Managing Change in Sports: Challenges and Strategies

1. Chapter 6 Managing Change Sport Culture, Innovation, and Diversity

2. Life Is Always Changing Change is a fact of business life today. Overcoming resistance to change will test and challenge your people skills and hone them as well.

3. Table 6.1

4. Yogiism Yogi Berra once said, “The future ain’t what it used to be.”

5. Managerial Changes Did Tony Dungy have to change when he became the coach of the Indianapolis Colts?

6. Athletic Directors and Change Dr. David Hoch, director of athletics at Eastern Tech High School in Baltimore County, Maryland, suggests that athletic directors’ problems created by change should be dealt with proactively without waiting until the change occurs. An AD may face new budget restrictions, a new principal or superintendent, greater expectations from parents, or new technologies, such as the Internet. (continued)

7. Athletic Directors and Change (continued) Have you ever thought about the changes that athletic directors encounter every year and the impact that they usually have? New athletes? New parents? New coaches? They all spell change and the possibility of having to adjust and react differently.

8. Economic Forces Baseball has become a sport where big-market teams like the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox can generate more revenues and thus afford to spend more money to acquire star players. And more star players means more fan and media interest, which means even more money.

9. Social Forces Baseball has fallen behind football as America’s favorite sport. Baseball fans have become leery of the game after the recent strikes, which were caused by anger and mistrust between players and owners. Fans love the physical contact and fast action in football.

10. Demographic Forces Teams attempt to reach different segments of the population. For instance, the WNBA focuses on young families and the gay and lesbian segments of the population. Another example is the NHL, which targets men ages 15 to 55.

11. Technological Forces The Yankees make a great deal more money from the media than any other team. The Yankees own YES, their own cable network. At one point, some fans in the New York area did not receive Yankee games because their cable provider didn’t carry the YES network. These fans became irate at the team for not allowing them television access to all the games.

12. Strategy Since merging with Trotter, Cybex has been able to develop and offer the most advanced and complete line of equipment in its market.

13. Technology Olympic athletes look to their equipment suppliers to provide cutting-edge shoes, bats, skis, and bicycles. They look to their trainers and therapists to provide cutting-edge techniques and instant recovery from injuries that once sidelined players for a season and now set them back mere days.

14. Figure 6.1

15. Why People Resist Change Uncertainty creates fear. Inconvenience is off-putting. Their self-interest is threatened. We all fear loss. Lack of control is often an issue.

16. How to Overcome Resistance Create a trust climate. Develop a change plan. State why change is needed and how it affects them. Create a win–win situation. Involve people and provide support.

17. Key Components of Resistance Intensity Source Focus

18. Organizational Culture Organizational culture is the set of values, beliefs, and standards for acceptable behavior that its members share. Understanding an organization’s culture helps you understand how it functions and how you should do things to fit in. Think of “good guy” teams like the Seattle Mariners and “bad guy” teams like the Oakland Raiders.

19. Sport Team Culture Sport team cultures originate from the establishment and development of sport teams. The sport team culture all members voluntarily comply with is the total of common faith, morality, spirit, ceremony, intelligence factor, and entertainment life. The function of the sport team culture is found in instructing people, construction of team standards, recovery, spiritual adjustment, and meeting psychological and social demands.

20. Level 1: Behavior of Culture The late Tom Yawkey of the Boston Red Sox, the late George Halas of the Chicago Bears, and the late Al Davis of the Oakland Raiders were legends in their own time and are legends still to fellow players, colleagues, and fans alike who relish the tales surrounding these enduring personalities.

21. Level 2: Values and Beliefs Tom Yawkey and his family’s “walk” matched their “talk.” They believed in giving to charity, and they made sure their team gave both money and personal time tothe Dana-Farber Institute. Before the 2002 baseball season, the Yawkey family sold the Red Sox to John Henry. This new management is carrying forward the Red Sox tradition by helping the Jimmy Fund.

22. Level 3: Assumptions Although the Boston Red Sox were known for their charity, the new owners challenged basic assumptions on how the team treated its fans and the media. Consequently, they have embraced both the media and the fans with new events that encourage players to get closer to both groups.

23. Quality Outdoor sports and mail-order catalog firm L.L. Bean established a total quality and human resources (TQHR) department to lead the company's efforts to improve quality, efficiency, and customer service. The TQHR has saved the company millions of dollars annually from process improvements.

24. Product Innovation Safety has been a major concern for NASCAR, accelerated by the death of Dale Earnhardt on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. A new product innovation, shock-absorbing “soft walls,” are being used to protect drivers.

25. Core Values of TQM TQM involves a companywide focus on delivering customer value and continuously improving the system and its processes. In TQM organizations, people are the most important resource. Therefore, TQM organizations go to great lengths to make sure their workforce gets the best training available, and they stress teamwork.

26. The Learning Organization Event staff at a football game had to learn when to stop serving beer at halftime to control fan rowdiness. However, fans often started drinking outside the stadium, and event staff also had to learn to deny access to inebriated fans.

27. Diversity Championship Auto Racing Teams Inc. (CART) has implemented strong initiatives to promote diversity. CART seeks to bring members of the minority community and women into CART racing as drivers, engineers, mechanics, and administrative personnel.

28. Figure 6.4

29. Title IX In 1972, a law with wide ramifications for the sport industry, Title IX of the Amendments to the Higher Education Act, was passed. Title IX requires equal access to education, including athletics, for women. Since that time the number of women playing on college teams has increased from 32,000 to about 163,000.

30. Problems With Title IX Complying with Title IX has led to the reduction of some men’s programs to augment financial support for new women’s teams. Between 1981 and 1999, more than 400 collegiate men’s teams were dropped: 171 wrestling programs and 84 men’s tennis teams were dropped.

31. Female Coaches Women have been limited to coaching other women, whereas men commonly coach both men and women. Men coach women’s NCAA basketball and the WNBA, but women do not tend to coach men’s NCAA basketball or the NBA.

32. Organizational Development Organizational development(OD) is the ongoing planned change process that organizations use to improve performance.

33. OD Techniques Lewin’s change model Force-field analysis Survey feedback Grid OD Sensitivity training Team building Process consultation Job design and direct feedback