The 8 Man Rotation – The 2011 Season

The 8 Man Rotation –
A Look at Sports and HR

The 2011 Season

by Steve Boese, Kris Dunn,
Lance Haun, Tim Sackett, &
Matthew Stollak
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The 8 Man Rotation – A Look at Sports and HR
The 2011 Season

Foreword by William Tincup and Trish McFarlane

Introduction

HR Planning and Strategy

Is Your Company Better At Innovation if You Seek Patents or Simply Find the
Next Tweak? – Kris Dunn
http://www.hrcapitalist.com/2011/10/is-your-company-better-at-innovation-if-
you-seek-patents-or-simply-find-the-next-tweak.html

Please Welcome Our new VP of Marketing. Yes, That’s Really Him…-Steve
Boese
http://steveboese.squarespace.com/journal/2011/9/2/please-welcome-our-new-
vp-of-marketing-yes-thats-really-him.html

Waiting for the Siren’s Call – Matt Stollak
http://truefaithhr.blogspot.com/2011/02/waiting-for-sirens-call.html

Reality – Matt Stollak
http://truefaithhr.blogspot.com/2011/07/reality.html

Jerry Sloan: Another Great Example of Why Managerial Longevity Matters –
Lance Haun
http://www.tlnt.com/2011/02/11/jerry-sloan-another-great-example-of-why-
managerial-longevity-matters/

Staffing and Career Considerations

Albert Pujols and the Art of the Counter-Offer: It All Comes Down to
Replacement Cost for the Same Performance... – Kris Dunn
http://www.hrcapitalist.com/2011/12/albert-pujols-and-the-art-of-the-
counter-offer-it-all-comes-down-to-replacement-cost-for-the-same-
pe.html

Treat Your Candidates Well – Because They’re Going to Stick to You Like
Kareem If You Don’t… - Kris Dunn
http://www.hrcapitalist.com/2011/05/treat-your-candidates-well-because-theyre-
going-to-stick-to-you-if-you-dont.html

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Legalities? Here’s How References Work in the Real World… - Kris Dunn
http://www.hrcapitalist.com/2011/04/legalities-heres-how-references-work-in-
the-real-world.html

Grading Talent the Big Tuna Way – Steve Boese
http://steveboese.squarespace.com/journal/2011/4/27/grading-talent-the-big-tuna-
way.html

Big Tickets and High Stakes – Steve Boese
http://www.fistfuloftalent.com/2011/03/big-tickets-and-high-stakes.html

Do You Remember What Unemployment Feels Like? – Tim Sackett
http://www.timsackett.com/2011/11/21/remember-unemployment-feels-like/

Selection, Assessments, and the MLB – Tim Sackett
http://www.timsackett.com/2011/04/06/selection-assessments-and-the-mlb/

Training and Development

The Wisdom of Jeff Van Gundy – Part V – Steve Boese
http://steveboese.squarespace.com/journal/2011/5/4/the-wisdom-of-jeff-van-
gundy-part-v.html

If “Everyone” is Responsible, is Anyone Responsible? – Steve Boese
http://www.fistfuloftalent.com/2011/04/if-everyone-is-responsible-is-anyone-
responsible.html

Are You A Coach in HR? – Tim Sackett
http://www.fistfuloftalent.com/2011/10/are-you-a-coach-in-hr.html

6 Ways LeBron James is Great at Team Building – Tim Sackett
http://www.timsackett.com/2011/05/13/6-ways-lebron-james-is-great-at-team-
building/

Performance and Talent Management

Want Performance? Get Everyone Uncomfortable with a Mock Workplace
Draft…-Kris Dunn
http://www.hrcapitalist.com/2011/02/want-performance-get-everyone-
uncomfortable-with-a-mock-workplace-draft.html

Kris Dunn Just Scored a 47 on the Wonderlic Test!! – Kris Dunn
http://www.hrcapitalist.com/2011/03/kris-dunn-just-scored-a-47-on-the-
wonderlic-test.html

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#FACT: Great Talent Runs Freaking Hot – Deal With It…-Kris Dunn
http://www.hrcapitalist.com/2011/03/fact-great-talent-runs-freaking-hot-deal-
with-it.html

High Performing Average Talent: Don’t Screw Them… - Kris Dunn
http://www.hrcapitalist.com/2011/05/high-performing-average-talent-dont-screw-
them-.html

Moneyball and the Art of Figuring Out if HR Leaders are Overpaid… – Kris
Dunn
http://www.hrcapitalist.com/2011/09/my-hrevolution-session-moneyball-and-the-
art-of-figuring-out-if-hr-leaders-are-overpaid.html

R.I.P. Al Davis: Here’s My Favorite HR Quote From the NFL Sith Lord – Kris
Dunn
http://www.hrcapitalist.com/2011/10/rip-al-davis-heres-my-favorite-hr-quote-
from-the-nfls-sith-lord-.html

Rule #1 in Life, Business and HR: Don’t Tempt Fate by Talking Smack – Kris
Dunn
http://www.hrcapitalist.com/2011/06/rule-1-in-life-business-and-hr-dont-tempt-
fate-by-talking-smack.html

Why You’re Wrong About LeBron James – Steve Boese
http://steveboese.squarespace.com/journal/2011/6/17/why-youre-wrong-about-
lebron-james.html

Halls of Fame – Steve Boese
http://steveboese.squarespace.com/journal/2011/5/27/halls-of-fame.html

Bench Pressing and Basketball – Steve Boese
http://steveboese.squarespace.com/journal/2011/5/26/bench-pressing-and-
basketball.html

Do You Really Need Superstar Talent? – Steve Boese
http://www.fistfuloftalent.com/2011/08/do-you-really-need-superstar-talent.html

Throw Your Five Year Plan Out the Window – Lance Haun
http://lancehaun.com/throw-your-five-year-plan-out-the-window/

Sometimes You Just Miss Your Shots – Lance Haun
http://lancehaun.com/sometimes-you-just-miss-your-shots/

Workplace Gamification & Fantasy Football: Think They’re Related? You’d Be
Wrong – Lance Haun

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http://www.tlnt.com/2011/09/20/workplace-gamification-fantasy-football-think-
theyre-related-youd-be-wrong/

Hire Slow, Fire Fast: Four Talent Selection Lessons From the NBA Draft – Lance
Haun
http://www.tlnt.com/2011/06/23/hire-slow-fire-fast-four-talent-selection-lessons-
from-the-nba-draft/

3 Things HR Pros Can Learn From “Moneyball” – Tim Sackett
http://www.timsackett.com/2011/09/28/3-things-hr-pros-can-learn-from-
moneyball/

HR’s September Call Up – Tim Sackett
http://www.timsackett.com/2011/08/29/hrs-september-call-up/

Gangster – Matt Stollak
http://truefaithhr.blogspot.com/2011/10/gangster.html

Total Compensation

Sharing the Wealth – NBA Style – Steve Boese
http://steveboese.squarespace.com/journal/2011/9/13/sharing-the-wealth-nba-
style.html

The NBA, where a 30% pay cut was the better option – Steve Boese
http://steveboese.squarespace.com/journal/2011/7/7/the-nba-where-a-30-pay-cut-
was-the-better-option.html

Employee and Labor Relations

Jim Tressel Would Make a Crappy HR Director…-Kris Dunn
http://www.hrcapitalist.com/2011/03/jim-tressel-would-make-a-crappy-hr-
director.html

The Mets and MLB Say No to 9/11 Hats Due to Funky Non-Solicitation Policy…-
Kris Dunn
http://www.hrcapitalist.com/2011/09/the-mets-and-mlb-say-no-to-911-hats-due-
to-funky-non-solicitation-policy.html

The Jim Boeheim Rule: Leaders Should Never Attack an Alleged Victim’s
Credibility…- Kris Dunn http://www.hrcapitalist.com/2011/11/the-jim-boeheim-
rule-leaders-should-never-attack-an-alleged-victims-credibility-.html

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Dress Codes: Is Your Ban on Iverson Jersey and Stretch Pants More About
Control Than the Customer? – Kris Dunn
http://www.hrcapitalist.com/2011/11/dress-codes-is-your-ban-on-iverson-jerseys-
and-stretch-pants-more-about-control-than-the-customer.html

RARE: The Capitalist Says This Union Member Deserves Better Treatment From
Management – Kris Dunn
http://www.hrcapitalist.com/2011/10/rare-the-capitalist-says-this-union-member-
deserves-better-treatment-from-management.html

Employment Branding MBA: Why Nobody Cares Whether YOU Like Your Alma
Mater’s Football Uniforms… - Kris Dunn
http://www.hrcapitalist.com/2011/09/employment-branding-mba-why-nobody-
cares-whether-you-like-your-alma-maters-football-uniforms.html

Employment At Will: Why Coke People Won’t Get Caught Dead with Pepsi….
– Kris Dunn
http://www.hrcapitalist.com/2011/08/employment-at-will-why-coke-people-wont-
get-caught-dead-with-pepsi.html

Labor Negotiations, Point Guards, and Genius Economists – Steve Boese
http://steveboese.squarespace.com/journal/2011/9/27/labor-negotiations-point-
guards-and-genius-economists.html

When Does Terminating an Employee Become A Reward? – Tim Sackett
http://www.fistfuloftalent.com/2011/08/when-does-terminating-an-employee-
become-a-reward.html

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Foreword

Sticks and Balls

For most people, sports... the doing and the talking about... is just as important to
our culture as art. Loving sports is not about gender... meaning, guys are NOT
modern day cavemen because all they do is mainline ESPN and sports talk shows.
IMHO, loving sports is about relating to our fellow men and women. For example,
what team do you root for / against?

See, I like dynasties... meaning, I root for dominance. I like Manchester United, the
Steelers (re: 70s), the Cowboys (re: 90s), the Lakers (re: Magic) the Bulls (re:
Jordan), the Yankees, Alabama college football, Tiger Woods (re: the waitress
tapping Tiger), etc, etc, etc. That speaks volumes about me. Those that love sports
already know how to classify me... good, bad or otherwise... I've taken a position. I
can defend it and admire the position of others as well. Albeit anyone that disagrees
with me is a loser. Loser!

What I love about the project that is “8 Man Rotation” is that my favorite writers
wax philosophical about two of my favorite subjects: HR & sports. Like chocolate
and peanut butter... separate they are good... together they are greatness. Please
read AND share this content with all of your friends... those that love sports and
those that abhor sports.
----William Tincup

My fellow HR professionals, I am honored and humbled, yes honored to stand here
today before you as one of the authors of The 8 Man Rotation....<scuffle of feet
running to the stage>...oh, excuse me just a moment...

Steve: Uh Trish, you’re not part of The 8 Man Rotation v.2. Sorry.
Me: I’m not?
Steve: No, you just need to introduce us. The STARS of the project. You’re not
one of those.
Me: I see. Well, I just thought that since I don’t play pro sports either that I could
add as much value as you, Dunn, Haun and Stollak. Probably not as much as Sackett,
but the rest I know I could take on.
Steve: Um no, you’re not like us. We’re dudes. We know sports and stuff. Oh,
and HR. You could always focus your writing on cheerleading or something.
Me: Ok then. Well, I guess I’ll just introduce you all.

Well readers, I’m back. It seems that I am not one of the esteemed authors of The
8 Man Rotation v. 2 . However, I do work in HR and as a real practitioner, I’m
always looking for ways to figure out how to do my job better. Like you, I have
turned to many of the recognized business leadership books for guidance. They
really don’t help change much though. What better place to look for inspiration and

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guidance than sports references about HR? I know these guys know sports and they
know HR. So, without further adieu, I give you...

The 8 Man Rotation v. 2.

Go team!

----Trish McFarlane

9

Introduction

We know that most sequels suck. This is true with most movies, but
it is especially true about sports movie sequels. As anyone who paid their
hard-earned dollars to see Major League II, Slap Shot II: Breaking the Ice, or
Caddyshack II knows, great art is hard to follow.

I know what you’re thinking. Does the world really need another
collection of writings about Sports and HR? Wasn’t it beaten to death in the
last edition?

Yet, here we are with the 2011 season - 45 more posts ripped from
the screens of the HR Capitalist, Fistful of Talent, Rehaul.com, the Tim
Sackett Project, and True Faith HR. Its more points than Kobe or LeBron
averaged, but fewer than the number of TDs Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, or
Tom Brady threw.

And, the 2012 season is already looking bright…but, it’ll have to wait
until next year.

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CHAPTER 1
HR Planning and Strategy

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Is Your Company Better At Innovation if You Seek Patents or
Simply Find The Next Tweak?
Kris Dunn
Originally published October 14, 2011

Innovation. You want it. You need it.

Is your company better at innovation if you seek to protect IP through patents or
simply move on to the next big tweak that's going to change the game?

I ask the question knowing the answer. Companies that have large amounts of IP
have to protect themselves legally and financially by seeking patents. But that doesn't
mean that innovation doesn't happen at a more rapid pace in industries that
traditionally haven't had the ability to trademark innovation.

Example? The NFL. More from Freakonomics:

"Just about a year ago we posted about the incredibly innovative game of
football. As we described, all of the innovation we’ve seen in football – the
spread offense, the zone blitz, the wildcat, and dozens of other offensive and
defensive formations, strategies, and counter-strategies – occurs without
anyone ever asserting ownership. Rival teams are free to copy new plays, and
they do.

It’s not as if ownership would be impossible – existing intellectual property
rules might cover at least some football innovations as copyrightable
“choreographic works,” or as patentable processes. The fact remains,

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however, that no one has ever tried to copyright or patent a new play or
formation.
And yet Belichick, and dozens of great football coaches over the years,
continue to be creative. Why? Professional football is the apotheosis of
cutthroat competition. In the NFL, innovations can pay even if they provide
an advantage over only a few games (although for reasons we’ve explained,
copying a football coach’s innovation effectively is often more difficult than it
may at first appear). A few extra games in the win column are the difference
between a decent season and playing in the Super Bowl."

The post talks at length about the Buffalo Bills innovating a new twist to old
technique of receivers "picking" for each other to get open. A picture of the
formation appears above.

Back to the question. Do most companies that don't protect IP through patents see
a lot of innovation? How does HR innovate when they can't protect what they do
with patents?

Maybe the bigger question is the following - How do you encourage your teams to
innovate to gain the short-lived advantage when you don't have the pressure of
developing thousands of patents, like a Microsoft or a Motorola?

I look at the picture above and the answer is pretty obvious. Do the equivalent of a
film review with your team. Line up you and your competitor side by side, and be
shocked at how similar you are. Give your team the task of doing two things in the
next month that make your company look different (and more valuable for
customers). Come back the next month and keep the innovation pressure on.

Lesson - Find the equivalent of your receiver stack at your company.

Last note, after Sunday's NFL games, I found the following play, on our coffee table,
charted out below by my 8-year old son. It's the play where the Broncos did a hand
off, then the running back flipped it back to Kyle Orton, who launched it 40 yards to
an open receiver. Orton under-threw it (Tebow would have thrown it 45 yards...
hahaha), but the vibe was on.

My son, charting copycat plays on what he considered to be innovation. Good
times.

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Please welcome our new VP of Marketing. Yes, that's
really him
By Steve Boese
Originally Published September 2, 2011

So let's pretend you are a dedicated marketing pro at a low-key but solid wholesale
grocery distribution company in Tennessee and you have seen notice or heard
through the company grapevine that the VP of Marketing position is open. VP slots
at small and medium size companies don't just open up every day, and as you learn
more about the opening, you become more intrigued.

Casual Friday in the Marketing department?

You've got over 10 years experience marketing in this industry, almost five at the
current company, and you have been given progressively more responsibility, high
profile projects, and control over a small team and budget. You like the company,
love living in the area, and have cemented solid relationships in the local business
community as well as been an active participant in a few industry associations, even
serving as a conference speaker on a couple of occasions. You have even let your
Gen-Y staffers run with the whole 'social media' thing to support the company
marketing efforts. It isn't for you personally, but you realize that times are changing,
and empowering the right people to help navigate through these changes just seems
to make sense.

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All told, you have some really solid qualifications for the VP role, and if the company
had one of those progressive HR constructs known as a 'succession plan', your name
would almost certainly been in the 'Ready now' box for the VP of Marketing role.
So as you sit down at your desk to have one last look at your resume before firing
off an email to the CEO to forward your name for consideration for the VP position,
you see a company-wide announcement drop in to your inbox.

It reads : Please welcome our new VP of Marketing - Bruce Pearl.

You think - What? Bruce Pearl? The former University of Tennessee Men's
Basketball Coach that was fired for lying to NCAA investigators during an
investigation into the program's recruiting practices? A guy who has been a
basketball coach for the last 25 years or so, and whose only knowledge and
experience in the grocery business is that perhaps occasionally he shops in one?

That's our new VP of Marketing?

The bit about the Marketing Manager I just made up, but back in the 'real' world the
aforementioned Bruce Pearl was indeed just hired by the wholesale grocery
distribution firm H.T. Hackney as their new VP of Marketing.

Now I don't profess to know anything about H.T. Hackney, or the climate of the
Knoxville area wholesale grocery distribution business, but taken simply at face
value, the hiring of Pearl into a VP of Marketing role fresh off recent scandal, and
perhaps more importantly, an entire professional career that had pretty much
nothing to do with the grocery business or corporate marketing seems quite baffling.
Sure, the company gets a short-term publicity pop, everyone in the area knows who
Pearl is, and most probably never heard of H.T. Hackney before, but longer term,
can or will a hire like Pearl cause more damage than good?

I wonder if there really is a H.T. Hackney Marketing manager that won't get his or
her shot because of this move. Or maybe there is a slate of great marketing pros
that are looking for their next career move that would have made a super hire for
the position.

I guess time will tell, but I do think these kinds of stunt hires, particularly ones we
see that are sport-related, don't seem to work out all that well.

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In Hackney's defense, an article from ESPN announcing the Pearl hire refers to a
news release where Hackney officials refer to Pearl's 'marketing and economic
background as a student at Boston College', as some justification and support for
the hire.

In these tough economic times it's good to know that a solid education still carries
weight in the job market. Even if, as in Pearl's degree, it was earned in 1982.

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Waiting for the Siren’s Call
By Matthew Stollak,
Originally Published February 1, 2011

These are heady times in our little hamlet called Green Bay. The excitement is
palpable as our football team is playing in Super Bowl XLV. Everywhere you turn,
people are dressed in green and gold and conversation inevitably turns to what will
happen in this weekend's game.

However, some are taking this weekend's festivities a bit far. At least one Green Bay
organization is experiencing a significant number of personal and family illness days
being submitted for Friday, February 4, 2011, and Monday, February 7, 2011.
Amazing how people can anticipate being sick several days in advance.

With 85-90% of TVs in this area expected to be turned to the Super Bowl on
Sunday, it is understandable that absence might be a little higher the day after,
especially if the home town Packers emerge victorious.

So, how does your organization handle absenteeism on the day after the Super
Bowl? Will cases of personal and family illness be subject to verification by a doctor?

Confession: I will be attending the game and flying back from Dallas on Monday. So, count
me as absent.

18

Reality
By Matthew Stollak
Originally Published July 18, 2011

One of my favorite books about the film is Adventures in the Screen Trade by William
Goldman. In it, the screenwriter of such films as Butch Cassidy and The Sundance
Kid, and The Princess Bride,writes:

"The "go" decision is the ultimate importance of the studio executive. They are
responsible for what gets up there on the silver screen. Compounding their
problem of no job security in the decision-making process is the single most
important fact, perhaps, of the entire industry:

NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING."

*Every studio except Paramount turned down Raiders of the Lost Ark. The studio
wanted Tom Selleck to play Indiana Jones instead of Harrison Ford, but Selleck
couldn't get out of his Magnum P.I. contract.

*Universal turned down Star Wars
*Columbia passed on E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.

We see the same thing happen in the sports arena. Scouts in the NFL battle over
whether to draft Ryan Leaf or Peyton Manning as the 1st pick. Tom Brady gets
drafted in the 6th round. Michael Jordan was not the first pick in the draft when he
came out of college.

Physics has the Law of Gravity
Chemistry has Boyle's Law and the Laws of Thermodynamics
Even Economics, the dismal science, has the Law of Supply and Demand

But, does human resources have any laws or universal truths that all abide by? If so,
what are they? Or, like their Hollywood and sports counterparts, NOBODY
KNOWS ANYTHING.

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Jerry Sloan: Another Great Example of Why Managerial
Longevity Matters
By Lance Haun

An employee of 23 years quits suddenly. What do you do?

That’s the question the NBA’s Utah Jazz were faced with when their coach of 23
years, Jerry Sloan, decided to resign suddenly during mid-season yesterday:

I had a feeling this time was the time to move on,” an emotional Sloan said
during a Thursday afternoon news conference. “[That's] a long time to be in
one organization. Again, I’ve been blessed. Today is a new day. When I get
this over with, I’ll feel better. My time is up and it’s time to move on.”

Longtime assistant Phil Johnson also resigned, surprising even Sloan during
their post-game chat Wednesday night with general manager Kevin
O’Connor.

“I came with him and I’ll leave with him,” the 69-year-old Johnson said Thursday.
So, what would you do if you were in charge of the Jazz organization?

Longevity in a profession with little of it

Coaching is a profession with high turnover. In Sloan’s case, it’s extreme.

For example, he was promoted to head coach in 1988. The next longest tenured
head coach (Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs) was hired in 1996. The next
in line (Doc Rivers of the Boston Celtics) was hired in 2004. A large majority of
teams have had their coaches for less than five years. That makes Sloan’s 23 years at
the helm even more remarkable.

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The organization was stable with him leading the charge for so long. In an
environment where coaches are often seen as disposable and could be changed at
the behest of a star player, Utah was often the lone exception to that rule. He
became an institution in Salt Lake City.

All changed in a moment

Coaching changes are becoming more common in mid-season, but coaching changes
initiated by the coach himself? It’s unheard of — especially with Sloan’s longevity in
the position.

There has been speculation that an on-court dispute finally pushed him over the
edge and into resigning. ESPN reported that Sloan had an argument with Deron
Williams, a key player for the team. Even if it ends up not being the complete story,
the timing itself would be an odd coincidence.

Suffice to say, it wouldn’t be the first time a high performing star employee drove a
manager out of a job. Star employees can demand much from other staff (including
their managers) and it can be a difficult dynamic to handle as a manager. However,
Sloan has dealt with top talent before and handled it well (the last time he had not
one, but two top stars, he went to the NBA Finals two years in a row).

Will longevity count?

The Utah Jazz have tapped current assistant coach Tyrone Corbin to coach the team
forward. What was unusual about this move is that teams usually place an interim
tag on a new head coach, even if they intend to hire him after the season ends. Utah
has been clear that it intends to keep Corbin past the end of this season.

It will be interesting how the Jazz recover from this sudden turnover of its most
visible management position. As I said in a post about longevity:

I can’t imagine the actual dollar value of having a high-performing employee
who knows the history, struggles, and successes of the organization so well.
At a certain point, institutional knowledge becomes so second-nature that a
person becomes nearly irreplaceable.

And:

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The last thing worth mentioning is if you have a great culture, longevity helps
protect that culture from shifting. CEO’s and top execs who stay at a
company for long periods of time have proven that year over year.

Good luck to Jerry Sloan moving on, but maybe that luck should be reserved for the
Jazz, who have to try to move on from the loss of a legendary figure in their
organization. Even as a Portland Trail Blazer fan who rarely finds a reason to
celebrate anything related to the Utah Jazz, I tip my hat to the legacy and example
Sloan has given every coach.

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CHAPTER 2
Staffing and Career Considerations

23

Albert Pujols and the Art of the Counter-Offer: It All Comes
Down to Replacement Cost for the Same Performance...
By Kris Dunn
Originally Published December 9, 2011

I'm from Missouri and a St. Louis pro sports fan. In case you missed it, Cardinal
great (pro baseball) Albert Pujols has left the Cardinals at the age of 32, signing a 10
year deal worth $254 Million with the Los Angeles Angels.

The reaction out of St. Louis is disappointment, but with a hat tip toward the
realization that matching that offer would have been a suckers play.

It's a much different reaction than what happened in Cleveland when Lebron James
opted to "take his talents to South Beach". The reaction should be different,
because the situations are dramatically different.

It all comes down to replacement cost, your brand and the profitability line.

Lebron James was a mega-star in a superstar-driven league. The Cleveland Cavaliers
couldn't replace him if he left. Cleveland as a sports town is a wasteland, a place
where no free agent wants to dwell. Lose Lebron in Cleveland, you're not getting
back to the top. Ever.

The Cardinal franchise is something entirely different. Lots of world championships
before Pujols arrived. A great baseballl town and region where veterans want to
play to bask in fan support all summer long.

Baseball is a sport where you need 20 contributors, and no one player can domineer
the action - unlike basketball.

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What would you do if Ed in Accounting told you he wouldn't be back in 2012 unless
you gave him a 3 year deal giving him a annual 60% bump in comp?

Hit the bricks, Ed. You're replaceable.

What about Stan, your top sales pro? He's not coming back in 2012 unless you
double his total comp and guarantee it for 4 years. He's a great revenue producer,
careful....

You've got 4 other reps that are near quota. Stan's great, but you lose money on
that comp structure. Don't let the door hit you on the butt on the way out, Stan.

Countering the star comes down to 3 things:
1. What's the total comp point where the revenue/performance the star
provides goes into the red?

2. How strong is your organization? Can you recruit good talent in to
replace the star? Is your brand good enough where others want to work for
you?

3. Is there anyone else that can come close to doing what the star does?

Cleveland had no other options, thus the total freak out when Lebron left. St. Louis
is pretty quiet in comparison the day after Albert took his talents to SoCal.

Is your organization like the Cavs or Cardinal nation?

25

Treat Your Candidates Well - Because They're Going to Stick
To You Like Kareem If You Don't...
By Kris Dunn
Originally Published May 24, 2011

I know - you've got lots of candidate volume. It's hard to get your ATS set up with a
soulful message to at least give your candidates the solid of knowing where they
stand.

It's hard to call all the candidates back who at least had a phone interview to tell
them personally where they stand. I know I ebb and flow in my ability to do this, so
you surely do as well.

We need to do better. Need motivation? Then consider this - it's not only the
right thing to do, it's self-preservation. Those candidates you are failing to
communicate with - especially the mid-level ones and up - are going to remember
your lack of communication. They'll see it not as negative, they'll see it as neutral.

Need a cautionary tale? Consider the case of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, one of the
greatest basketball players of all time. He was great, but was unwilling to
communicate. Now the world remembers and rather than him being celebrated as
he grows old, he's a bit of an outcast. More from LA Observed:

"In an interview with The Sporting News, Abdul-Jabbar went public with his
feelings of being "highly offended" by the way the Lakers treat the star of five
of L.A.'s championship years — and the NBA's all-time leading scorer. His
number 33 is up on the wall, of course, but he feels "slighted" that the team
erected statues to Chick Hearn and Jerry West and has not made firm plans
for a statue of him outside Staples Center. He told the L.A. Times that it
goes beyond the statue to include the Lakers' handling of him as a special

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coach and a big pay cut. "The relationship is fractured," he says. "I don’t
expect my relationship with the team to continue beyond this point." He
amplified on Twitter, saying the "Lakers have given me the absolute minimum
of respect" and "the status was just the las straw."

Here's where it gets interesting. Kareem went public with his displeasure on the
fact no statue of him is forthcoming, and the general public (remember - your
candidates) remembers how they were treated. Look at this letter to the editor in
LA:

"Kareem, don't worry, you'll get over the way the Lakers treated you in five
years or so. That's about how long it took for my 10-year-old daughter to
get over the way you treated her 25 years ago when she asked you for an
autograph. Karma."

That was one of many letters. It seems that fans didn't react well to a surly,
uncommunicative star. Just like candidates don't react well to your brand not
communicating where they stand.

Even someone like me has a Kareem story. The year was 1994. I'm an assistant
coach at UAB under Gene Bartow and we were playing UC-Santa Barbara on an
ESPN feature called "Big Monday" (Look it up, Kids). Kareem was part of the
broadcast crew for the game and was at the shoot-around. Coach Bartow went
over to talk to him, and because he's Coach Bartow, Kareem was at least neutral in
his interaction. Then Bartow did what normal people do - he called over his
assistants - including me - to meet the great Kareem. Kareem was sitting on press
row and, I kid you not, did not make eye contact or acknowledge us as Bartow
introduced each of us to him.

Of course, he's Kareem and I'm nobody.

Of course, you've got the jobs and they're just one of ten thousand candidates.
Nobodies. You don't have time.

Neither did Kareem - for anyone. Now, people remember. No statue for you,
Kareem. No NBA coaching job for you, Kareem. You were one of the 5 best
players of all time. How surly and unapproachable must you have been (and perhaps
still are) for you to be on the outside looking in at this point in your life?

The same thing can and will happen to your employment brand.

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Communicate early and often with candidates this week. They remember, just like
Laker fans related to Kareem.

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Legalities? Here's How References Work in the Real World....
By Kris Dunn
Originally Published April 7, 2011

Want to know why I write about sports a lot on an HR blog? Because it's the most
transparent place in the world for talent decisions of all types - by far.

Example: Lots of HR pros wring their hands about whether a manager can provide
any negative information on a reference. They also wring their hands about
providing a positive reference that doesn't get into the negative. To control all the
bad stuff, many HR pros tell their people that they can only do name, title and dates
of employment.

Meanwhile, your managers are blasting away on people they don't like - just play the
game and don't ask them for an official reference. Just say, "what did you think
about working with XXXX?", or my backup favorite, "Can you give me a personal,
not professional reference?"

Case in point: The recent reference it appears Maryland hoops coach, Gary
Williams, gave multiple candidates on NC State Athletic Director Debbie Yow. The
two used to work together at Maryland (Yow was the boss) and across time, Yow
wasn't happy with the often profane Williams. So she started trying to raise money
among prominent boosters to buy him out. I actually had drinks with a booster who
told me the backstabbing story about 6 months ago.

Williams, like your managers, has a long memory. Yow was recently in the market
to hire a new hoops coach at NC State. Candidates reportedly called Williams for
the 411. More from the World Wide Leader:
"The frosty relationship between North Carolina State athletic director Debbie
Yow and Maryland's Gary Williams took a nasty turn during the introduction
of the Wolfpack's new men's basketball coach.

Yow -- who spent 16 years as Maryland's athletic director -- called out the
Terrapins coach, who won the 2002 NCAA championship working under her,
of interfering with the search.

It happened during North Carolina State's news conference introducing Mark
Gottfried, who replaced Sidney Lowe. Yow responded to a reporter's question
to Gottfried about whether she had a reputation of being difficult to work
with.

"I don't have a reputation across all men's basketball of being difficult to work
with," she said Tuesday. "I have a reputation of not getting along with Gary
Williams, who has tried to sabotage the search. Come on, we all know that.
OK, so whatever.

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"It's not a reputation. It's Gary Williams out there doing his thing. Whatever."
Boom. That's why I use sports. Where else are you going to get that type of info
on reference checking gone horribly wrong? Check out the video below for the
venom. Also, it's an onboarding issue as well. What can Mark Gottfried (the new
coach) be thinking as his boss publicly tries to hurt someone's career in such a direct
fashion?

PS - your managers are giving mind-blowing opinions on references every day.
Someone is doing it right now...

Fortunately, managers in the private sector don't have access to a camera and media
outlets to document their feelings on how they've been wronged (or wronged
others).
Thank whatever God you pray to for that.

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Grading Talent the Big Tuna Way
By Steve Boese

Last night ESPN ran an interesting behind-the-scenes look at how American
professional teams typically evaluate talent, with special guest former National
Football League executive and head coach Bill 'Big Tuna' Parcells. The context of the
show was the league's upcoming college player draft, the annual exercise where the
league's teams assess, grade, and ultimately select from 5-10 players each to 're-
supply' the talent on their teams. It is a massive, high-stakes, expensive, and critically
important recruiting, assessment, and alignment exercise.

Parcells' resume and achievements as a successful coach, and talent evaluator are
solid - he served in very senior roles at several NFL organizations, winning two
Super Bowl Championships as the Head Coach of the New York Football Giants.

In the show Parcells' shared some of the talent selection criteria and thought
processes that organizations that he was a member of, and in general, most other
teams tend to follow when making player selections in the league's annual college
player draft. Some of the criteria and processes were fairly obvious, and would apply
generally to any talent selection or recruiting context, (players who had been
kicked off their college team for disciplinary reasons should be avoided), but
some of the other concepts Parcells discussed perhaps are not so apparent to casual
observers, and just might have some additional applicability to more conventional
talent selection processes.

Here are three Talent Evaluation ideas straight from the Big Tuna:

1. Understand the predictors of success (some are not so obvious)

In NFL football every team measures and grades the basic and easily understood
physical characteristics of potential draftees, (height, weight, strength, speed), but
during the show Parcells mentioned a few not-so-obvious keys he assesses, (e.g. for
the position of cornerback, length of the player's arms). For potential quarterback

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prospects, Parcells insisted he only wanted players that actually graduated from
college, as he felt it demonstrated intelligence, and more importantly commitment.
The larger point is every competitor has access to the same talent pool, the basic
and obvious assessment criteria are widely known and universally adopted, so finding
the less clear and more predictive evaluation criteria that other teams may not have
discovered is one of the ways to claim some advantage and make better selection
decisions than the competition.

2. Make sure everyone involved in Talent selection understands these
predictors

Once the criteria is established, and a process to collect and assess these criteria
developed, Parcells emphasized the critical need for everyone involved in the talent
selection process to understand the criteria, and consistently grade to the criteria.
From scouts, to assistant coaches, to even the team owner, the definition of what a
top candidate looks like has to be understood by everyone. There are so many
players to assess, that no one member of the organization can possibly 'know' every
candidate, so the selection process becomes a team effort, and the talent selection
team has to have that common ground for any chance of success. Talent is talked
about in the common language of the team's assessment ratings, and no
conversation about talent fails to reference these assessments.

3. Know yourself

Parcells described a common acronym used in football draft processes, NFU, which
means 'Not For Us'. This term is assigned to players that the strict adherence to
positional capability assessments or past production in the college game might
indicate are good candidates and should be considered in the selection process. But
these NFL players have raised some concern off the field, of their attitude, style,
work ethic somehow will not be a cultural match to what the organization is looking
for. Parcells strongly advises teams to know themselves, know the style they want to
play, the kinds of mental makeups that players need to have to 'fit' on the team, and
to avoid the temptation of selecting players with fantastic physical skills that might
not 'fit' otherwise. These kinds of gambles rarely work out, and they are the ones
that get coaches and talent evaluators fired.

But in the end, despite incredibly detailed and complex processes for physical
measurement, tests of intelligence, and well-documented and easily reviewed past
performance in college football, selecting players for NFL teams is still and imperfect
process. So-called 'can't miss' top prospects often fail to live up to expectations,
while others deemed marginal prospects once vetted by the traditional processes
end up as star players.

Having a system and some ground rules to follow, to find ways to uncover
predictors your competition may have missed, and perhaps most importantly a deep
and confident organizational self-awareness are a few ways our pal the Big Tuna

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offered up to try and land more Peyton Mannings and less Ryan Leafs (inside football
reference, Google it).

Big Tickets and High Stakes
By Steve Boese
Originally Published March 10, 2011

So you have to pull the trigger on the big hire. The kind of C-level, (or close),
critical, visible, and organization-shaping call that can make or break your career as a
talent pro at the firm, and may, if you swing and miss, cause a few others to go down
with you. This is the big show, and the slate of potential candidates is impressive and
deep. On paper, they all have the necessary tools, great experience with a track
record of success. Similar and superior education and training, and the all have been
coached to have the ‘right’ answers to your interview questions. Seemingly, no
matter which candidate you choose, you can’t go wrong. But you get paid the big
bucks to choose the best, not just narrow the field to three or four. And something
tells you that the difference between the best choice and the worst is potentially
huge. Believe me, in a couple of years, everyone will know if you made the right
call.In true FOT fashion, this kind of selection conundrum reminds me of the
situations that face talent selection executives at professional sports teams. How do
teams make the distinction on draft day among competing prospects? Prospects that
often have remarkably similar bodies of work to assess, whose physical traits are
consistent with past successful players, and who come prepared and ready for your
interviews, coached and advised well by a retinue of agents and business managers.

Recently, a friend of FOT shared with me this story about the high-stakes selection
process at one NFL team, (some small details modified to protect the identity of the
involved parties).
A few years ago, I sat next to the head of player personnel for an NFL team on a plane
from New York to Dallas, just about a week before the NFL draft.We struck up a
conversation about how he makes his picks. (He had been in charge of player personnel for
the team for over 10 years, a stretch of time where the team had enjoyed considerably
more success than most others). Prior to taking the job in the NFL, he had been a major
college head coach at two different and winning programs. Simply put, he knew football.

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We got to talking about how he makes hiring decisions, i.e. what players to draft and to try
and acquire in free agency. It was a great conversation – one that I will long remember.

He mentioned that each year he gets to decide which 20 year old his owner writes a $20M
check to, and the owners get very pissed if he gets it wrong, and they don’t suit up on game
day in the NFL, and become high-performing contributors to the team. With those kind of
stakes, getting these high draft picks right often makes the difference between a consistent
winner and a team that struggles.

He told me what he does to better assess these young players who all have the physical
tools to succeed. To get more insight into the mental makeup and character of the
prospects, he focused on the following:

1. A personality test- one that the military uses- and he swears by it.
He did not say which test specifically, but the idea of using
assessments was clearly important to his selection process.
2. On college visits, he is not assessing athletic ability- they all have it,
but rather he talks to the trainers in the locker room about what
the kid is like after a loss, he talks to the teachers about what time
they show up for class the day after a game, and what type of
student they are and how they relate to other class members (all
character questions).
3. Since many of these prospects came from, to put it nicely,
potentially problematic backgrounds, (run-ins with the law, less
than stellar behavior in college, some drug use history), really
finding out as much as you can about the character and non-
measurable aspects of their make-up was essential in their
evaluation process.

I also asked him what pick he was personally proud of, and he told me about his first draft
with his current team, and he went on and on about [player name redacted], a
quarterback, and how he felt I should keep my eye on him, and that his character was rock
solid. As it turned out, the player in question has had an uneven career, with on-field
performance a disappointment, and eventually was released from the team, to be picked
up by another team in a back-up role.

What is instructive about this story to me is that talent selection is talent selection –
whether it is for the most junior role in your office, or for a NFL first-round draft
pick set to become an instant millionaire. Character and personality are important
no matter the role, and digging deeper to get a truer sense of these character and
personality traits can mean the difference in identifying that all star among a similar
looking and seeming slate of candidates.

But even after all this, after these assessments, and examinations, and tracking down
every cashier a candidate ever bought a Slurpee from to see if he was a nice guy,

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sometimes, maybe too often, we make the wrong call. It isn’t always our fault of
course. Even ‘can’t miss’ candidates sometimes do indeed, miss.

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Do You Remember What Unemployment Looks Like?
By Tim Sackett
Originally Published November 21, 2011

I was reading a short interview recently in ESPN the Magazine about Nascar up-and-
comer Brad Keselowski, who is having a great year on the track. The article was
really around Brad’s advice/opinion on why he is having success and one point stood
out to me over everything else. He said:

“I worry about job security every day. If you ain’t worried about losing
your job, you can’t drive at the right level. Even after winning at Pocono
on August 7th, I remember thinking, at least this buys me a little more
time. When the day comes that I’m not afraid of getting fired, I’ll lost my
edge.”

Nothing like professional sports to bring out performance anxiety! The fact is
professional sports like Nascar, golf, tennis, etc., is the ultimate pay for performance
model. For the most part, professionals in those type of individual sports only get
paid if they perform well, and only keep getting paid if they continue to perform.
It’s like the commission sales person – you either sell, or your kids don’t eat this
month. Most people hate living and working under this pressure – but some thrive
and Brad gives you a little insight to how they do it. Don’t ever get comfortable.
Don’t ever stop feeling what it feels like to not have a job. Because when you do,
you might as well start looking for a new job at that very moment.

I love this! This is an insight to one’s soul. It sucks to be unemployed, especially is
you’ve worked for a long time. To get up in the morning and not have some place
to go is very unsettling, to say the least. But as HR Pros, how many times do we see
people who have gotten to “comfortable” – who have forgotten what it feels like to
be unemployed? Maybe even you are at this point right now! This is a gift that we
can deliver to our employees. To sit down and have the “looks-like-you’re-really-
comfortable-right-now” conversation. It’s not a threat, it’s a developmental
conversation around – “what else” – what else could you be doing that you’re not,

36

what else is out there for you to accomplish and how can I help you get there, what
else do you need to do to ensure you keep this job?

To often we have these types of conversations with employees who are struggling,
instead of with those who are coasting. If we had more of these conversations with
our coasters, we would probably have very few struggling conversations – and
believe me the coaster conversation is much easier to have – because it’s being had
with positive intent.

So, what can you do today? Think about unemployment – in fact – think about it
every freaking day. About what it feels like, about what it will do to your life, about
how you can stop it – because you can – don’t believe the hype that says you don’t
have control – it doesn’t matter – Mr. Corporation will just lay you off. Those
people who are pushing each day for better performance, who don’t settle, who
don’t get comfortable – they aren’t getting laid off. Unemployment sucks –
remember that!

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Selections, Assessment, and the MLB
By Tim Sackett

Major League Baseball is back this week, which means I now have something to do
each night until November! Yeah me, I’m winning!

More importantly the MLB gives us some great things to write about throughout the
season. I don’t know of a sport where more there is more of a correlation to HR
than Major League Baseball. Think about what the MLB does as compared to our
daily jobs as HR Pros across the country:

 No one does more analysis and assessments before hiring (drafting) than the
MLB
 No one has a larger succession plan in place than the MLB (minor leagues)
 Pay for Performance compensation (Ok, I’ll give you a pitcher who has a 9-13
record and a 5.79 ERA should not get paid $5.6M per year – but we all have
our market)
 Constant employee motivation and leadership development –
Employee Relations Issue (hitters in an 0 – 21 slump at the plate, Manager
calls him out in the newspaper, etc.)

You get the picture – the MLB is like one giant HR laboratory – but with an
unending budget – and a heck of lot more Dominicans than your average U.S.
workplace.

The one thing I wonder is how long we (HR/Talent Pros) would have our job – if we
had the same success rates in selection as our MLB counterparts?

There are up to 50 rounds each year in the Major League draft – and a MLB team
can sign as many Free Agents (those who didn’t get drafted or no longer have rights
held by another team) as they want. In the end the failure rate of selection is
astronomically high. From a Sports Illustrated article in 2010:

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…major league teams selected 436 high school players after the 13th round. Only nine
of those kids signed a contract that year and eventually made it to the big leagues — a
98 percent failure rate. After Round 26, teams selected 213 high school players, only
one of whom, Victor Diaz, an outfielder who appeared in 147 games for the Mets
and Rangers, played even a day in the big leagues — a 99.5 percent failure rate…

Can you imagine a 99.5% failure rate in hiring in your organization! You would have
your job for about 26 minutes! You think you have a hard time assessing talent, the
folks working for MLB teams, it would seem, could use some help from some HR
Pros and assessment vendors in revamping their selection process, because
something isn’t working right – and you thought the athletes weren’t held
accountable!

There are good lessons to learn from their failure of MLB’s selection science (or
should I say lack of selection science):

1. Don’t get caught up in the hype. What happens when 13 old guys stand
outside the fence watching some 17 year old kid throwing 91 mph fastballs – they all
lose their minds – HR folks aren’t much different – have you been to a college
career fair for hard to find grads! Just because they have 1 skill doesn’t make them a
star, and even if they have more, they might not be the fit for your “team”.

2. Past Performance Doesn’t Always Predict Future Performance. Oh,
that one stings a bit. It’s definitely one major criteria to look at, but it doesn’t
always ring true – many factors come into play – culture of previous organization,
former leadership, position, industry, etc.

3. Don’t overlook small town, small school kids. It’s easy to pick up great
business hires from Harvard – but what about one from Northern Iowa? Not every
kid who goes to an Ivy League school is going to be great, and not every kid going to
B and C business schools are idiots.

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CHAPTER 3
Training and Development

40

The Wisdom of Jeff Van Gundy – Part V
By Steve Boese

The sage was at it again the other night during the Oklahoma City - Memphis NBA
playoff game.

In case you don't know what I am referring to, former NBA head coach, and current
TV analyst Jeff Van Gundy (JVG) dropped another bit of simple, yet essential
knowledge about basketball that I think is also directly applicable to the workplace,
management, and organizational dynamics.

During the game Oklahoma City forward Nick Collison made a smart play on
defense to cause Memphis to lose the ball, hustled to the offensive end of the floor,
and then positioned himself properly to make a scoring move when the ball was
rotated to him in the flow of the offensive play. It was a brief series of actions that
were not necessarily terribly athletic or skilled or even that remarkable, but as a
kind of orchestrated series did add up to an excellent and winning (apologies Chas.
Sheen) play.

Immediately after Collison, who is not a starting or star player on the team,
completed the play, JVG observed that winning teams need guys like Collison,
players that may not have all the physical skills of the top players on the team, but
have found ways to contribute using capabilities and attributes that are mostly
'choices' and not simply genetic gifts.

The money line from JVG:

'Guys like Collison, guys that grind, are essential. The best ones are coachable,
accountable, and professional. And you can win with guys like that.'

Coachable - willing to accept suggestions, able to make adjustments in style of play
to fit the team goals, and cognizant that what may have worked in the past (in
college, or on former pro team), might not be the desired behavior on the current
team.

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Accountable - understands the role, knows how the role impacts and contributes
to the success of the team, makes the effort to put himself in the right situations,
and simply does his job fully knowing the rest of the team depends on him to meet
his objectives. And if other guys on the team, maybe the star players, are having an
'off' night, then he knows when to try and give a little more than normally needed.

Professional - in the narrow sense, we are all professional, i.e. we are paid to
perform. But what JVG really meant was a level of personal integrity, pride, and
dedication to himself as a player, to his teammates, and to the supporters of the
team. This means showing up and giving your best effort even when times are tough,
when the team is down, or when you are not meeting your personal objectives. It
means being proud of your contribution in every game, and even every practice. It
means setting an example for others to follow, even if you don't hold a formal title
or leadership role.

Coachable, accountable, professional. All important. All under your control
every day. Super talented people in any game or industry or field can get away with
only one or two of these, and can still make incredible contributions to the
organization. But if you are like most people, and are not in that rare category of
naturally talented superstars, just focusing on being coachable, accountable and
professional will go a long way in determining your success in any role.

And stacking your team, no matter what the game, with those kinds of players will
make you look pretty smart as a leader as well.

And that my friends, is the Wisdom of Jeff Van Gundy.

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If “Everyone” is Responsible, is Anyone Responsible?
By Steve Boese

Hiring decisions are often lengthy, arduous, complex undertakings, where even the
best, top-performing organizations can only hope to achieve more ‘wins’ than
losses’. Think about it. What percentage of your organization’s hires in the last two
years would you, (or more importantly, your managers), classify as quality hires?
About half? More? Do you even know?

Hiring is hard, while simultaneously being critically important to all organizations. If
this weren’t the case, we would not have a multi-billion dollar industry surrounding
and supporting the hiring process from all angles, (job boards, ATS systems,
executive recruiters, RPOs, staffing firms, career coaches, resume writers, and on
and on…), and quite honestly myself and the fine team of professionals here at
Fistful of Talent who serve up these bits of wisdom and nonsense insight each day
would not have all that much to write about.

While hiring is admittedly hard, so too is the opposite point on the employee life
cycle, separation. Knowing when to end the employment relationship, either by the
employer acting unilaterally, (You’re fired! Clean out your locker!), or by the
employee seeking a change, (admittedly often easier and cleaner), can be as complex
and difficult as the mutual agreement and meeting of the minds needed to bring
someone on board in the first place.

But while many separation decisions can and do seem pretty straightforward and
simple, particularly ones involving employee termination for cause, sometimes even
the most seemingly obvious and straighforward cases of ineffective management,
poor decision making, lack of critical perspective, and lack of application of basic
common sense, cases that can occasionally result in tragic outcomes, don’t always
result in the kinds of punitive and decisive actions that seem to be so clearly
warranted.

On October 27, 2010 a student at Notre Dame, Declan Sullivan, was tragically killed
when the 40-foot hydraulic lift he was standing on while filming the school’s football
team practice was toppled by what was estimated to be a 53 mph wind gust.
Immediately after the accident, Sullivan’s death, while certainly a shock and a tragedy,
seemed to call out for blame to be assigned. Why was the team conducting practice
outside in such poor conditions, when an indoor facility was available? And why was
a student, Sullivan, on a lift 40 feet in the air on such a windy, sort of frightening day?

Certainly someone messed up. Someone made a terrible decision that ended up
with the worst possible effect. Someone has to take the blame, at a minimum be
terminated from their employment?

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Right?
Notre Dame concluded its internal investigation of the tragedy this week, with no
one involved in the incident being placed at fault or punished. The reasoning behind
the absence of discipline? Here’s the quote from Notre Dame President, the Rev.
John Jenkins:“We did not find any individual who disregarded safety or was
indifferent to safety. Consequently, there was not any individual
discipline,” Jenkins said. “Our conclusion is that it’s a collective
responsibility that must be dealt with collectively as we move forward.”

So the take is essentially – ‘We are all responsible. We all conspired to make a
series of bad, ill-informed, and essentially idiotic decisions, that tragically led to
Declan Sullivan’s death.’

None of us were on the field that day. We can’t know for sure how scary it must
have been on top of that lift as the winds were howling. Declan himself seemed to
know however. He apparently tweeted that day - “Gusts of wind up to 60 mph
today will be fun at work… I guess I’ve lived long enough.”

It was scary up there. It was dangerous. It should have been apparent to someone
in a position of responsibility to get Declan off of that lift. The Athletic Director, the
Head Coach, whomever Declan directly reported to that day. Someone. But since
Notre Dame determined it really wasn’t any one’s specific job or task to monitor
wind speed once practice started, thus blame and punishment could not be
reasonably assigned.

So the investigation has concluded. Declan is never coming back, and while Notre
Dame has now changed and implemented procedures to ensure this type of accident
never happens again, still everyone remains in their jobs, and while they certainly can
never forget the tragedy, the impact and meaning will naturally fade over time.

I’ll close with a question for all the organizational leaders and talent professionals
reading this piece - ‘If ‘everyone’ is responsible, is ‘anyone’ responsible?’

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Are You A Coach in HR?
By Tim Sackett
Originally Published October 10, 2011

I read an article recently in The New Yorker, probably the best article I’ve read all
year, on the importance of “Coaching” by Atul Gawande. Atul is a writer and a
surgeon, smart and creative – I should hate him, but he’s so freaking brilliant! From
the article:

The concept of a coach is slippery. Coaches are not teachers, but they teach. They’re
not your boss—in professional tennis, golf, and skating, the athlete hires and fires the
coach—but they can be bossy. They don’t even have to be good at the sport. The
famous Olympic gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi couldn’t do a split if his life depended on
it. Mainly, they observe, they judge, and they guide.

As an HR Pro, I’ve always believed that HR has the ability to act as “coaches” across
all vestiges of our organizations. The problem we run into is this – “You can’t coach
me! You don’t know the first thing about Marketing, or Operations, or
Accounting.” You’re right, good thing I’m not “teaching” you that! That’s why we
hired you. Having a coaching culture in your organization starts during the selection
process – are you hiring people who are open to being coached?

More from The New Yorker –

Good coaches know how to break down performance into its critical individual
components. In sports, coaches focus on mechanics, conditioning, and strategy, and
have ways to break each of those down, in turn. The U.C.L.A. basketball coach John
Wooden, at the first squad meeting each season, even had his players practice putting
their socks on. He demonstrated just how to do it: he carefully rolled each sock over his
toes, up his foot, around the heel, and pulled it up snug, then went back to his toes and
smoothed out the material along the sock’s length, making sure there were no wrinkles
or creases. He had two purposes in doing this. First, wrinkles cause blisters. Blisters cost
games. Second, he wanted his players to learn how crucial seemingly trivial details could

45

be. “Details create success” was the creed of a coach who won ten N.C.A.A. men’s
basketball championships.
I think this is critical in working with adult professionals. Coaches aren’t trying to
“teach” them new concepts, but helping them self-analyze and make improvements
to what they already do well. We/HR can make our workforces better – not by
focusing on weaknesses/opportunity areas – which we spend way too much time on
– but by making our employees’ strengths even stronger.

Coaching has become a fad in recent years. There are leadership coaches, executive
coaches, life coaches, and college-application coaches. Search the Internet, and you’ll
find that there’s even Twitter coaching. Self-improvement has always found a ready
market, and most of what’s on offer is simply one-on-one instruction to get amateurs
through the essentials. It’s teaching with a trendier name. Coaching aimed at improving
the performance of people who are already professionals is less usual.

I’m talking about turning HR into “Life” coaches or “Executive” coaches – those
types of “coaches” are way different – and fall more into the “therapists” categories
– than what I see HR acting as “professional” coaches. Professional coaches work
alongside their Pros – day-to-day – see them in action, and work with them to
specifically improve on those things that impact the business. They don’t care that
you’re not “feeling” as “challenged” as you once were, and need to find yourself.

I think the biggest struggle HR Pros will have in a role as “coach” – our ability to
understand most employees have low self-awareness (including ourselves!). Being a
great coach is measured on your ability to get someone to see something in
themselves, they don’t already see, and make them truly believe it. If we can get
there in our organizations – oh boy – watch out!

46

6 Ways LeBron James is Great at Team Building
By Tim Sackett

I had to write an article about great team building and LeBron James – basically
because Kris Dunn (The HR Capitalist and Chief FOT’er) hates how LeBron took
his talents to South Beach – and now he’s on the verge of winning his first NBA
Championship. Fast Company’s latest edition has an article titled: What LeBron
James And The Miami Heat Teach Us About Teamwork that takes 6 shots at
why LeBron and his Miami Heat team did a great job a building a championship
contender. The 6 Team Building principles from the Fast Company article:

1. Start With Sacrifice. LeBron and Bosh both left millions of dollars on the
table to go to Miami to play with Dwayne Wade. Dwayne Wade gave up
being the highest paid player on “his” team. All 3 wanted to win
championships and were willing to make some sacrifices to make it happen.

2. The Rule of Many. It takes more than just 3 stars to make an NBA team –
or at least an NBA winning team. With the big 3 together, many other
veterans were willing to take less money to join the team, giving the Miami
Heat the most experienced roster in the NBA in total NBA years of playing
experience. All 3 stars had connections they used to get these players to
join, most notably using prior relationships to get these veterans to join their
quest.

3. Adversity is an Asset. “Nothing brings a team together than a common
adversary.” The Miami Heat’s adversary? Well everyone not associated with
the Miami Heat! When Miami started this season they were suppose to walk
through everyone, yet, they struggled and people loved that they struggled.
This adversity worked to pull a team together and work even harder to
reach their potential.

47

4. When the Going gets Tough, Turn to one Another. Say what you
want about the Big 3 in Miami, then one thing you’ll be hard press to say is
that they don’t support each other. When the whole world was asking
“who’s team is this?” they said “ours”; when the whole world asked “who’s
going to take the last shot in tight game?” They said, “whoever is open”.
Great teams understand the value to chemistry and believing in each other.

5. Manage From Inside-Out. The easiest thing the Miami Heat could have
done this year, when they were struggling early, would have been to fire
their coach and replace him with Miami Heat President and Hall of Fame
coach, Pat Riley. But, they didn’t. Instead Riley mentored and worked with
Heat coach, Eric Spolestra, helping him understand how you lead a roster
filled with superstars.

6. Beware of the Blame Game. Team chemistry is everything. History of
littered with the most talented teams that didn’t reach their potential, and
with teams that lacked talent, but won championships, all because of
Chemistry. Don’t underestimate this when putting a team together in your
organization – great chemistry with average talent, will almost always beat
great talent that lacks chemistry.

There are a ton of Miami/LeBron haters out there – but when you look at what that
group of players and the organization has done to build a team – it seems like they
are on the right track to be a championship level team.

48

CHAPTER 4
Performance and Talent Management

49

Want Performance? Get Everyone Uncomfortable with a
Mock Workplace Draft…
By Kris Dunn

It's late winter here in the Southeast, so that means only one thing if you're a dad
with active sons who play sports...

It's draft time in Little League baseball...

Draft time!! The meat market goes all the way down to the 7 year olds these days,
meaning you can't just get a team of kids together and play. You have to sign up for
the local league, go through evaluations, then teams are drafted. That's right for all
you non-kid or non-sport families, there's a draft. From pick #1 to pick #150, it
goes down in Darwinian fashion.

If you're a coach, that means you evaluate way too much. So much so, that you
begin to see talent scout profiles seep in to the proceedings around you, including
the following:

-Mr.Star Chaser: This coach picks the highest kid on the board (ranked
according to evaluation scores) regardless of any other factor. Too bad there's
no trades after Little League drafts, because this stockpiler could do some deals.

-Mr. Retail's For Suckers: Won't pick the next kid on the board. Too smart,
has the master plan, and the conventional wisdom won't do. He's finding value
elsewhere according to his own personal system.

-Mr. Deep Background: Makes dozens of calls to folks who know each 7 year
old. I heard Jimmy watches way too much iCarly too. I'd pass on Jimmy as a
result.

-Mr. Zero Sum Game/One-Up: Thinks he knows who you want, so he'll be
attempting to "one-up" you all the way through the draft.

50

-Stat Boy: Kept stats on all teams the entire last season. Has "Access" database
to prove it...

-The Minister of Misinformation: Did you hear Johnny was thinking about
pulling out of baseball to play Lacrosse? Tread carefully if you're planing on
picking him... <sucker>

The only things missing from the proceedings? A website with rumors and Mel
Kiper mocking my historically weak drafts across the years. Apparently my profile,
focused on drafting for long last names I think look cool on the back of baseball
jerseys, is as suspect as the ones above.

Which begs the question - Can you imagine if you held a similar draft to restructure
workplace teams doing similar work? Let's say you had a draft to restructure an
inside sales force/financial brokers/name the function of 100 people across 10 teams
and bonus money was on the line. My guess is you'd see all the same profiles
emerge as you started to evaluate the talent pool and plot draft strategy.

Of course, at the end of the day, the administrative assistant, who drafted based on
how much karma each last name had, would do as good as you. Because there's no
accounting for intangibles, personal baggage and team chemistry in the draft order
(you wouldn't have the time or technology to capture those things), it's more of a
crap shoot than you'd like it to be.

Me? I draft parents when it comes to Little League. It's just easier that way.

51

Kris Dunn Just Scored A 47 on the Wonderlic Test!!
By Kris Dunn

Not really, but wouldn't it be cool if that were the case? 47 out of 50! You'd know
I was really, really smart. Savant-like really.

Of course, you'd have no clue whether I could actually perform any job in your
organization to a satisfactory level...

For those of you who don't know, the Wonderlic is a cognitive ability test, and it's
always heavily publicized this time of year due to its use at the NFL combine. Greg
McElroy scored a 48 and is really smart. Vince Young scored a 6 and we wonder
why he struggles.

Overreactions ensue. Overreacting to any single measurement when evaluating
talent is a sucker's play.

I'd say McElroy's success in the NFL will have more to do with whether he has the
arm stregth to throw a 20 yard out against NFL cornerbacks. Vince Young seems to
have struggled in the NFL due to emotional reactions and meltdowns when things
go wrong.

Both unrelated to the Wonderlic. Don't fall in love or get divorced from talent over
one metric.

Your momma told you to shop around. Good advice when viewing talent from the
perspective of a single measurement.

52

#FACT: Great Talent Runs Freaking Hot – Deal With It
By Kris Dunn

Here's the big thought for a Monday: If you really want to save your business,
sometimes you're going to have to hire talent that comes with some baggage.
When you really need a change agent, sometimes they come with.... issues...

Translation: Great talent runs hot. There are going to be some broken eggs.
Please put on your helmet, because while they're engaged in saving your #$$, the
same passion that drives them to run your business makes them make incredibly
poor decisions elsewhere.

Case in point. USC basketball coach Kevin O'Neill. O'Neill was brought in after
USC went through the NCAA wringer with the OJ Mayo/Tim Floyd issues. USC
needed a change agent and a big talent to prevent them from falling into obscurity.
They hired O'Neill.

He runs hot and stuff happens as a result. Here's more on what happened at the
Pac-10 Conference Tourney last weekend from pointguardu:

"Kevin O'Neill went on a drunken tirade along with his wife after beating Cal
yesterday. In fact, he didn't even change his suit and went straight to the JW
Marriott lobby bar.

O'Neill and his wife were in a hotel lobby of the JW Marriott and visibly
intoxicated when they exchanged words with a group of Arizona fans. O'Neill
reportedly threatened the fan that USC was going to “beat the hell out of
Arizona.” Words were exchanged and our sources say that O'Neill's wife struck
one of the Arizona fans. O'Neill and his wife were escorted out of the hotel, and
Arizona fans were left wondering what just happened.

53

The fan was UA booster Paul Weitman and they ran into each other at the
elevators. KO believes Weitman is responsible for his firing at the UA (O'Neill
used to coach at Arizona) and obviously still holds a heavy grudge. Mind you
Weitman is 70+ years old.

Apparently KO's wife, Roberta, started the melee by roughing up Wetiman with
one of her rings. KO then got involved and when hotel security intervened the
things got even uglier."

O'Neill is known as a great coach. He's also known to be a hot head. See the
picture above for all you need to know about great talent running hot. That's a
picture at the hotel before the incident. Check out the drink. Check out the
position of the shirt related to the suit belt line.

Great talent runs hot. If your business has to be saved, what type of downside risk
are you willing to take?

That, my friends, is the question.

54

High Performing Average Talent: Don’t Screw Them
By Kris Dunn

Two words: Nick Collison.

Who is Nick Collison? Collison is a backup forward for the Oklahoma City
Thunder who averages 5 points per game. Even if you're not a basketball fan, you
might recognize the Thunder since it's the franchise that currently showcases NBA
superstar Kevin Durant (who I like to call the "other" KD).

Why are we talking about Nick Collison? Last night the Thunder were playing the
Dallas Mavericks in Dallas in the Western Conference Finals of the NBA Playoffs.
The game was back and forth, and like most basketball teams, there's a point in the
game when both teams have good portions of their bench in the game to rest the
starters (read: the stars).

That time came and went in the 4th quarter of the game. Dallas brought back their
stars. The Thunder were playing well, so Thunder coach Scott Brooks stayed with
his bench in the game against the Dallas starters.

A funny thing happened - the scrubs made a run and went up by 10 with 4 minutes
to go. The announcers were looking down the sidelines, expecting the Thunder
starters to check into the game to finish it out.

Brooks stayed with the scrubs. They built the 10 point lead, it was theirs to finish.
Dallas made a run and cut it to six with 2 minutes left. Scrub and longtime NBA
role player Nick Collison found himself with the ball and a clear path to the basket.
He was fouled hard.

Nick goes to the free throw line. Misses both, Dallas comes down and scores,
cutting the lead to 4.

"You gotta come back with the starters", the announcers chirp.

Brooks stays with the scrubs.

55

Oklahoma City has the ball back on the other end. A guard is trapped off a pick and
roll, and the pass goes to - you guessed it- Nick Collison. He didn't miss a beat,
driving and getting fouled. Thunder up 4, Collison bricked the last two and is left in
the game at closing time. The Dallas arena is going crazy. He just bricked two, he's
going to do it again and the Mavericks are going to get a win! Scott Brooks is going
to lose his job over this one! My god, it's the playoffs! What is he doing?

Nick Collison doesn't flinch. He drops two free throws to put the lead back to 6,
then makes a great defensive play on the other end to basically put the game out of
reach.

Nick. Freaking. Collison. Stars on the bench. Nick and fellow bench friends on the
floor. You got us the lead, finish it out.

How much street creditability did Scott Brooks buy with that move? How much
deeper is his bench as a result of sticking with the scrubs who were performing well,
even when it looked like it was all going to go to hell in the biggest game of the year?
You want a deep team in your company? When the role players deliver, let them
take it to the finish line. Don't bring in the stars to run a pitch or meeting or project
that the role player delivered.

Don't flinch when it looks like they're going to fold. You'll likely be surprised related
to what they're capable of if you let them finish it out.

Especially if you show you believe when they struggle near the end.

Nick. Freaking. Collison.

56

Moneyball and the Art of Figuring Out If HR Leaders Are
Overpaid
By Kris Dunn
Originally Published September 30, 2011

I'm in Vegas over the weekend to participate in HRevolution - a great unconference
for HR Pros. The title of my session is FOT Live. Catchy, huh? A placeholder of
sorts because I really didn't know what I wanted to talk about.

But as I began seeing the promotional lead-up to the movie Moneyball, my thoughts
on the session became pretty specific. I'm going to talk about how you figure out if
an HR Leader is undervalued or overvalued. Are you paying too much? What
metrics can you look at to figure out who (if you had access to the right
information) is undervalued in the HR marketplace?

Moneyball for HR Leaders. Not for HR Pros to determine what others are
worth. To determine what different HR Pros are actually worth.

The good news is I don't need to have all the answers. HRevolution is set up in a
way where dialog and conversation drive the session. So really what I have to do is
start the conversation and keep it out of the ditches.

I do have one strong opinion from which my worldview on HR pros is based. I also
think that the value/worth question for HR leaders applies to any generalist who is
responsible for a client group of employees. Unlock the Moneyball for HR formula,
and you can apply it all the way down to the HR Manager. As long as they're
responsible for a flock.

57

A cautionary note: As I thought about the best way I would go about determining
whether an HR Leader was undervalued or overvalued, my thoughts were a little
chilling. If any of the past CEOs I've worked for walked up to me with the ideas that
came into my head, I would have automatically protested.

You can't measure me like that. I don't control all the levers that type of
measurement implies.

You're right. Most HR Leaders don't have as much control as they would like. But
the talented ones find ways to get results without the assigned authority. That's why
they're undervalued in the marketplace before the market figures out what's up.
Then their value gets driven up in a hurry. Sometimes.

I'm looking forward to the conversation and learning from whoever joins me.
Whether it's 2 people or 50, I suspect I'll learn more than I give.

Moneyball for HR Leaders. Should be fun.

58

R.I.P. Al Davis: Here’s My Favorite HR Quote From the NFL
Sith Lord
By Kris Dunn
Originally Published October 10, 2011

Al Davis, the funky longtime owner of the NFL's Oakland Raiders, died this
weekend.

Things Al Davis will always be remembered for:
--Building a franchise culture that embodied renegades and misfits, and still
winning in the early days (but not lately).

--Drafting Jamarcus Russell out of LSU, giving him $30M large and never having
him produce.

--Providing the whole wardrobe for a series of gangsta rap groups including
NWA, Eazy-E and of coures, the DOC.

--Doing a funky press conference where he not only talked about a "final
warning" letter he had sent former coach Lane Kiffin, but actually read it word-
for-word to the press. But that's not all. Al also had one of his flunkies throw
it up on an OVERHEAD PROJECTOR while he was reading it. In 2009.

But I digress. I'm having fun with the memory of Al, but the phrase "Just Win, Baby"
will always be attributed to Davis. It's a great HR phrase signaling the need for
results, but it's not even my favorite performance quote from Al Davis. This
memory from Ben Horowitz is:

"As I was feeling sorry for myself, I randomly watched an interview with famous
football coach Bill Parcells. He was telling the story of how he had a similar
dilemma when he began his Head Coaching career. In his very first season as
coach, Parcell’s team, The New York Giants, was hit with a rash of injuries. He
worried incessantly about the impact of the injuries on the team’s fortunes, as it
is difficult enough to win with your best players let alone a bunch of substitutes.
When his friend and mentor Raiders owner Al Davis called Parcells to check in,

59

Parcells relayed his injury issues. Parcells: “Al, I am just not sure how we can win
without so many of our best players. What should I do?” Davis replied: “Bill,
nobody cares, just coach your team.”

That might be the best CEO advice ever. Because, you see, nobody cares. When
things go wrong in your company, nobody cares. The press doesn’t care, your
investors don’t care, your board doesn’t care, your employees don’t care, even
your mama doesn’t care. Nobody cares.

And they are right not to care. A great reason for failing won’t preserve one
dollar for your investors, won’t save one employee’s job, or get you one new
customer. It especially won’t make you feel one bit better when you shut down
your company and declare bankruptcy."

You have reasons why the project/job didn't work out. We get it. You're probably
even right... But the truth is, when you start talking about reasons it's probably not
going to work out before the final results are in, it's weak.

Nobody cares. They just tally up the score at the end and the world keeps on
spinning. Hard but true.

Thank you, Al Davis. May the world remember you in your 1970s and 80's glory
and not what happened in Oakland since 2000.

60

Rule #1 in Life, Business and HR: Don’t Tempt Fate By Talking
Smack
By Kris Dunn
Originally Published June 13, 2011

Rule #1 in life, business and Human Resources is pretty simple: Don't tempt fate by
talking smack. You stay humble because you know how tough life is.

Here's what I mean. You're living your life, and things are going pretty well. You
don't tempt fate and put a target on your back by talking smack and judging the
performance of others, the life circumstances of others and basically taking a "holier
than thou" attitude. You don't do that in business or Human Resources, and if you
believe what I'm talking about, you don't do that in life either.

The Miami Heat and Lebron James talked smack. Lebron dismissed the whole city of
Cleveland in an ill-advised televised special saying he was leaving Cleveland and going
to Miami. When he arrived in Miami, the Heat held a celebration reserved for
championships (this one was held before the season started), rose their 3 stars up
on a smoke-filled stage on a rock-concert lift flexing and posing, then the three stars
proceeded to say that 7 championships was the goal and expectation. (Their
contracts said they would be together for 7 seasons).

Translation: Tempting fate. Putting the target on your back. Refusing to stay
humble.

The focus on staying humble manifests itself in three ways in my life. When I catch
myself judging people and feeling good as a result in my thoughts, I'm quick to note
that it could all turn around on me as well. When I catch myself saying or almost
saying something self-serving regarding my performance or state in life, I cringe. And
god help me if I put something self-serving in print to be forwarded at the will of
those who received a wayward email of questionable intent.

61

You and I are far from perfect. But most of us have at least some self-awareness.
Talking smack is never in your best interest. You don't tug on Superman's cape.
You don't spit in the wind. Fate and paybacks are a bitch.

Lebron James and the Miami Heat talked smack. Then they lost the championship
on Sunday night. Does this quote from the post-game news conference sound like
someone who has learned that tempting fate is never a good idea?

"Moments later, however, he (Lebron James) trash talked those that were happy
to see the Heat lose, ignoring that they brought all that on themselves. 'At the
end of the day, all the people that was rooting on me to fail, at the end of the
day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before
they woke up today,' James said. 'They have the same personal problems they
had today. I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do
the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that. They
can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy
about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal, but they
have to get back to the real world at some point."

It's not you, it's them - right Lebron? Haters.

And so fate remains out there for the Heat. Will they win six championships now?
Or will the reluctance to understand Rule #1 prevent them from winning a
championship forever?

Dallas is your NBA World Champion. Even if you don't like sports, you have to
admit two things as it relates to Rule #1.

Justice is served. Fate is a bitch.

62

Why You’re Wrong About LeBron James
By Steve Boese
Originally Published June 17, 2011

Subtitled : I am not sure I completely believe what I am about to argue in the post either,
but someone had to take an opposite position.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The facts of the case are these:
1. Last summer two-time league MVP, consensus best player in the NBA, and one of
the best all-around players in league history LeBron James, a free agent no longer
under contract with his team of seven seasons the Cleveland Cavaliers, elected to
sign a contract to play for the Miami Heat. The 'decision' by James to join the Heat
was panned not so much for the actual business and competition factors, but rather
for the manner in which it was announced - a one-hour TV special on ESPN, that in
combination with the backlash against James from the jilted Cleveland community,
ended up backfiring on James, portraying him as an out-of-touch, arrogant, self-
important and egocentric person.

2. James, (and his new teammates Heat stars Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh),
compounded the PR disaster spawned by 'The Decision', with an over-the-top,
flashy, introduction event in Miami, where James and the others (in uniform),
pranced around a smoke-filled stage and opined about winning not just one NBA
title, but 'six, seven, eight... ' titles. I am paraphrasing a bit, but you get the idea.
3. The Heat concluded an up and down season, (it was painful at times to watch
these three star players attempt to co-exist on the court, when each was
accustomed to being 'the man'), with a 58-24 record, good for first place in the
NBA's Southeast Division, and the third-best overall record in the league.

4. Entering the NBA playoffs the Heat then defeated in succession the Atlanta
Hawks; their nemesis, the Boston Celtics; and the league's top regular season team
the Chicago Bulls. Each series was decided 4 games to 1, making the Heat an
impressive 12-3 in the first three playoff rounds.

5. In the NBA finals, the Heat were defeated by the Dallas Mavericks, a veteran team
playing at the top of their form, 4 games to 2. James was harshly criticized for poor
play in the series, particularly in the 4th quarters of Games 4, 5, and 6 (all Dallas

63

victories). James lack of production in these situations served in stark contrast to
Dallas leader Dirk Nowitzki, who consistently made big plays and shots to lead
Dallas to the title.

6. Immediately following the Game 6 loss, James further damaged his already shaky
reputation by implying that people hoping he and the Heat would lose would 'got to
wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before.' While James
would also have to wake up and continue his life, strongly implying that his life, with
his millions of dollars, mansions, private jets etc. was somehow superior to yours,
mine, and pretty much everyone else's.

These are the basic facts of the case, my apologies for going on so long about
them prior to mounting my apologist defense for King James.
If you are like my friends and fellow bloggers Kris Dunn at the HR Capitalist, or John
Hollon at TLNT.com, you have taken LeBron to task for arrogance, lack of humility,
inability to win or lose gracefully, and over-confidence. While Kris and John and the
hundreds of other writers that have participated in the LeBron dogpile have their
points, I'll offer three (hope I can come up with three), reasons why they and you
are wrong (or at least a little hypocritical) about LeBron.

1. History

LeBron is most often compared, unfavorably, to Michael Jordan, the greatest player
in NBA history. Jordan won six titles with the Bulls, the first one in his seventh
season in the league. This was on a team with another all-time Top 50 player in
Scottie Pippen and the greatest coach of all time, Phil Jackson. LeBron just
completed his 8th season in the league falling just two games short of winning his
first title. And since he started his NBA career at a younger age, LeBron is only 26,
while Jordan was 28 when he claimed his first title.

Sure, maybe we take shots at LeBron because he compares unfavorably to Jordan,
but lets not forget Jordan was a a transcendent, once in 50 years or so player.
Everyone compares unfavorably to Jordan. No matter what line of business you are
in, be in basketball, software development, or running a company, chances are you
won't hold up well either when compared to the legends of your field.

2. We like to selectively remember

LeBron left Cleveland, and several million dollars in salary on the table, to play for
Miami in a situation that he (rightly) assessed as providing a better opportunity to
win the title. In sports, fans usually take to task players that are perceived as being
only in it for the money. Now LeBron likely earns so much from off the court
endeavors that the few million he walked away from in Cleveland did not play into
his decision rationale all that much, but it still sets him apart from probably 90% of
professional athletes whose primary objective is to wrest every last dollar from their

64

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