I had to write one more blog so I thought it would be fun to write about what I have learned so far this semester in the class and kind of put that toward what goes on in my job as the student manager. I guess this is kind of a quick and small version of our final project. I am the student manager of the gopher boys hockey team and a lot of the things we have talked about have really hit home when you deal with this type of a job and the the exposure of it being such a popular sport here on campus. You really get to feel what goes on behind the scenes and the thing it takes to get a game ready. I am there about 12 to 13 hours a day on game days and usually 5 to 6 hours a day during the week with practice and getting ready for either a home or away series. Before I had my job I would always go to the games and not think about how the game is being showed to me and all the work they put in during the day to make that happen. You see a lot of leadership between the captains of the team when they are in a game and losing or winning and even in practice helping the younger guys out. The media has been a huge factor in that I never really knew what went on with the media. They have media days every wed before a series no matter if its home or away and the media people are there almost all day long getting everything ready so you and me can watch the game. We had to deal with some issues when our defensemen Sam Lofquist left and people spreading rumors about other top players on the team leaving. When your a team and maybe on a slump with people getting hurt the media can really pull a team apart by saying different thing like that. Overall I love what I do and I would not trade it for the world but It really made me understand how much hard work these players, coaches, and staff put in to make a good show go off with nothing bad happening and if something bad does happen they deal with it in the manner that you would never even no something happened unless you work around it.
jorge301: November 2009 Archives
In slack and parent they give the definition of decision making is that a decision is a judgment or a choice between alternatives. Decision making is a huge deal when it comes to any organization because if you do not have somebody making decisions then nothing will get accomplished with in the sub groups of that organization and it will eventually crumble. It is also one thing to be the person making the decisions but if you cannot make the right decisions that are best for the organization then you will have many difficulties in the future within the organization. People that do not work in the sport industry may see decision making as a very easy aspect and to be honest its something that I am sure never really even gets thought about. When I first started this class I would of never thought about some of these little areas that are such a big deal. Until you work in a sport organization which I just recently have you start to understand how important the little thins like decision making is. Decision making does not always come right off the tip of the tongue sometimes it takes time and planning on how you want certain things to go. This is something that slack and parent describe is that decision making takes time and planning. Before you make that decision you need to be 100% positive in your mind that you made the right decision because its one thing to make the decision but if you start second guessing yourself then you usually did not think the outcome and different scenarios out. Thats another thing that the books covers, is that you need to see your alternatives and the possible outcomes you might have with the different decisions you can make. In all reality there is usually one or more decision you can make on a certain topic.
Q1: What is one of the hardest decisions someone has had to make in a sport organization.
Q2: What was the outcome of the decision you made and was it successful or no and if no why not?
I think all the power points went very well today and everyone had something different from Day 1 of the presentations which is also very nice because you get to learn about the background of many different sport organizations. I really took the Hockey presentation in a little more because I am the student manager of the hockey team so It kinda hits home a little more when the talked of getting rid of coach Lucia gets brought up but in general I thought she really hit the main points and you could tell because she in most ways is around the organization a lot. Like everyone else I really enjoyed kristin presentation on Nike and how she talked about the jordan brand. The jordan brand really gave nike another branch and spark to their organization. It was interesting to hear about some other sport organizations away from actual sport teams.
I thought today was a great start to the presentations. Everyone was really prepared to discuss their organization and presented them with confidence. I really enjoyed listening to The Minnesota Gopher Basketball presentation. It was really interesting because you could tell that he had a lot of passion for what he was talking about and really know the organization inside and out. I think really being interested and having experience in the organization really helps because you can learn a lot more personal stories and information then just surfing the web on that specific organization. With having passion and really knowing the organization it made his presentation very strong and he did not have to constantly look up at the screen and read exactly what he wrote on his slides. I think this is what really stood out to me from the other presentations was that he knew a lot about what he was talking about from his experience working for the organization. I learned a lot today about many organizations that I never knew existed like USA gymnastics and USA track and field.
The culture of an organization is very important in many ways but i believe a lot of people mis interrupt it and look beyond it. The culture of an organization is very different in sports from the regular world and also each sport and team at that matter relay on a very specific culture from the people they have work for them to the mission statement on the wall of the main office. A strong culture I believe is a step in the right direction for a very strong and effective organization. When you and your organization are on the same page as far as goals it is very easy to set a mood or culture that your going to always stand by. I believe with change your going to have to maybe re think your culture because what you may had as a mission statement 20 years ago may not fit with your beliefs and traditions now a days. To have a very strong culture throughout the organization I believe that it starts from the top down and making sure that everyone is happy but yet sticking to the mission statement or beliefs of that organization and if you have people that are not sticking with it or have the same thoughts about the organization as everyone else the you need to get rid of them and find someone that is suitable for the culture of the team. If you do not get rid of that person and you let them keep their position it is going to make things much worse for you in the long run and they could in turn really mess up the culture of the organization. The culture also looks as deep as what your benefits, selection promotion, retirement, and so on. Its just not all about the feel of the organization but also the little things like how you can get promoted or the benefits you have for working in our organization. Language is very crucial to culture because I believe in every sport organization there is a different language used. Not so much between teams in the same sport but especially between the different sports like football and hockey. The language not only goes on the field but a lot of it is off the field in marketing, promotions, announcing and so on. Culture is a very specific term and it changes so much throughout the sport world and in different areas it may be the same but most likely you will never see the same mission statement in two different organizations. That is culture because they have there own meanings and beliefs for what the organization stands for and what there goals are.
I believe that leadership in an organization has a huge impact on basically how well a lot of things are run in an organization. In a University outlook a lot of leadership comes from the athletic director and then trickles down to assistants, coaches, staff, and facility workers under that. That is not always the case when you get to higher professional teams because then it starts with the owners and the general managers of the specific teams and so on down the line. You need to have a good leader in any kind of organization or teams, they are put in place to make those big decisions and trickle the power down from there. Structure and leadership go together in a way of that leadership can be claimed in many different matters depending on the structure of your organization. If you are a smaller structure where all the power goes to one person then they will get all the leadership and make sure everything is done. Where as if you are a much larger organization you will not always have one person making all the decisions and the power or leadership will be spread out. Take for instance in a smaller organization like a sports outfit store you will have one head manager you go to for your leadership but in a professional sports team you have a lot more leadership spread out through all the different sub groups that makes a organization run like for instance the Minnesota Twins. The environment has a huge impact on leadership because of all the media out in the environment and the things that go along with a pro or even collegiate sports team. If there are big issues the person in charge or the leader are always the one to take the blame or address the media. An example of this is our Athletic Director here at the U of M having to deal with the issues of the new basketball player we got this year and his issue with some crime he had done. The processes of an organization are impacted by leadership because they are the ones that make the decisions and tell everyone they way things are suppose to be done and the processes that things need to be done in. An example of this is a General Manager of a professional team like the Minnesota Wild determining when we get a new coach and the processes that they are going to take to get there because he is the leader in that role. Things like actors and culture have a huge impact on leadership because you need to have a good leader to make an organization run smoothly and work because if no one believes in your leader or he or she cannot lead your whole organization could falter or close if your a smaller organization with only one leader.
Which of these things discussed in my blog has the biggest impact on leadership and why?
What is another thing that impacts leadership in an organization?
