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Worst Job Search Oops Revisited
Our December story on
Worst Job Search Oops elicited quite a response! We are
happy to hear that so many readers enjoyed the story. Here
are some reader submissions of interesting interviews
they’ve experienced!
From Luisa Marciano at
Abigail Kirsch:
A few months ago I was
interviewing a Director level Sales Manager. During the
middle of the phone interview, I heard a funny noise and
immediately after, I heard the toilet flush!!!!!!!!!!! He
didn't even miss a beat!
From Katherine Bertolino at the
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency come two
stories:
1) This happened to
someone who came to the office to interview for a position.
Many times men check their zipper. Well a female candidate
should have done so before interviewing with the male
Director of Human Resources. He said he didn't know what to
say to the applicant so he didn't say anything at all.
2) An individual had been interviewed and
someone was checking to see if he should be referred
further, but unfortunately the higher ups didn't think he
had enough current experience. When I went to the lobby to
notify the applicant that he was not getting a second
interview he was praying. I felt so bad for him because he
was out of work and needed a job.
The New York Knicks and the New York Yankees
– What Can They Teach Us About HR?
I say it’s more important that a coach hold guys accountable
and treat them all the same than it is for him or her to be
a fountain of information about the technicalities of a
specific game. It always helps to have a technical genius
but I’ll take a coach with the proper people and
communication skills every day over one without.
But I
also say the best coaches are flexible and willing to
examine their own theories and beliefs on a continual basis
if it means his team responds to what he’s trying to cajole
them into doing. I’d take a leader over a dictator. A
charismatic manipulator over a bully. A Jim Boeheim type
over a Bobby Knight type (and both those guys, for example,
are excellent coaches who get great results but by using
quite different methods). Sekou Smith | Thursday, January 4,
2007,
The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution
Great managers recognize our natural talent, our True
Colors, and bring this out. They don't worry about the
weaker colors. They know people don't change. You are born
with your talents, they can not be learned. You just use
them naturally and get great satisfaction when using them.
Great managers recognize this talent in an individual even
before the individual does.
Great managers don't worry about the employee's weaknesses.
They have learned to build a team where the skills needed in
your last color are provided by others where this is their
strength. Emil K. Kalil, Ph.D. “Follow
Your True Colors To The Work You Love”
If you
live in the metropolitan New York area, you know that sports
teams are a big part of life. There are two baseball teams
(Mets and Yankees), two basketball teams (Knicks and Nets),
two football teams (Giants and Jets), and three hockey teams
(Islanders, Rangers, and Devils). The New York market
provides for some of the most passionate fans, some of the
harshest media coverage, and some of the biggest names in
sports. But having big name players on your team is not the
key to building a winning team. Being able to properly
manage these players – an exercise in Human Resource
Management – and bring in the right players to win are the
way that champions are born and money is made in the New
York sports market.
The
Yankees that came out of the 1980s were a mess. In the 1970s
they had the “Bronx Zoo” with players fighting in the dugout
and Billy Martin, the manager of the Yankees, constantly
being fired and rehired. The 1980s featured the Yankees’
impulsive owner, former ship tycoon George Steinbrenner,
spending the team’s money on any and every player with a big
name, but producing little results. The last straw was early
1990s suspension of Steinbrenner from baseball for hiring
someone to dig up dirt to discredit Dave Winfield, a player
on his own team. As detailed by Buster Olney in
The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty: “Steinbrenner
would not be around to impetuously override the judgment of
his baseball executives. He had changed general managers 14
times in his 17 years as owner of the Yankees, but now it
appeared [General Manager Gene] Michael would have carte
blanche for at least a couple of years, maybe longer.”
After
years of reckless management, the Yankees needed not only
careful managing, but some stability which Michael, as well
as his appointed manager, Buck Showalter, intended to
provide. They didn’t just sign free agents because of their
names, they signed them because of how they fit into the
clubhouse, their personalities, how they could handle the
pressure of New York. Instead of treating the team like a
car collection, they treated it like running a business from
a Human Resources perspective. They started to develop
people from within and surrounded them with people who fit
in well from other organizations. They added Paul O’Neill
and David Cone to a team that already had a young Bernie
Williams and an aging leader in Don Mattingly. And from
within they developed players such as Derek Jeter, Andy
Pettitte, Mariano Rivera, and Jorge Posada. When
Steinbrenner came back into power, he replaced Michael and
Showalter (replacing the latter with New York native, Joe
Torre), but the seeds of their work had already been
planted. To date the Yankees have made the playoffs in
twelve straight seasons, which included four out of five
World Series wins from 1996-2000, and, even after their
so-called dynasty had ended, trips to the World Series in
2001 and 2003. But, as detailed by Buster Olney’s book,
after the 2001 playoffs ended in failure, Steinbrenner went
back to his old ways of buying players, and despite nine
straight American League East titles and enormous payrolls
over $200 million – higher than any other major league team
– the Yankees have not won a championship since.
The New
York Knicks would make the NBA finals as an eighth seed in
1999 but before the 2000 season, they traded Patrick Ewing
in one of the most ill-fated deals in NBA history. It was
not the trade itself but the
“series of unfortunate transactions”, as Steve Kerr
points out, that doomed the Knicks. Instead of letting
Ewing’s contract expire and rebuilding the team, they made
their star player from the past decade feel unwanted,
overcompensated by paying Allan Houston $100 million despite
bad knees, and started the team off on a series of bad
contracts. To make it even worse, the Knicks brought in
Isiah Thomas, a high-profile former NBA player to be their
General Manager. He has not only filled the team with huge
contracts to saddle the Knicks for many years, but also
filled the locker room with players who do not fit well
together, do not work hard, and do not care about winning.
Isiah
Thomas also embarrassed the team off-court also with a
sexual harassment suit and a public feud with former — and
future Hall of Fame — coach Larry Brown. A manager who has
led his company to bad performance and has also created a
bad public image to the outside world would usually be
fired. But Cablevision boss, James Dolan, continues to keep
Thomas around, even defending his actions. Yet,
as pointed out by Forbes magazine, the Knicks are
the most valuable team in the NBA, have the second-highest
revenue in the NBA, and yet somehow lost over $50 million
last season. Forbes created a “wins to player cost
ratio” in which 100 would be player cost even to win level;
the Knicks scored a 42.
In Forbes ranking of the worst-valued players,
the Knicks were home to six of the bottom seven.
Two
winters ago, Steinbrenner gave General Manager Brian Cashman
free reigns over the staff of the Yankees team. An
unprecedented move for Steinbrenner, this showed a faith in
Cashman. Unlike Thomas, Cashman has been heralded as a good
executive who has the Yankees going in the right direction.
Despite another first round exit by the Yankees this past
season, few would call this team a laughing stock; yet that
is just the title many have given to Thomas’ Knicks, another
team with managerial free reign.
The
Knicks and Yankees can both take a lesson from Madison
Square Garden’s other team, the New York Rangers. When
forced to comply with budget restrictions after last year’s
institution of a salary cap in hockey, the Ranges made a
team of passionate players who would work hard and reinstall
integrity to a franchise that had not been in the playoffs
for a long while. Although the Rangers also fell in the
first round last year, many predicted them to finish last.
Their intensity throughout the season brought life back to
a sport which had not even been played the season before.
The Knicks, and managers in similar situations, should look
towards the Rangers’ model as a way to manage their team
back to greatness.
The key
difference in the success, or lack thereof, with New York
sports teams comes down to the difference between what it
means to be a leader and what it means to be a manger.
According to
Leadershipdirect there are many differences:
-
Leaders direct, managers execute.
-
Management is like investment – getting the best return
from all resources – your own energy, talent, and time
plus all other resources at your disposal.
-
Management requires efficiency, profitability, and
depends on minimal inputs for maximum returns.
-
To manage well, regularly review your priorities, just
as you would your investments.
-
The same person can both lead and manage – they are
different functions.
-
Managers are like sports coaches – they inspire and
develop people to get the best performance out of them.
-
Managers provide structure and measure output.
-
Leaders champion change. They may or may not manage
people.
-
Management is a role, a set of responsibilities.
-
Leadership is not a role. It is an occasional act, like
creativity.
Hence it is vital to differentiate between leadership and
management. The former serves the function of finding a new
direction, the latter the function of getting us there
efficiently. While one person can, in principle, perform
both functions, only one person would normally be the
manager of a group. Conversely, leadership can be shown by
all and it can shift from one person to another rapidly in
any given context. The New York Knicks are an example of
when there is both poor leadership and management. The New
York Yankees are an example of strong management but weak
leadership. To be successful in a sports franchise and in
today’s competitive business world there must be those who
are strong at both.
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Copyright 2007, Astron Solutions, LLC
ISSN Number 1549-0467
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