What do they really talk about when they talk about change
Things change constantly. Our society, our jobs, our lives...the world. Most of the changes happen gradually as it's very difficult to pinpoint the exact moment in time when it happened. It's like erosion or the waves that batter the rocky beach shaping the stones over millennia.
Some changes are abrupt and sudden. Like a car crash that can change everything in a heartbeat. Some just feel sudden but we can see the signs if we want to, like a business that's declining slowly. Denial is a form of adaptation. Not a very good one but one, nevertheless.
No matter how you look at it the change is all around us. The question is not what you are going to do about it but how are you going to adapt to it. And is it any different for you as a person or your business.
It's evident that businesses cope with changing times very differently. Just like individuals. My interest on the matter at this point is purely business but is it really that different from personal level? It's up to you decide.
Business Administration and Management is an academic discipline, a social science. The administration of a business includes the performance or management of business operations and decision making as well as the efficient organization of people and other resources, to direct activities toward common goals and objectives. Management refers to the individuals who set the strategy of the organization and coordinate the efforts of employees to accomplish objectives by using available human, financial and other resources efficiently and effectively. In a nutshell you kinda need both to run a business.
Change can be administered and managed. If only you know how to. This know-how can be obtained through study and practice, which could also be labeled as experience. I have BBA and also Masters degree in management and lately I have realised that, at least in my case, neither one out weights the other.
Knowledge gives us an insight that enables us to see the patterns, the underlying currents, behind the changes but without experience this is just empty words without understanding how the change really presents itself and what kind of forms it may take. Reading these currents is like using the force if you're a jedi, you see things before they happen. On personal level you seem to have lighting fast reflexes and on corporate level your business adapts quickly.
This knowledge and education is a double edged sword. There's a good chance that all this talk about the change, change management and what have you becomes what is generally knowns as corporate bullshit. Example below.
The fact that we have these corporate comic strips is an evidence in itself that the phenomenon runs deep and that such a behavioural patterns exists. This is what fresh MBA sounds like. Dogma over everything else.
One of the most powerful ways to highlight an issue is to pull down the curtains and expose the opposite extremes. As pointed out previously the knowledge in itself has little value in real life without the perspective to wield it. Same goes with the experience. Being a manager without knowledge spells a recipe for disaster.
Think of a manager that has a staff of e.g. 10 people and a budget about 1,000.000€ and no education to lead and manage whatsoever. Numbers game is just for perspective. The key is to understand that these businesses are a real job for real people who raise families and worry about mortgage and other adult issues. And they have a management with no knowledge.
Some readers may think this kind of situation doesn't exist in real life but they are misinformed. There is atleast one industry where this is the norm - sports.
Every now and then I stop and think this industry and its really mind boggling. The reality that we have fairly big clubs in national level that are managed by people who play work. By this playing I mean they have no relevant education but are doing for a living a job that could also be vacated by a professional. Being a professional and doing something for a living are not the one and the same.
Think of nursing as a profession. To be a nurse you need to educate yourself for it. It is not enough to have a sickly youth and having spent a lot of time in the hospital as a kid. In sports you can be a clubs executive director because you played ball as a kid and in your youth. Which nurse you want to put you to sleep before heart surgery - the educated one or the one who knows each season of ER by heart?
Why should be managing a sports club any different?
Especially in these times when the industry is going through a heavy phase of professionalisation. This term is used in the lightest possible way here. The clubs are endorsing BA and management tools like strategy and are measuring performance. In other words are starting to run like a real businesses. In theoretical level.
In practice it's more streetwise way to run a business than Harvard way to operate. Those famiar with Nasim Taleb's Black Swan may think of Brooklyn Tony immediately. To a probability question of throwing a dice a 100 times and get 6 on each mathematics provide an answer and so does Brooklyn Tony. The calculated probability is a faction of a faction, a figure. Streetwise answer is it's not happening or the dice is fixed.
This approach is straight forward and it has it's time and place and not to discount streetwise - there is no substituting the studied framework that education provides, still. There is a sound difference between knowledge and educated guess.
Measuring the performance but how and what? Real Madrid is a huge club by any standards. They have state of the art testing facilities and they can produce all the data needed of each and every player. But every time they get a new coach the coach may say something in the lines of "We don't need to test the players. All I need to do is look on the pitch and I see who's fast". Who is right? Do we need to test a player to know that he's fast or can we just observe it with our eyes? Who is wrong?
When a make-believe manager plays managing a club good things can happen. This is true. And many times they put in a lot of hours for the club. They are dedicated. But in the long run we cannot talk about professionalising an industry and at the same time employ non-professionals. The trial and error method works only so well and it is way too dependant on luck. On contrast professionalism is about having no use for luck - sure we take the free lunches but won't plan on them to happen.
Sports club are on face value very different from businesses in other industry. Taking pleasure in other peoples leisure. Sports are VERY discipline oriented. Taken to extreme to manage track and field you need track and field experience, not managing experience. Does this sound good practice?
Is Social Sciences of Sport the degree that provides the highest academic accolades to manage sports? For the past decades the answer has been positive and the results are visible. This program doesn't educate modern sports professionals equipped to do business in sports or result oriented individuals.
If the clubs are seen as social non profit entities, they should be run like that.
If they are seen like legitimate businesses, like the trend obviously is, they should be run like that.
Change and choice go together. MBA's are not qualified to do what Masters of Social sciences of sports are and vice versa. Like choosing between communism and capitalism.
Something for everybody NEVER produces best results.
There has been an upheaval after the Olympics of sports and how it's run. Sports are first to say that you need experience in sports to manage it. Do you need to have experience of war and fire fights to be an arms dealer? OR do you just need to understand the dynamics and economics of an armed conflict? Time for change is here. There is the talk about change.
What do they talk about when they talk about change?
They talk about the change. Actual changes either very slow or not happening as sports has one major flaw regarding letting go of things. This is on national level very true concerning people - none can't be let go. On club level a club might invest in membership management application but keep the old excel system running in the background and do double work because of this letting go issue.
What do they talk about when they talk about change?
Change is not initiated by talking about it. Change starts with the first step. Otherwise it's just generating more corporate bullshit.
Business Administration and Management is an academic discipline, a social science. The administration of a business includes the performance or management of business operations and decision making as well as the efficient organization of people and other resources, to direct activities toward common goals and objectives. Management refers to the individuals who set the strategy of the organization and coordinate the efforts of employees to accomplish objectives by using available human, financial and other resources efficiently and effectively. In a nutshell you kinda need both to run a business.
Change can be administered and managed. If only you know how to. This know-how can be obtained through study and practice, which could also be labeled as experience. I have BBA and also Masters degree in management and lately I have realised that, at least in my case, neither one out weights the other.
Knowledge gives us an insight that enables us to see the patterns, the underlying currents, behind the changes but without experience this is just empty words without understanding how the change really presents itself and what kind of forms it may take. Reading these currents is like using the force if you're a jedi, you see things before they happen. On personal level you seem to have lighting fast reflexes and on corporate level your business adapts quickly.
This knowledge and education is a double edged sword. There's a good chance that all this talk about the change, change management and what have you becomes what is generally knowns as corporate bullshit. Example below.
The fact that we have these corporate comic strips is an evidence in itself that the phenomenon runs deep and that such a behavioural patterns exists. This is what fresh MBA sounds like. Dogma over everything else.
One of the most powerful ways to highlight an issue is to pull down the curtains and expose the opposite extremes. As pointed out previously the knowledge in itself has little value in real life without the perspective to wield it. Same goes with the experience. Being a manager without knowledge spells a recipe for disaster.
Think of a manager that has a staff of e.g. 10 people and a budget about 1,000.000€ and no education to lead and manage whatsoever. Numbers game is just for perspective. The key is to understand that these businesses are a real job for real people who raise families and worry about mortgage and other adult issues. And they have a management with no knowledge.
Some readers may think this kind of situation doesn't exist in real life but they are misinformed. There is atleast one industry where this is the norm - sports.
Every now and then I stop and think this industry and its really mind boggling. The reality that we have fairly big clubs in national level that are managed by people who play work. By this playing I mean they have no relevant education but are doing for a living a job that could also be vacated by a professional. Being a professional and doing something for a living are not the one and the same.
Think of nursing as a profession. To be a nurse you need to educate yourself for it. It is not enough to have a sickly youth and having spent a lot of time in the hospital as a kid. In sports you can be a clubs executive director because you played ball as a kid and in your youth. Which nurse you want to put you to sleep before heart surgery - the educated one or the one who knows each season of ER by heart?
Why should be managing a sports club any different?
Especially in these times when the industry is going through a heavy phase of professionalisation. This term is used in the lightest possible way here. The clubs are endorsing BA and management tools like strategy and are measuring performance. In other words are starting to run like a real businesses. In theoretical level.
In practice it's more streetwise way to run a business than Harvard way to operate. Those famiar with Nasim Taleb's Black Swan may think of Brooklyn Tony immediately. To a probability question of throwing a dice a 100 times and get 6 on each mathematics provide an answer and so does Brooklyn Tony. The calculated probability is a faction of a faction, a figure. Streetwise answer is it's not happening or the dice is fixed.
This approach is straight forward and it has it's time and place and not to discount streetwise - there is no substituting the studied framework that education provides, still. There is a sound difference between knowledge and educated guess.
Measuring the performance but how and what? Real Madrid is a huge club by any standards. They have state of the art testing facilities and they can produce all the data needed of each and every player. But every time they get a new coach the coach may say something in the lines of "We don't need to test the players. All I need to do is look on the pitch and I see who's fast". Who is right? Do we need to test a player to know that he's fast or can we just observe it with our eyes? Who is wrong?
When a make-believe manager plays managing a club good things can happen. This is true. And many times they put in a lot of hours for the club. They are dedicated. But in the long run we cannot talk about professionalising an industry and at the same time employ non-professionals. The trial and error method works only so well and it is way too dependant on luck. On contrast professionalism is about having no use for luck - sure we take the free lunches but won't plan on them to happen.
Sports club are on face value very different from businesses in other industry. Taking pleasure in other peoples leisure. Sports are VERY discipline oriented. Taken to extreme to manage track and field you need track and field experience, not managing experience. Does this sound good practice?
Is Social Sciences of Sport the degree that provides the highest academic accolades to manage sports? For the past decades the answer has been positive and the results are visible. This program doesn't educate modern sports professionals equipped to do business in sports or result oriented individuals.
If the clubs are seen as social non profit entities, they should be run like that.
If they are seen like legitimate businesses, like the trend obviously is, they should be run like that.
Change and choice go together. MBA's are not qualified to do what Masters of Social sciences of sports are and vice versa. Like choosing between communism and capitalism.
Something for everybody NEVER produces best results.
There has been an upheaval after the Olympics of sports and how it's run. Sports are first to say that you need experience in sports to manage it. Do you need to have experience of war and fire fights to be an arms dealer? OR do you just need to understand the dynamics and economics of an armed conflict? Time for change is here. There is the talk about change.
What do they talk about when they talk about change?
They talk about the change. Actual changes either very slow or not happening as sports has one major flaw regarding letting go of things. This is on national level very true concerning people - none can't be let go. On club level a club might invest in membership management application but keep the old excel system running in the background and do double work because of this letting go issue.
What do they talk about when they talk about change?
Change is not initiated by talking about it. Change starts with the first step. Otherwise it's just generating more corporate bullshit.
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