Ebook: The 8 Man Rotation - The 2013 Season

It's here!

It's finally here!

No, not summer and sunshine and three months spent slacking off while half of the office is nowhere to be found, I mean the next installment of the world-famous free Ebook on Sports and HR - The 8 Man Rotation - The 2013 Season.

What is The 8 Man Rotation?

It is a group of your HR pals, Lance Haun, Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn, Steve Boese, and Matt Stollak who made it a habit throughout the year serving up the HR/Talent version of the 'hot sports take', helping you to see and then exploit what happens in the sports world in your HR shop.

Whether its breaking down what the NBA draft means for your recruiting efforts, explaining why hiring lower division college athletes always makes sense for your organization, or learning from the greatest sports teams and players about setting performance goals, and lots more - chances are high that if there is a way to connect sports and HR/Talent, you will find it in the 2013 Ebook.

Compiled and edited by mighty Matt 'akaBruno' Stollak, the 2013 Season is (probably, I can't be bothered to check), the longest, and most comprehensive of all the 8 Man Rotation editions, coming in at a ridiculous 165 pages, all about the intersection of HR, Talent Management, Recruiting, Leadership and sports. And in 2013, we have a great introduction from HR pro and noted New Orleans Saints fan, Robin Schooling.

Of course you don't have to read all 165 pages (you should), you can bounce from topic to topic, and article to article, as Matt did a great job organizing a year's worth of sports takes into a coherent volume.

So please check out The 8 Man Rotation - The 2013 Season here, and I will even embed the Ebook below in case you don't want to click away from your favorite blog.

The 8 Man Rotation: The 2013 Season from The 8 Man Rotation

Thanks again to Matt for all the work (good job, good effort) and to the guys for keeping up the 8 Man tradition.

Have a great weekend!

The Juergen Bomb: Three reasons why a new leader makes a strategic firing

A couple of weeks back I riffed on NBA Commissioner Adam Silver's decision to crack down amazingly tough on (disgraced, probably racist), soon-to-be former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling following the release of audio tapes that revealed once and for all time how horrible a person is Mr. Sterling.

Commissioner Silver went full nuclear on Sterling - fining him the maximum allowable amount according to league policy, banning him for life from the Clippers and all NBA matters, and moving (along with the 29 other league owners), to force a sale of the Clippers by Sterling. You can check out my piece linked above for the full take, but essentially I think Silver's response to this first real leadership test was spot-on, and in particular, because it set a decisive tone for his leadership style and approach moving forward.

Fast forward to last week, and we have another pretty high profile leadership (this one mixed in with some tasty talent management) situation from the world of sports - specifically from the United States Men's National Soccer team. In case you missed it, US coach Juergen Klinsmann made news when he dropped US soccer star (and the National team's all time leading scorer), Landon Donovan from the squad of 23 players that will compete in the upcoming World Cup. While Silver's handling of the Sterling mess has been universally lauded and wildly popular, Klinsmann's decision to essentially fire Donovan from the National team has been met with plenty of second-guessing, and is certainly not popular with several of the remaining (and influential) team members. This was a tough managerial decision around talent, and since my job as part of the 8 Man Rotation crew is to help you break down the connections between sports and your job as an HR/talent pro, here are three reasons I can think of why it makes sense for a new leader to make a strategic fire a la Klinsmann:

1. The obvious one - dropping a veteran, established talent that seemed 'safe' by just about every stretch of the imagination signals out to the rest of the team (sports or otherwise), that the new leader is really in charge, and more importantly, has the security and management support to make tough decisions. Much speculation about Klinsmann's decision to drop Donovan from the World Cup squad was that the coach wanted to use that spot to give a younger, less experienced player a great developmental opportunity for what seems to be Klinsmann's true goal - mounting a serious challenge in the next World Cup in 2018, a competition which the then 36 year old Donovan would certainly not factor.  

2. A strategic fire can often shake up a content workplace. The US team has been sort of running in place for the last few World Cup cycles. Sure, they have the occasional moments of success and games that make you think they are finally going to be serious contenders at elite competitions. But then they inexplicably fall to some lesser opponents, fail to seriously compete when facing the world's top teams, and generally seem comfortable just qualifying for the World Cup. Klinsmann does not want to reward that kind of status quo, that decade of mediocrity. The remaining players simply need to play better, or Klinsmann will find replacements. Dropping a former star, who still may be able to contribute, signals that performance standards across the entire organization are going up. The other players might think, "Crap, if he was willing to cut Landon, he definitely will drop me if I don't start scoring goals."

3. The leader takes ownership of overall team results - especially if the results are poor. The primary reason in sports that coaches like to 'play it safe' and 'go by the book' is that they don't want to accept blame for failure, since they 'went by the book', whether it is in player selection or game strategy and tactics. In American football, the vast majority of coaches will punt the ball away on 4th down when the data clearly show that running an offensive play to try and keep possession of the ball is almost always the better statistical move. But if the coach plays it safe, and the team loses, he/she can usually shift blame to the players or some other external circumstance. Make 'risky' decisions like unexpectedly cutting a star player like Donovan and have them not pan out? All the blame, or at least a large part of the blame, will land on Klinsmann's shoulders. And I think that is a good thing, more coaches/leaders need to be willing to claim responsibility for failure (and accept the consequences too).

Ok, that's it - I'm out.

Go USA. Try not to lose to any country with less than 1% of our population this time.

PODCAST - #HRHappyHour 183 - Sports and HR with the 8 Man Rotation

HR Happy Hour 183 - Sports and HR with the 8 Man Rotation

Recorded Thursday, May 15, 2014

Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane

Guests: Kris Dunn, Matt Stollak, Tim Sackett, Lance Haun

Fantastic to have the entire crew from the 8 Man Rotation series of E-books on Sports and HR all together in the HR Happy Hour house to share some takes on the top sports issues of the day and their impact/relevance to work and workplaces everywhere.

The 8 Man Crew hit a wide range of current sports topics - Donald Sterling, the NBA coaching turmoil, Michael Sam and the NFL's readiness for their first openly gay player, and even dipped in the world of college sports with a take on the unionization and payment of college athletes.

Also, Steve shared his dark horse pick for the upcoming soccer World Cup, and as expected, we completely ignored the sport of hockey.

It was a really fun and engaging show with the 8 Man crew and will make for a great weekend listen.

You can listen to the show on the show page here or using the widget player below:

Check Out Business Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Steve Boese and Trish McFarlane on BlogTalkRadio

Additionally, you can subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show on iTunes, or for Android device users, from a free app called Stitcher Radio. In both cases just search for 'HR Happy Hour' and add the show to your podcast subscription list. 

This was a fun and interesting show, and I hope you check it out. Many thanks to KD, Tim, Matt, and Lance for joining the HR Happy Hour Show.

Have a great weekend!

The Silver Hammer: Three reasons to come down hard on your first big leadership test

I probably don't need to re-hash the Donald Sterling v. the NBA (and the World) narrative once again for you, by now you have heard the important details of the story. But just to re-set, and set up this piece, you need to know two things.

1. Sterling, the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers was just suspended from the NBA for life for making racist statements, fined $2.5M, and is going to be forced by the other 29 NBA team owners to sell the Clippers.

2. This disciplinary judgement was handed down by NBA commissioner Adam Silver, whose name may not be terribly familiar to you, and is not that familiar to even many NBA fans. Silver just became the Commissioner about three months ago when he succeeded former commissioner and NBA legend David Stern, who had a 30-year reign leading the NBA. Stern in many ways became synonymous with the modern NBA, and while not perfect, will probably be remembered by history as one of the two or three greatest sports executives of his time.

Adam Silver, the new person in charge, had to not only deal with the Donald Sterling situation, he also had the added challenge of this very public and high-profile problem being the first true test of his leadership. And in this test, Silver elected to mete out the harshest and most significant punishment that was possible according to the NBA constitution. Silver could have suspended Sterling for a fixed time period, like one year, could have fined him less than the max of $2.5M, and did not have to elect to push for Sterling's removal as an owner. But instead Silver went heavy, and in his first leadership test, (at least one that involved a disciplinary decision), he made a  pretty bold statement.

That statement was essentially, "There's a new sheriff in town."

Here are three reasons I can think of why it makes sense for a new leader to come down super heavy in their first big leadership spot:

1. Old-school territory marking - A new leader, especially one succeeding a highly successful and influential predecessor, has to make sure the rest of the team knows who is running the ship now. One of the best ways to send that message is with really bold, decisive actions that help to instill confidence in the team. I have read lots of accounts of the NBA/Silver decision, and not once have I read "What would David Stern have done?" 

2. If the decision is a "Should he/she stay or go?" one, you should almost always pick 'Go' - One of the biggest challenges for the new leader is evaluating the team around them. And it is usually obvious who needs to go, and most of the time the leader will know it in their gut but don’t do anything because they don't want to shake things up too soon.  It’s hard to face that there is some house cleaning that needs to be done before the new leader and team can move forward. Or they might think that with a new approach or style that the person can be coached. This almost never works out. A new leader is better off cutting bait nine times out of ten. These kinds of tough decisions can also open up opportunities for other members of the team who may have been languishing under the former regime, feeling stuck or blocked by folks that needed to be (gently) moved along.

3. It's easier to lighten up later, than it is to get tougher - Did you ever have a teacher or coach or manager or even one of your parents that was kind of easy-going and took a laissez-faire kind of approach? The type of leader that generally liked to keep their hands clean, avoided most unpleasant confrontations, and tried to guide you more so than lead you? But later when there arose some kind of situation or screw-up where the leader really had to get tough, crack the whip, bang the hammer, (you get the idea), no one really took them seriously since they were always more of a friend rather than an authority figure? The point being it is almost impossible to pivot from 'nice-guy' to 'tough guy' once your reputation as a nice guy is established. It is much, much easier to ease off a little bit over time, once the team sees you as someone that is not afraid to make tough, sometimes unpopular decisions. Good luck trying to go the other way.

What do you think, about Silver's decision here and about how new leaders stake out their position in general?

Chalk up another 8 Man Rotation post for me, Professor Stollak. 

It's tough to succeed a legend

From the sports world yet another enduring and timeless lesson in talent and career management. Here is the headline - Manchester United sacks manager David Moyes. 

Some backstory.  

Manchester United is one of the most well-known and successful soccer clubs in the world. They are the defending champions of the English Premier League, (arguably the best league in the world), and regularly compete at the highest levels of European club soccer in the Champions League. At the end of last season, Manchester United's longtime and legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson stepped down, capping a stellar managerial career with his 13th Premier League title in 26 seasons at the helm.Farewell Mr. Moyes

Ferguson was (and will probably will always be, given the nature of English soccer), by far the most successful club manager of the Premier league era. For USA readers who might not be familiar, think of Ferguson as some kind of combination of John Wooden, Vince Lombardi, Phil Jackson, and Red Auerbach. Except even more successful and globally famous.

The kind of legend with the track record of exemplary performance that is tough, if not impossible to replace. No matter who stepped in for Ferguson, even Ferguson's hand-picked successor Moyes, it was going to be an almost impossibly difficult pair of shoes to fill.

When someone has been so astronomically successful, over such a long period of time, and achieved legendary status in the organization and industry, then no matter how prepared and talented the successor is, it is going to be almost impossible for them to match (or even approach) the standards that have been established before them.

Succeeding a legend, in sports or in any business really, is such a risky, dicey proposition that it makes sense for super talented people to avoid it at almost any cost, tempting and enticing as it may seem.

Again, taking it back to the sports angle: Can you name the coaches that succeeded John Wooden, Vince Lombardi, Phil Jackson, or Red Auerbach?

The answer is, 'Of course not.' No one remembers them because the combination of almost impossibly hard to match performance standards and the huge shadow that their legendary predecessors cast proved to be a combination even previously successful and competent performers, (like David Moyes), could not overcome.

Trust me, you DO NOT want to try and succeed a legend.

You want to be the person that succeeds the person who succeeds the legend, just after they fail.

Postscript: This isn't just a sports phenomenon. Ask Tim Cook how things are going at Apple these days.