Confront the Brutal Facts

[AreliusIV]

For anyone who has read the best-selling business book "Good to Great" by Jim Collins, you will recognize that its principles apply to any organization or venture (including a soccer team). This book explores the way good organizations can be turned into ones that produce great, sustained results.

Collins found that before an organization can go from good to great, it has to "Confront the Brutal Facts." (Chapter 4) In this chapter, Collins says that organizations that want to make the jump from good to great need to have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of their current reality. Their status during the transition period is very honestly evaluated. When you work hard to understand the reality of your current situation, the correct decisions often emerge.

Optimism is a bad strategy when the price of failure or probability of failure are high. The organizations that don't honestly confront the brutal facts of their present reality will never make the jump from good to great.

Organizations that make the leap from good to great deal with the brutal facts directly and decisively by "shining a light" on the key issues impacting the organization's success and taking a "need to know" perspective at all times on reality as it really exists.

Chapter 3 of the book is entitled "First Who... Then What." In this chapter, Collins discovered that all great organizations found the right people to manage and run the business. Winning organizations always put the best people on the biggest opportunities. People are not your most important asset. "The "right" people are.

Great organizations do not formulate a great strategy first. Instead, they spend their energies hiring the best people for the job ahead and firing employees who they do not believe demonstrate the necessary personality traits. The chapter states that when you know you need to make a personnel change, act.

First, you get the right people on the bus and wrong people off the bus, then you get the right people in the right seats. This is similar to Buckingham's "Select for Talent" and "Find the Right Fit" in his book "First Break All The Rules." Part of confronting the brutal facts is eliminating the wrong employees and hiring the right ones.

Is Ellinger the right person for the job?

Is RSL confronting the brutal facts?

If not, RSL will never make the leap from good to great.

Remember: good is the enemy of great...

[Jose Luis Luviano]

Of course, the best business and/or economics book of all times is "Eat The Rich" by PJ O'Rourke.

But, back on topic, it looks like The Peter Principle raised its ugly head here. Ellinger was a competent youth national team manager who was promoted to his Level Of Incompetence as an MLS head coach.

Ellinger would be a great assistant at the Crew or Goats Lite, where they are working on Youth Movements. (Yeah, I know that CDC USA has Suarez, Razov & Ramirez; but Bradley seems to be playing a lot of rookies, too.)

Hm, maybe Robin Fraser would be a competent defender, a competent analyst and an incompetent head coach. Well, I'm willing to give it a shot.

[prk166]

IIRC, Jim Collins has spent his entire career in academia and running his own "consulting" company. I highly doubt he's had to confront any brutal facts himself in the ways he talks about.

At that I doubt there isn't anyone in the front office that doesn't know what they're facing. I don't think they simply have their head in the sand and are avoiding tough decisions. If anything, sticking by Ellinger after last years' performance (only won twice in the last 24 games) was taking the tough issue head on. Maybe they're being scrouges. But think about it, it's easier to fire a coach after that than keep him on. Are they going with the harder choice out of ignorance or penny pinchign? I doubt it.

I disagree with their decision in not giving ellinger the boot last year. But to turn to some cheesy business guru and claim the FO isn't following his non-real-world-developed advice isn't the route to go either. Sorry, I realize some people look up to the guy. And the advice isn't horrible. I just have a hard time paying attention to it since he wasn't out there appying it in the "real world" and on top of it turnign to it in a situation like this.

[AreliusIV]

I might venture to suppose that you haven't read the book...

[Jose Luis Luviano]

Just read PJ O'Rourke. I am pretty sure that he is a soccer fan.