StanM wrote: ↑Fri Feb 11, 2022 9:04 am
vikeinmontana wrote: ↑Wed Feb 09, 2022 12:57 pm
Oh I totally agree. I think we're actually kind of saying the same thing.
I am a business owner with bars and liquor stores in Montana. It's probably why I have the opinions I do. From the outside looking in, business is thriving. I have had the number one selling liquor store in the entire state for 10+ years in a row. Business has never been better. Thanks Covid!
But internally, it's never as easy as we make it look with a good staff. And it's never been as bad as it may look when we're short-staffed and dealing with never-ending supply chain issues. Sometimes my staff makes me look brilliant because they are so good. Sometimes my hands are a bit tied because finding quality people is difficult. But the business plan has never changed.
I feel this is the case with any job you can think of. Sports are just different because it's one of the few jobs that everyone has an interest in. And politics I suppose. No one cares about the owner of a liquor store. If someone came in here and I was short-staffed and out of product they may walk away thinking this is the worst store they've stepped foot in. However, when supply chains come back and people decide to work again, we run a tight ship and people rave about us. But I need good people, and everything to run smooth for that to happen. One kink in the chain can make a business look bad. Sports are no different. If a guy has studs on the roster that buy into the system, his offense/defense can look excellent and he in turn looks like a coordinator of the year. If there is turmoil in the ranks, little cohesion, and injuries to boot, suddenly that same guy doing the same things can look incompetent.
Good points all. I think one of the things fans loose sight of is that every NFL team is a workplace full of (in most cases mature) adults. When coaches have personal vendettas against the GM and front office and pretty much ignores most of the current years draft class and such it affects morale. Teams can draft and sign the best players but the toxic environment sabotages their prospects for success.
I am eager for the details of what exactly was going on up to the firings. Granted that situation is over but I would feel more confident that new coaching will succeed if we knew what was going on behind closed doors. I think that this is one of the reasons ownership is looking to improve company morale and never fall into that kind of toxic situation. Really, when a coach and GM are not speaking that is an extreme situation that the players are going to know. We may never know but it must have been toxic.
Great points.
There’s a well-renowned leadership expert who says there are 6 types of leaders. Four are bad, one is good, and one is the gold standard.
One of the bad ones is the Domineering Leader. He says the Domineering Leader produces compliant followers. In other words, the followers blindly do what they’re told they’re afraid of the consequences. Domineering leaders work for awhile. Things improve in the short term because the team is doing what they’re supposed to be doing, and it’s better than what they were doing.
But domineering leaders eventually fail, and it’s for one important reason … compliant followers are not COMMITTED followers. The followers figure out that the sun will still rise if they don’t do what the domineering leader yells at them to do, so they start to defy the leader, either in secret or in the open if things get bad enough. In other words, they get tired of the brow beating, and they give up.
Could anything more accurately describe Mike Zimmer than Domineering Leader? How many times in the last three years did he tell the media, “I keep telling them to do this, but they don’t listen”?
The best type of leader is the Empowering Leader. An Empowering Leader creates OTHER LEADERS. Empowering leaders create a culture of commitment because everybody is bought in. It’s not “all decisions made on consensus.” It’s that everybody has the ability to make decisions within the realm of their job.
Domineering Leaders don’t create other leaders. Case in point … Kirk Cousins. We rip on Cousins for his leadership, but how can he be a leader if he’s not even allowed to call time out during a 2-minute drill? Or if he can’t change the play at the line? Or if he’s yelled at for taking any kind of risk?
Kevin O’Connell’s offense is based on using personnel, formations, motions and shifts to expose the defense’s soft spots, then relying on the quarterback to make the call at the line to put the offense in the best play. How much more empowering can a system be?
The culture in Minnesota is going to change … and for the good. No more throwing players under the bus. No more everybody in the building avoiding the head coach, as has been widely reported about Zimmer. There will be more synergy and playing for each other. Even the hiring of Ed Donatell … the first thing I heard about him, from a Denver reporter, was that he’s a great guy.
You guys who believe football players only respond to being yelled at … sorry, but you’re wrong. It works in high school because the followers are basically children. It works in college because the players only have to put up with it for a couple of years … and now they can transfer freely. But it doesn’t work with professional athletes. I’m not talking touchy feely. I’m talking about respecting players as men, not just treating them like idiots who should be doing what they’re told. I may be a cockeyed optimist, but I’m excited for the future.