NBA team jersey ads are coming - here's the HR tech vendor who should sponsor each team

A few days ago it was announced that starting with the 2017-2018 season, small corporate advertisements will be permitted on the front of NBA player jerseys. It is estimated that these ads, which initially will be limited in size to a patch measuring 2.5 x 2.5 inches, will generate anywhere from $50M to $150M annually in revenue for the league.

Since corporate ads on NBA jerseys are now absolutely going to happen, speculation about which companies will sponsor which teams has begun. And since I am all about the NBA and have lots of opinions about all things HR technology, I thought it would be fun to mash up these two worlds in one post. 

How can such a mash up make sense you may be asking? How about if we pretend that only HR technology companies would be eligible for these NBA jersey sponsorship and then decide which HR tech company 'fits' each NBA team and match the NBA team to the HR tech company.

Sounds fun, right? Here goes. And note, teams are listed in reverse order of their regular season finish in the season that just concluded a few days ago.

30. Philadelphia 76ers - Sponsor: SmartRecruiters. No reason other than the Sixers really, really need to find some better players. Linking a company with the name of SmartRecruiters to a team in need of smarter recruiting is a good fit.

29. Los Angeles Lakers - Sponsor: Aon Hewitt. Aon Hewitt has been no stranger to big-name jersey sponsorship in the past, (Manchester United), so I can see a scenario where Aon would jump into NBA jersey sponsorship with a big time team like the Lakers.

28. Brooklyn Nets - Sponsor: Infor. Infor is a New York City-based company, and I went to a Nets game this season in Brooklyn and sat near the Infor lounge (to which I was denied entry, by the way).

27. Phoenix Suns - Sponsor: PeopleDoc. This one falls into the camp of 'I think this company does some cool things, and they should be a part of the NBA sponsorship program'. The Suns play in a big market, have typically been a destination of choice for free agents, and seem like a fit for an HR tech company trying to build its name in the US market.

26. Minnesota Timberwolves - Sponsor: The Muse. The T-Wolves are a team on the rise, filled with tons of young talent. Good match for the kinds of things The Muse is all about as well, with their focus of helping organizations connect with up and coming talent.

25. New Orleans Pelicans - Sponsor: Namely. You may not know Namely, but the company has emerged in the last couple of years, raising funds and even advertising on cable TV channels like CNBC. I think that Namely would probably want to be a part of the NBA ad program, and nabbing the team with one of the league's best players Anthony Davis would be a coup.

24. New York Knicks - Sponsor: ADP. They are both huge, recognizable names in their domains, and have some shared geographical ties as ADP is headquartered in the greater NYC area. I can just 'see' and ADP logo on a Knicks jersey and it would feel like it would make sense.

23. Milwaukee Bucks- Sponsor: CareerBuilder. The Bucks are a team that many think could evolve and develop into a contender in the next few seasons, they just need one or two more pieces to be in the mix. Pairing up with a vendor that is all about making connections with talent seems like a good fit.

22. Denver Nuggets - Sponsor: iCIMS. Another HR tech company that it seems would have to be a part of the NBA program, iCIMS continues to grow and expand and the name and brand recognition that would come from being a NBA team sponsor seems to align with these growth plans. 

21. Sacramento Kings - Sponsor: Globoforce. This one is more about what the Kings need and less about what the sponsor needs. The Kings have been a pretty dysfunctional organization for several years, and they could use a pairing with a vendor who focuses on making work better and more human.

20. Orlando Magic - Sponsor: Dice. I don't have a super reason behind this match, but I think Dice would have to be in the NBA mix somehow, so I will slot them in here with a Magic team that hopefully has better days ahead of them soon.

19. Utah Jazz - Sponsor: HireVue. While there are several HR tech companies in the Salt Lake City area, I just associate Hirevue with the area so strongly, they have to be the pick for the Jazz sponsorship. And nothing says 'You're in Utah' more than jazz music.

18. Washington Wizards - Sponsor: Equifax Workforce Solutions. It only makes sense that the team in the home of the US Federal Government be sponsored by an HR tech company that is synonymous with compliance - Equifax is a natural fit for the Wiz.

17. Houston Rockets - Sponsor: CivilSoft. Maybe a stretch by me, but I like the idea of pairing the team from America's oil and gas industry capital with one of the few, if not the only, HR tech companies that is HQ'ed in the Middle East.

16. Chicago Bulls - Sponsor: SAP. Great history, been around what seems like forever. Known all over the world, SAP seems like a match with the Bulls on all these levels.

15. Memphis Grizzlies - Sponsor: Kronos. The Grizz have long been known as a blue-collar, grind it out kind of team, so pairing them with Kronos, the biggest player in the time keeping space seems like a good fit.

14. Dallas Mavericks - Sponsor: Glassdoor. The Mavs owner Mark Cuban is famous for speaking his mind, and being incredibly open and transparent. Matches the Glassdoor ethos of making information about work and organizations more open and transparent for job seekers as well.

13. Detroit Pistons - Sponsor: WorkForce Software. The team from Detroit, the city long-associated with hard work needs to be paired with a sponsor coming from the same place. I like the match of a tech vendor with deep roots in the hourly workforce space with the Pistons.

12. Portland Trail Blazers - Sponsor: Virgin Pulse. Portland feels like the kind of place/team that is a fit with the vibe of well-being that Virgin Pulse is all about. 

11. Indiana Pacers - Sponsor: Mercer. I like Mercer for the Pacers as they both give off a feel of solid, stable, trustworthiness. You don't have to worry that they know what they are doing/saying, they just put in a great effort every night. 

10. Charlotte Hornets: Sponsor: SumTotal. This may be a reach, but the Hornets have had a really, really good season despite not having any 'star' players. They have been, in short, better than the sum of their parts. So matching them up with leading learning vendor SumTotal works.

9. Boston Celtics - Sponsor: IBM. The modern day Celts are not flashy, but continue to achieve at a high level and feature solid coaching and front-office leadership. Plus, there's decades of success in their legacy. Sounds in some ways like IBM to me.

8. Atlanta Hawks - Sponsor: Kinetix. Though not exactly a tech company, Kinetix lands the Hawks sponsorship by virtue of their Atlanta HQ and KD's affinity for Dennis 'German Rondo' Schroder.

7. Miami Heat - Sponsor: Ultimate Software. Ultimate is a South Florida company, so that is a fit. And I once heard Pat Riley speak at an Ultimate user conference.

6. Los Angeles Clippers - Sponsor: Cornerstone OnDemand. Cornerstone is an LA-area company and it makes sense that they would link up with one of the LA teams. The Clippers just seem a better fit to me than the Lakers. 

5. Oklahoma City Thunder - Sponsor: Paychex. This one is simply because like Oklahoma City seems to be an unlikely place to be the home of a top-level NBA team, Rochester, NY, (home to Paychex and me too), is also a fairly unlikely place to be the home of a leading HR tech provider. But it is and this one seems like a solid fit.

4. Toronto Raptors - Sponsor: Ceridian. They have a pretty strong presence in Canada so it just makes sense for Ceridian to connect with the NBA's lone Canadian franchise.

3. Cleveland Cavaliers - Sponsor: Workday. No other reason than a high-profile team like the Cavs would have to be paired with a big-name sponsor, so Workday gets the nod here.

2. San Antonio Spurs - Sponsor: Indeed. The right for the Spurs was a little tough to come up with, but in the end I went with a pick that at least reminds me of the low-key, efficient, and fundamental way the Spurs play basketball - the job aggregation behemoth Indeed. 

1. Golden State Warriors - Sponsor: Oracle. Kind of a no-brainer, since the Dubs play in Oracle arena. Once a team's home gets associated with a corporate brand, a really tight bond develops.

That's it, your guide to NBA jersey sponsorship, HR tech edition.

Disagree with any of the pairings? Hit me up in the comments.

Goal alignment sounds boring, but it can get you fired (NBA coaching edition)

My favorite sport is basketball, my favorite league is the NBA, and my favorite team is the New York Knicks.

Yesterday, my beloved Knicks relieved their head coach, Derek Fisher, of his duties about 2/3 of the way through his second season as head coach, with the Knicks currently possessing a 23-31 record, good (or bad) for 12th place in the NBA's Eastern Conference and about 5 games out of the 8th place, and the final playoff spot in the East.

There were various reasons for Knicks' team ownership and management to make the move to release Fisher, but I want to focus on one in particular that has been cited in many of the reports of Fisher's firing. It's a classic HR/Talent Management concept as well - dull sounding goal alignment - the basic, but as we will see overlooked in the Knicks' case, idea that organizational goals should be defined, communicated, and understood throughout and down the organization. Playoffs? Playoffs?

The goal in question that at least partially served as a catalyst for Fisher's demise: for the team to finish in the top 8 places in the Eastern Conference and make the NBA playoffs, one season (and a few new players) removed from last year's franchise worst 17- 65 record, and dead last finish in the East.

Here's an excerpt from one report on the firing on how management and Fisher's boss, Knick team President (and NBA coaching legend), Phil Jackson were disapponted in some recent comments from Fisher regarding the Knick's goal of reaching the playoffs this season:

More importantly, however, ESPN reports that Fisher wasn't developing as a coach quick enough for Knicks management. Some of that pressure may have been because the Knicks, for stretches, looked like a playoff team. Yet in the midst of a rough patch, Fisher, during an interview, said missing the playoffs wouldn't be a "disappointment."

"No. Disappointed in what?" Fisher said in an interview on ESPN radio. "We’re a developing team with a ton of new players. ... We have to be reasonable about who we are and where we are and accept what is and not get caught up in what we should be and allow other people to define what our success is."

Let's unpack that a little, exspecially for folks who don't follow the NBA as much as I do, (everyone).

At the start of the season the Knicks were incorporating several new players, their best player (Carmelo Anthony), was working his way back into form following an injury/surgey last year, and after only 17 wins a yar ago, probably could not have been reasonably expected to compete for a playoff berth this year. Jackson and Fisher, both veterans of the NBA, had to have known this, even if they said different things publicly.

But then a few things broke in the Knicks favor in the first half of the year. Anthony rebounded well from injury and was playing some good basketball, rookie Kristaps Porzingis was MUCH, MUCH better than anyone would have expected, and several new players made contributions to the team. The team was actually in contention for a playoff spot until their recent swoon - losing 9 of their last 10, culminating in the firing of Fisher yesterday.

So the organizational goal at the beginning of the season was probably something along the lines of 'Let's be better than last year, let's develop some new players, and let's figure out which players are not going to cut it.'

About half way in the season, due to some unexpected and better play, at least to Jackson and managment the goal shifted to 'Let's make the playoffs this season.'

But somehow Coach Fisher either didn't get the message, or, didn't buy in to the new goal as one that was reasonable, and one upon which his performance should be evaluated.

Against the first set of goals for the season, even at 23-31, Fisher's performance would have at least been 'acceptable.' The team is better than last year, rookie Porzingis has been a pleasant surprise, and (mostly) Fisher has found a way to be competitive game in and game out.

But against the revised or re-calibrated goal of making the playoffs this season? Well it seems almost certain after losing 9 of 10 that the Knicks are not going to achieve that. Fisher publicly stating that missing that goal 'would not be a disappointment' said to Knicks management that their was a disconnect between what the organization was working towards and what one of its key managers, (Fisher), had in mind. And so Fisher had to go.

It's ok for leaders to change course, set a new goal mid-stream, or ask even more from people who are performing well. But if those folks you are asking to do more and be better are not fully on board? Well then you have pretty different definitions of 'success' in the organization, and that ultimately will drive a wedge between leadership, management, and employees.

Note: I have probably watched 45 or so of the Knicks 54 games this season. I don't think they are a playoff team either.

Reacting to a sudden change in leadership

It's Monday night as I write this and of course just like you I am watching an NBA game and thinking about work, workplaces, and management. 

The game in question is the Spurs vs. Nets and why this particular game is interesting (aside from it involving the always fun to watch Spurs team), is that it is the first game for the Nets following the (kind of) sudden firing of their head coach Lionel Hollins and the re-assignment/demotion of their GM Billy King on Sunday. The Nets players were certainly aware of their 10-27 record and position as one of the league's worst teams, but they would not have had much if any advance warning of the imminent sacking of their coach.From the Nets better days

Fast forward about 36 hours and these Nets have to take the court against the Spurs, one of the NBA's elite franchises, and possessors of a 32-6 record and winners of 5 NBA titles in the last 20 or so years. But the Spurs success is not what matters for my point today, but rather how the Nets players, and by means of extension, any of us react to a sudden change in our own organizational leadership.

The way I see it you, me, the guys playing for the Nets can react one of three possible ways to the news that the boss, the big boss, or the really, really big boss is suddenly gone, and there is a little bit of uncertainty about what is going to happen next.

1. Panic - even though I advised yesterday that in most cases that it is probably too late to panic, some folks inevitably will. In the Nets example, the player's agent will immediately start working the phones, looking for a potential new team for the player and leak stories to the media that the former coach never really gave the player a fair chance or used him in a way that best exploited his talents. For us 'normals', that means an instant LinkedIn profile update and bending the ear of everyone who will listen that the former leader 'never liked me' or 'always had it in for me.' 

2. Enthusiasm - Some players on the Nets will see the change in leadership as a way to get a fresh start, and to try and impress the new leaders with extra effort and diligence to their tasks. These guys are probably ones who felt like for whatever reason they were not able to be their best selves under the old regime. They will in the short term work extra hard, and spend more time talking about the potentially bright future instead of focusing on the disappointments of the past. This reaction is usual reserved for younger players who are in the early stage of their careers and don't have much time or emotional commitment with the outgoing leadership. 

3. Insubordination - The worst of all three potential reactions, and the one that can possibly cause lingering damage, is outright insubordination. Veteran players, especially ones with long-term, guaranteed contracts could consider themselves pretty insulated from any negative consequences and out and out work against the new leadership. This is particularly dangerous because very often the new leaders need the support of the organization's most senior and influential players. But these players, and the similarly long-tenured staff at any organization, often have outsized levels of power inside the group, and any new leader is going to have to find some common ground with them in order to try and fix what needs fixing. 

When there is a sudden, and possible unexpected change in leadership everyone in the organization immediately begins to evaluate their own position, their place in the organization, and the health of the organization overall.

If you are a role player or a favorite of the old regime, it may indeed be time to start working your network and calling in some favors, as your days may be numbered as well. But if you were a solid worker who always thought you could do more but were never given the chance it could be your time to try and step up and fill in some of the leadership and talent vacuum.

If you are the new leader suddenly thrust into power, you'd do well to assess the folks on the team and sort out what group they seem to be falling in with before too long. Some will be with you, some will be against you, and some will just be a mess. It is good to know who is who. 

Either way, these kinds of quick changes in leadership force us to be at least somewhat honest about our own place in the organization, and perhaps more importantly, force us to consider if we have a future with said organization as well. 

Complacency can be a real bastard. It sometimes takes some dramatic change to wake us up.

Best of 2015: Wearable tech at work: Three lessons from the NBA

NOTE: As 2015 winds down, so will 'regular' posts on the blog. For the next two weeks, I will be posting what I thought were the most interesting pieces I published in 2015. These were not necessarily the most popular or most shared, just the ones I think were most representative of the year in HR, HR Tech, workplaces, and basketball. Hope you enjoy looking back on the year and as always, thanks for reading in 2015.

Next up a piece from October titled Wearable tech at work: Three lessons from the NBA, that was my favorite kind of post to write - taking an example from the sports world and thinking about what it means for the mainstream kinds of workplaces most of us inhabit.

Wearable tech at work: Three lessons from the NBA

The NBA season starts tomorrow!  

It could not have come soon enough for this NBA junkie. While my beloved Mets have made things interesting with a surprising run to baseball's World Series, I live and breathe for NBA basketball. This is for two reasons primarily. One, the NBA is simply the best, most exciting, most watchable sport there is. And two, basketball provides a tremendous source of insights for all things HR and the workplace - leadership, recruiting, talent management, assessment, compensation, and increasingly - the use of advanced performance analytics for evaluation, talent management, and strategy development.

Case in point, the increased use of player movement and performance tracking technology to better understand patterns, tendencies, and importantly, fatigue and diminished output/effort in a player. Check this excerpt from a recent piece on the topic from Grantland, From BMI to TMI: The NBA Is Leaning Toward Wearable Tech, then some comments from me after the quote:

The NBA is putting its own money into the study of wearable GPS devices, with the likely end goal of outfitting players during games, according to several league sources. The league is funding a study, at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, of products from two leading device-makers: Catapult and STATSports.

The league declined comment on the study. Most teams already use the gadgets during practices, and Catapult alone expects to have about 20 NBA team clients by the start of the 2015-16 season. The Fort Wayne Mad Ants wore Catapult monitors during D-League games last season in an obvious trial run for potential use at the parent league.

Weighing less than an ounce, these devices are worn underneath a player’s jersey. They track basic movement data, including distance traveled and running speed, but the real value comes from the health- and fatigue-related information they spit out. The monitors track the power behind a player’s accelerations and decelerations (i.e., cuts), the force-based impact of jumping and landing, and other data points. Team sports science experts scour the data for any indication a player might be on the verge of injury — or already suffering from one that hasn’t manifested itself in any obvious way.

The piece goes on to make some interesting points about how teams can use the devices in a practice setting in order to make decisions about player rest and practice strategy. But since the NBA player's are represented by a union, in-game use of these devices will have to be collectively bargained according to the piece. What can we extrapolate to 'normal' workplaces from the NBA's experiments and experiences with these kinds of wearables?

I can think of three main things:

1. Union shop or not, organizations are going to have to take data privacy, usage, and access issues very seriously and head-on. Players that are angling to secure their next contract might not want widespread access to their performance data if it begins to show some performance degradation that might not be apparent to the naked eye. If you want any employee to wear a tracking tool like this, you have got to ensure the 'right' level of privacy and control for your situation.

2. Your primary use case for wearable tech should be a positive one. And probably your secondary use case as well. If wearables are going to be used to prevent injuries, help workers find efficiencies, or better align tasks to workers, (and even to a specific day or time), then it is likely you will have a better chance at employee adoption of this kind of tech. If employees think your primary goal of these devices is to identify the 'weak links' in the organization in order to apply discipline, (or to weed them out), then the reaction is going to be less-than-enthusiastic. There is already a pretty large 'Big Brother is watching' inherent bias you need to overcome, don't make it worse by treating wearable tech at work like some kind of house arrest ankle bracelet.

3. Wearable data has to be interpreted in context. Every basketball game is unique. The opponent, the combinations of players on the court, the external conditions, (travel, amount of sleep, diet, etc,), all vary from day-to-day and game-to-game no matter how hard coaches try to have things consistent. Careful analysis of player tracking data and performance has to include and attempt to understand how external factors impact performance. Player tracking data is going to create tremendous amounts of data for team management to analyze - on top of the pretty large data sets they already have been crunching. And when this kind of data is available to every team, the competitive advantage ceases to be simply having the data - the advantage shifts to the organization that is the best and extracting insight from the data.

I am sure there will be more to unpack as player movement and tracking data becomes more of a mainstream form of analysis, but for now, these are the big takeaways for me.

I love the NBA. You should too. Everything you need to know about HR an Talent can be learned in 48 minutes a night.

Trust me... it will be a great season!

NOTE: This was the last of the 'Best of 2015' posts. Hope you enjoyed looking back on the year. HAppy New Year to everyone and we will see you back with fresh content next week.

Best of 2015: The culture of performance, and firing by form letter

NOTE: As 2015 winds down, so will 'regular' posts on the blog. For the next two weeks, I will be posting what I thought were the most interesting pieces I published in 2015. These were not necessarily the most popular or most shared, just the ones I think were most representative of the year in HR, HR Tech, workplaces, and basketball. Hope you enjoy looking back on the year and as always, thanks for reading in 2015.

Next up a piece from June, titled The Culture of Performance, and Firing by Form Letter, a simple example of how organizational culture (needs to) manifest itself in approaches to talent management.

The culture of performance and firing by form letter

Super look at just one of the ways that a 'performance is the only thing that matters' culture that is professional American football manifests itself over at Deadspin last week in the piece This is the the letter you get when you are cut from an NFL team.

Take a look at a typical player termination letter from one of the league's clubs, the Houston Texans:

A couple of things about the letter, and then i am out for the rest of a summer Monday.

1. First up, in a really hands-on job like 'NFL Player', physical ability to perform issues are number 1 and 2 on the 5 possible termination reasons. For the rest of us who are not NFL players, this could equate to keeping up our skills, learning new ones as business and technology shifts, and importantly, not 'faking' it in terms of what we say we can do.

2. Reason 3, and the one that this example from 2006 shows, says basically, 'You are just not good enough, i.e., the other guys on the team are better'. No details, no wordy explanations or nuances. Just a cut and dried 'You're not good enough.' That's cold, but again, completely aligned with the organizational values and culture. Performance trumps everything. Want a high-performance culture? Then you have to be ruthless in trimming the organization of people who don't meet the standard. And you as a leader can't let it bother you too much either.

3. The organization also has a broad right to terminate you for 'personal conduct that adversely affects or reflects on the club'. Heck, that could be just about anything, since it is the club who gets to evaluate the 'impact' of your behavior. In other words, we (mostly) care about your physical condition and your performance, but we can fire your butt for just about anything we want at any time. Heck, that sounds a lot like many of the places us 'normals' work too. Employment at will is a great deal for sure. Until you get fired, well, just 'because.'

Hiring, promoting, rewards, and even terminations all play a big role in defining, supporting, and communicating an organization's values and culture. If you are going to go all-in on high performance, well, you need to remember the dark side of that decision too.

And firing by form letter is one example of that.

Have a great week!