as good as any other more or less. This we hold to be self evident.

This is not the case in the case of cricket balls. There are two colours of cricket balls.  Red for the traditional 5 day test match and white for the 50 over one day internationals.  The white ball was introduced for 50 over matches which are often day-night affairs and is much easier for the batsmen to see.

These red and white cricket balls are made in the same factory of the same material and like the new car example above you would expect them to be of near identical quality. However for a 50 over game two white balls are used, one from each end because one white ball will disintegrate or be misshapen by 50 overs.

On the other hand a red ball is changed at the end of every 90 overs and still in useable condition.

As a rough guide you could say a white ball will last 30 overs and a red ball 90 overs.  That is a factor of 3x better and is a surprising outcome given they are identical apart from colour. The only difference is the colour of the dye which should only have a minimal effect, surely? But no it has a dramatic effect.  Who would have thought that?

So to, this unexpected effect applies to conscious businesses compared to traditionally managed businesses and it could be a factor of 10x better.  Science can't really explain it but it is so.