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    Manage! to Stay in the Game
    Manage! to Stay in the Game
    Manage! to Stay in the Game
    Ebook103 pages1 hour

    Manage! to Stay in the Game

    By David L. Whitney

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Management often lacks the winsome clarity to sports. On the field of play, we see what works and what doesn’t. It’s not possible to drop the ball anonymously, no matter how clever or charming we are. That’s clarity. Perhaps it’s one reason why we love sports.
    Management is different. We can fake it. Business behavior that gets players thrown out of the game is often tolerated, and even encouraged.
    Otherwise, business management and sports are a lot alike. Each has an arena where the game is played, a draft of incoming players, a training camp, a high-performance zone of concentration, a motivational game plan, a coach/manager, and a code of performance-ethics that legitimizes the entire endeavor.
    Manage! to Stay in the Game uses sports-clarity to highlight several basic management principles and practices, making them more accessible to managers who love the game. The book also is unique in that it focuses Biblical wisdom on the organizational business game. This is becoming increasingly important as society moves away from the underlying principles that once made management a fairer contest.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDavid L. Whitney
    Release dateJun 3, 2012
    ISBN9781476464206
    Manage! to Stay in the Game
    Author

    David L. Whitney

    David L. Whitney is Professor Emeritus at Central Michigan University. Prior to that, he was a faculty member at Washington State University and Pepperdine University. He also served as a department chair at the Anglo-American College in Prague, Czech Republic. Before his academic career, David worked as a writer and program director in missionary radio broadcasting in a number of international settings. He and his wife, Judy, live in Oregon.

    Read more from David L. Whitney

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      Book preview

      Manage! to Stay in the Game - David L. Whitney

      Manage!

      to

      Stay in the Game

      David L. Whitney

      Copyright 2012

      All rights reserved.

      Cover design: Zan Ceeley, Trio Bookworks

      Cover images: Thinkstock Images

      Smashwords Edition

      License Notes:

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you.

      Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from THE MESSAGE. Copyright © by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

      Scripture verses marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

      Scripture verses marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

      Contents

      Introduction

      1. The Field of Play (Organizational Climate)

      The field of play.

      A five-and-a-half-inch court.

      The managerial field of play.

      The organizational climate.

      Relevant thoughts from the Training Manual.

      2. The Draft (Interviewing and Selection)

      The business draft.

      If they’ve done it before, they can do it again.

      Competencies. The Big Fist.

      Never, never, never use the word would.

      Ongoing-Why, Probing Questions, A to Z.

      Relevant thoughts from the Training Manual.

      3. Training Camp (Learning and Development)

      Training camp in the real world.

      Feel-Watch-Think-Do.

      Completing the cycle.

      Designing the learning session.

      Relevant thoughts from the Training Manual.

      4. The Zone (High-Performance Concentration)

      Paying attention.

      How do we pay attention?

      Attentional styles illustrated.

      Taking care of business.

      Relevant thoughts from the Training Manual.

      5. Performance Power (Motivation)

      NAch – NPow – NAff.

      Doing it better.

      Doing it my way.

      Doing it nicely.

      Self-assessment. Changing me.

      Relevant thoughts from the Training Manual.

      6. The Coach (Managerial Styles)

      It’s a matter of style.

      The coach’s edge.

      It’s not an unlimited playbook.

      The managerial imperative.

      Relevant thoughts from the Training Manual.

      7. The Best Defense (Christian Ethics)

      Getting away with it.

      Defining what we mean.

      Ethics on the big screen.

      Tools for ethical decision-making.

      Read and react.

      The best defense.

      Wearing the Golden Fleece.

      Relevant thoughts from the Training Manual.

      Appendix 1

      Appendix 2

      Notes

      About the Author

      Manage!

      to

      Stay in the Game

      Introduction

      There’s a winsome clarity to sports. On the field of play, we see what works and what doesn’t. It’s not possible to drop the ball anonymously, no matter how clever or charming we are. That’s clarity. Perhaps it’s one reason why we love sports. When a baseball player strikes out, everybody sees it. He can’t walk back to the dugout saying, I didn’t strike out, I swung my bat exactly where the ball should have been. That won’t work. Manager Bill Veeck said, If you get three strikes, even the best lawyer in the world can’t get you off. ¹

      In terms of clarity, business management is different. We can fake it. In Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, Michael Lewis writes, Anyone who wanders into Major League Baseball can’t help but notice the stark contrast between the field of play and the uneasy space just off it, where the executives and the scouts make their livings. The game itself is a ruthless competition. Unless you’re very good, you don’t survive in it. But in the space just off the field of play there really is no level of incompetence that won’t be tolerated.²

      Otherwise, business management and sports are a lot alike. Each has an arena where the game is played, a draft of incoming players, a training camp, a high-performance zone of concentration, a motivational game plan, a coach/manager, and a code of performance-ethics that legitimizes the entire endeavor.

      Manage! to Stay in the Game brings sports-clarity into some select basic management principles and practices. Each chapter also concludes with Relevant Thoughts from the Training Manual, focusing Biblical wisdom on the organizational business game.

      1

      The Field of Play

      Organizational Climate

      It was called the race of the century. In 1983, in a dying southerly wind off Newport, Rhode Island, the racing yacht Australia II came from behind to overtake Liberty and win by forty-one seconds, tying the series at three race-wins each. John Bertrand’s Australia II went on to win the seventh, deciding race, and capture the America’s Cup from the New York Yacht Club which had successfully defended it for 132 years. Australia II had broken the longest winning streak in sports. It was one of sports history’s greatest come-from-behind victories.

      The field of play

      The America’s Cup yacht race is an interesting way to open our discussion of the field of play because it illustrates how diverse sports venues can be. Depending on the sport, the arena varies immensely. In yachting, the field of play is global when the race is an around-the-world event. In cycling’s Tour de France, an entire nation constitutes the field of play. Sports contests have been held in gigantic stadiums, on oval fields, frozen ice rinks, or beautifully manicured fairways. They’ve been waged on rivers, in swimming pools, on parquet gymnasium floors, and even on chessboards. But the truth is, the physical environment only defines the tangible parameters of play. It doesn’t necessarily determine the inner aspect of the game. Many people even think the external environment may be incidental to the main event, because some athletes will tell you the real contest happens somewhere else.

      A five-and-a-half-inch court

      There is a sense in which the real field of play is not physical at all – it’s mental. Golfer Bobby Jones put it this way, Competitive sports are played mainly on a five-and-a-half-inch court – the space between your ears. ³ That mental field of play is the intangible arena where matters of the mind – motivation, will-to-win, ability to concentrate, confidence, and team spirit – combine to create a psychological environment that generates winners and losers. Of course, athletes still gather on a defined course, court, or field, and that’s where we cheer their performances – but that’s also where they demonstrate the outcome of the greater mental contest, what they call the inner game. Regardless of the final score, when many athletes enter the arena they have already determined whether or not they can win. The final score simply tells us whether or not they won a particular game, but their character tells us whether or not they are winners. How many times did John Elway lose football’s Super Bowl before finally winning? But Elway was never a loser. He knew it and so do we.

      In management, what we are calling here the field of play

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