I was watching the NBA Draft last night, and it got me wondering about personnel moves and decisions in pro sports. Also, it had me wondering how would public or private organizations perform if they were subject to the same treatment as professional teams. I do not remember draft day ever being this busy with this many big trades within 24 hours.
We see this every season, you start slow, don't live up to expectations, and miss the playoffs, changes take place. The coach is usually first to go. Could you imagine if this was the case in organizations or companies in the US. An executive director of an organization gets booted because they do not receive the amount of grants expected of them. Also, we see major trades and moves to find those pieces to win championships. If employees were subject to this it would be an outcry. What if the chief of staff for the DOE could be traded for two project managers at the DOE? Or maybe a private sector CEO for a couple Cabinet members?
Now you might be saying, these guys get paid millions yearly to win games and perform to their highest level of potential. However, alot these players do and are still subject to release or trades. The thing that might get to me are the trades and building relationships with those in the community. When a player sees five teams in seven years it has to be frustrating, regardless how much they make. It also has to take a toll on their family life of constantly moving and not being there for those great moments in life.
Also, for those of you who are basketball fans, what do you think about the Suns trading Shaq for pretty much nothing, well two cans of beans and cash?
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To a certain extent trading of Exec Directors and CEOs does exist within the nonprofit world and this is supposedly the life of a "professional city manager". The idea is that if someone does well and are ambitious, they will move up to a bigger organization or a bigger city. However, the nature of the "endgame" can be very different, due to the fact that many organizations have ongoing goals rather than a time-limited goal (e.g. winning a campaign, winning a championship). Using the pro-sports analogy there are many "valuable" players in the work world who never pay off but manage to keep employment for reasons that mystify me. (Do you remember the promise that Grant Hill started out with?).
ReplyDeleteIn my private sector job experience I have been part of a restructure where a CEO has made changes to improve short-term profits. The restructure did successfully add to company profits. This got the man notoriety, but did nothing good for the company in the long run. Ironically, the guy ended up getting "traded" to a much larger company and was the last CEO of Chrysler. I do not mean to say that this is the rule, but we must be judicious in choosing our criteria concerning job performance.
My question is: what would the playoffs look like in a professional environment. Would it be by sector, specific field, regional, etc.? Who would referee? In politics, perhaps the referees are the politicians and the sports players are the individuals cities or departments. You can determine the winner by which cities and/or departments get the greatest cut of, or percentage increase to their budget. If you think of it this way, the players are getting paid millions to succeed at their job.
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