Holding Back
February 24, 2015
I wrote last week in this space about the positive place for disagreement in organizations; and I held back on pushing the topic a bit further.
Sometimes an organization leader has to hold back. Sometimes the leader needs to recognize that the organization has more disagreement than it can handle and that taking on another topic for which much disagreement is likely would be like drinking from a fire hose.
In Leadership on the Line (HBS, 2002), authors Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky write that “leadership requires disturbing people – but at a rate they can absorb.”
Heifetz and Linsky describe the need to “orchestrate the conflict” in four steps:
- “Create a holding environment” – a safe place to interact.
- “Control the temperature” – turn the heat up to get people’s attention, and turn it down for them to cool off or to catch up.
- “Set the pace” – not too fast that we leave too many people behind; not too slow that we lose the vision and momentum.
- “Show the future” – remind people of the “orienting value” – that is, the positive reason to go through all the negative rancor.
Not So Great
February 7, 2017
The Michigan High School Athletic Association leadership can sometimes be like the leadership of the United States of America. We can boast a bit too boldly about how great we are.
That's why a trip to Europe, most recently for me to the country of Spain, can be a humbling reminder that no matter how good we may seem to be regarding some things, there is very much room for improvement on others.
The USA is a leader in many ways, but a distant laggard when it comes to community place-making and the quality of our roads and bridges and mass transportation systems. The USA is embarrassingly behind the needs and times in these important ways of improving life for millions of its citizens.
This obvious observation begs for consideration of ways and means the MHSAA may lag behind its counterpart organizations in serving and supporting school-sponsored sports. And these are the two most obvious observations:
We trail the nation's most progressive states with respect to requirements to coach and a few other most progressive states with respect to requirements to officiate.
It was no huge surprise that the 2016 MHSAA Update Meeting Opinion Poll demonstrated that attendees were more supportive of proposals to change those rules than any other policies or procedures of the organization.
The most popular proposal surveyed was a requirement that high school coaches who are disqualified from a contest more than once in a season must complete a free online sportsmanship course before they may return to coaching ... 94 percent of 602 respondents favored that policy.
The second most popular proposal surveyed would require all head coaches at the junior high/middle school level to have a valid (current) certification in CPR (same as the rule for high schools) ... 80 percent of 593 respondents favored that.
And the third most popular proposal surveyed would require an MHSAA registered official to attend an MHSAA-conducted or approved camp or clinic (three-hour minimum duration) during the first three years before that official may renew registration for a fourth year ... 75 percent of 601 respondents were in favor.
There are some obvious flaws in these requirements as stated on the Opinion Poll, and the respondents tend to come from larger schools and under-represent the opinion of small school administrators; but the responses of constituents are valuable nevertheless because they indicate a general direction that respondents believe is necessary to improve school sports, or at least to keep pace with the changing needs.