(Originally posted on the Red Sea Scrolls - posted here by request)
I've alluded to it before on here but one of the things I had the opportunity to do as a young(er) professional coming out of the military was to be the site operations manager for the mergers/acquisitions efforts of the company that I was working for. I handled five such acquisitions over a 7 year period that had me living in 5 different states. It was quite a fascinating experience and one I'll never regret taking on.
In a nutshell, my responsibility was to be the guy who met up with the seller (or their legal reps) and take possession of a ring of keys, an inventory list for all tangible possessions and a roster of all current employees. This exchange usually took place literally hours to minutes before the actual ownership transferred to our company and at that time I'd let myself into the business, introduce myself to whomever was in-charge and literally take over the day-to-day operation of that newly acquired entity.
Here are some things that I learned from that experience:
1) Every entity, even those in the same business/profession, is uniquely (and even vastly) different.
From top to bottom, side to side. Just plain different. In some cases, we were indoctrinating the acquired employees to the core values, operating procedures and expectations of our company within days to weeks. Conversely, there were two cases where any attempt to begin the indoctrination process within the first year was met with utter failure.
Teaching, development and progression only occurred to the level the existing employee culture was ready willing to accept it. I.e., it does little good to hold a meeting on sales techniques if a large percentage of employees don't even show up to work on-time. Me and my team didn't get stupider in these cases.
What it helped me to learn, is;
2) Leaders shape culture but the culture dictates outcomes.
Coming out of my service as an officer in the military, this was a tough "pill" for me to swallow. My "culture" was I say jump, you ask how high? I always thought soldiers asked "how high" because of who I was. They didn't. They asked it because of what I was. An officer...and that is how the military culture that had been ingrained in them conditioned them to respond.
So attempts to indoctrinate new employees following an acquisition were only as successful as the existing culture allowed them to be. I learned the hard way that meeting our acquisition transitional goals that I was responsible to our CEO and BOD for were only as good as the employment culture that I found myself in. While I thought we should be introducing and implementing our new company processes, in numerous occasions we'd get side-tracked just getting ourselves appropriately staffed with qualified, engaged employees.
In the wise words of Mike Tyson, "everyone's got a plan till they get punched in the mouth" and I spent quite a bit of time on numerous occasions explaining and convincing our company leadership of this. Transition and the culture you find yourself in really forces you to decide from the following;
3) There are two primary courses of action you can choose from to change a culture.
a. Blow it up and start over. Lay down the law day one and immediately address those who don't, can't or won't comply.
b. Overwhelm and overcome the culture over time while giving everyone the opportunity to eventually adopt and accept your approach and expectations.
In many cases, option "A" may not even be a viable alternative. You may not have immediate access to a replacement workforce or the resources to see you through a "scorched earth" approach. So if it isn't an alternative, you are left "rebuilding it brick by brick". I've been there and done that. It sucks. It's something I had little patience for on a day-to-day basis. However, there are situations where there jsut isn't another viable alternative.
Nebraska Cornhusker Football
What is the culture that exists within that organization? What I can tell you is this; Mike Riley isn't the problem. He may not be able to overcome or change the culture into something that is positioned to achieve and even if he does, he may not be a good enough football coach to capitalize on it. These will only be determined over time. But right here, right now, he's not the problem.
There is a culture that has been in place for quite awhile (years and years) where Husker coaches and players wilt under pressure. Where attitude and effort run hot and cold. Where "smart", focused play is displayed inconsistently. Where a complete and competitive roster doesn't exist more often than not. Where a sense of entitlement and a lack of accountability permeate.
At this point, it doesn't seem that Mike Riley has control of the culture. The disappointing lack effort and passion from the players come game day seems to bear this out. The "culture" of Nebraska football is in no way ready to consistently achieve on the field of play. Do you fire Mike Riley for not having solved in 10 months what it took over 10 years to create?
Don't get sucked into comparing Nebraska's situation to that of other schools. Every transition is different. If Lincoln were a suburb of Los Angeles and you could blow-up the roster and immediately start over through recruiting, then maybe a different approach would be called for. I personally don't think a "my way or the highway" approach is the prudent one to attempt at NU for many reasons (and this coming from a guy who has little patience).
Don't get sucked into thinking we had it better prior to this season. Don't allow those around you to already start "waxing poetic" about the Pelini or Callahan regimes. NU has been a dumpster fire for over a decade and you can't allow a HC preaching "us against the fans, fans can kiss my ass, down with the administration" to be off-set by some hollow "9 wins" claim.
The culture Mike Riley walked in to is one where all players weren't treated equally. Where personal accountability was different depending on who you're talking about. Where an open-minded approach to accepting the coaching and teaching of a new HC was never going to immediately occur. We're seeing the NU "culture" manifest itself right now under a microscope. It's pretty ugly.
In sports, they always talk about how you don't want to be "the guy who follows THE guy". This is usually meant as a compliment to the prior HC/regime. In this case, you really didn't want to be the guy who followed Pelini. Every shred of evidence that has come to light demonstrates that he made every attempt to poison the well and watching so many players seem disinterested and half-ass their way through games sure seems like he was successful.
It hurts to watch it all unfold. I hurt for these kids who have been failed by the adults, role models, father figures and football coaches that the University hired and entrusted their care to. It was clearly toxic. Caustic. Unhealthy. And it certainly wasn't worth keeping for some supposed "9 win" standard that the prior regime seemed to hang their hats on.
And in all of this, the really bad news is that it isn't just smeared crap that you can wash off one time and be done with it. It's more like ingested garlic that will continue to linger and ooze out the pores of the program until it's able to be fully processed and passed.
Instead of talk about firing Mike Riley, there really should be more of an effort to apologize to him. He taking the heat for "checks" that he didn't write. Yet here he is with the task of rebuilding it "brick by brick". Good luck, coach. I'm still cheering for you and this team (especially the ones who still want to be here).
GBR!
I've alluded to it before on here but one of the things I had the opportunity to do as a young(er) professional coming out of the military was to be the site operations manager for the mergers/acquisitions efforts of the company that I was working for. I handled five such acquisitions over a 7 year period that had me living in 5 different states. It was quite a fascinating experience and one I'll never regret taking on.
In a nutshell, my responsibility was to be the guy who met up with the seller (or their legal reps) and take possession of a ring of keys, an inventory list for all tangible possessions and a roster of all current employees. This exchange usually took place literally hours to minutes before the actual ownership transferred to our company and at that time I'd let myself into the business, introduce myself to whomever was in-charge and literally take over the day-to-day operation of that newly acquired entity.
Here are some things that I learned from that experience:
1) Every entity, even those in the same business/profession, is uniquely (and even vastly) different.
From top to bottom, side to side. Just plain different. In some cases, we were indoctrinating the acquired employees to the core values, operating procedures and expectations of our company within days to weeks. Conversely, there were two cases where any attempt to begin the indoctrination process within the first year was met with utter failure.
Teaching, development and progression only occurred to the level the existing employee culture was ready willing to accept it. I.e., it does little good to hold a meeting on sales techniques if a large percentage of employees don't even show up to work on-time. Me and my team didn't get stupider in these cases.
What it helped me to learn, is;
2) Leaders shape culture but the culture dictates outcomes.
Coming out of my service as an officer in the military, this was a tough "pill" for me to swallow. My "culture" was I say jump, you ask how high? I always thought soldiers asked "how high" because of who I was. They didn't. They asked it because of what I was. An officer...and that is how the military culture that had been ingrained in them conditioned them to respond.
So attempts to indoctrinate new employees following an acquisition were only as successful as the existing culture allowed them to be. I learned the hard way that meeting our acquisition transitional goals that I was responsible to our CEO and BOD for were only as good as the employment culture that I found myself in. While I thought we should be introducing and implementing our new company processes, in numerous occasions we'd get side-tracked just getting ourselves appropriately staffed with qualified, engaged employees.
In the wise words of Mike Tyson, "everyone's got a plan till they get punched in the mouth" and I spent quite a bit of time on numerous occasions explaining and convincing our company leadership of this. Transition and the culture you find yourself in really forces you to decide from the following;
3) There are two primary courses of action you can choose from to change a culture.
a. Blow it up and start over. Lay down the law day one and immediately address those who don't, can't or won't comply.
b. Overwhelm and overcome the culture over time while giving everyone the opportunity to eventually adopt and accept your approach and expectations.
In many cases, option "A" may not even be a viable alternative. You may not have immediate access to a replacement workforce or the resources to see you through a "scorched earth" approach. So if it isn't an alternative, you are left "rebuilding it brick by brick". I've been there and done that. It sucks. It's something I had little patience for on a day-to-day basis. However, there are situations where there jsut isn't another viable alternative.
Nebraska Cornhusker Football
What is the culture that exists within that organization? What I can tell you is this; Mike Riley isn't the problem. He may not be able to overcome or change the culture into something that is positioned to achieve and even if he does, he may not be a good enough football coach to capitalize on it. These will only be determined over time. But right here, right now, he's not the problem.
There is a culture that has been in place for quite awhile (years and years) where Husker coaches and players wilt under pressure. Where attitude and effort run hot and cold. Where "smart", focused play is displayed inconsistently. Where a complete and competitive roster doesn't exist more often than not. Where a sense of entitlement and a lack of accountability permeate.
At this point, it doesn't seem that Mike Riley has control of the culture. The disappointing lack effort and passion from the players come game day seems to bear this out. The "culture" of Nebraska football is in no way ready to consistently achieve on the field of play. Do you fire Mike Riley for not having solved in 10 months what it took over 10 years to create?
Don't get sucked into comparing Nebraska's situation to that of other schools. Every transition is different. If Lincoln were a suburb of Los Angeles and you could blow-up the roster and immediately start over through recruiting, then maybe a different approach would be called for. I personally don't think a "my way or the highway" approach is the prudent one to attempt at NU for many reasons (and this coming from a guy who has little patience).
Don't get sucked into thinking we had it better prior to this season. Don't allow those around you to already start "waxing poetic" about the Pelini or Callahan regimes. NU has been a dumpster fire for over a decade and you can't allow a HC preaching "us against the fans, fans can kiss my ass, down with the administration" to be off-set by some hollow "9 wins" claim.
The culture Mike Riley walked in to is one where all players weren't treated equally. Where personal accountability was different depending on who you're talking about. Where an open-minded approach to accepting the coaching and teaching of a new HC was never going to immediately occur. We're seeing the NU "culture" manifest itself right now under a microscope. It's pretty ugly.
In sports, they always talk about how you don't want to be "the guy who follows THE guy". This is usually meant as a compliment to the prior HC/regime. In this case, you really didn't want to be the guy who followed Pelini. Every shred of evidence that has come to light demonstrates that he made every attempt to poison the well and watching so many players seem disinterested and half-ass their way through games sure seems like he was successful.
It hurts to watch it all unfold. I hurt for these kids who have been failed by the adults, role models, father figures and football coaches that the University hired and entrusted their care to. It was clearly toxic. Caustic. Unhealthy. And it certainly wasn't worth keeping for some supposed "9 win" standard that the prior regime seemed to hang their hats on.
And in all of this, the really bad news is that it isn't just smeared crap that you can wash off one time and be done with it. It's more like ingested garlic that will continue to linger and ooze out the pores of the program until it's able to be fully processed and passed.
Instead of talk about firing Mike Riley, there really should be more of an effort to apologize to him. He taking the heat for "checks" that he didn't write. Yet here he is with the task of rebuilding it "brick by brick". Good luck, coach. I'm still cheering for you and this team (especially the ones who still want to be here).
GBR!
