My Brett Favre Blog

Brett Favre learned the hard way what many people who work for a living have known for a long time: when your time is up, management claims go out the window. Before Favre came to Green Bay, most pro football players would rather go to Siberia for a vacation than play for the Packers. He has taken the Green Bay Packers to two Super Bowls, won one, and came ever so close to getting them to the Super Bowl last year. He's set every conceivable quarterback record, and has displayed a remarkable consistency from year to year in the most injured position on the field. So when Favre decided to "unretire," what did Green Bay do? They sent him packing.

So how does this relate to management? What does Favre's trading have to do with running a professional football team, or managing a business? The Favre debacle points out several management myths that I'd like to explore some detail.

Management myth number one: We reward good performance. Green Bay, like every professional sports team, and every business that I know of, holds this deceptively simple maxim as the cornerstone of their management philosophy. As Brett found out, what this really means when translated is: we reward you when you have value for us; when we perceive that the value is gone, so is the reward. Last year, Favre had one of the best seasons in his career: he set records for most touchdowns, yards, and added to his record of consecutive games played by a quarterback. Yet, this year, Green Bay decided that it would go with a four-year quarterback who never started a game, has been repeatedly injured, and that Favre would be his backup. While he is thirty-eight years old, Green Bay decided that last season was a statistical aberration, and that Favre could not repeat last year's performance: he had to go.

Management myth number two: our employees are our greatest resource. This mantra should be familiar to anyone who has read an annual report. It is repeated by every company so often that it has become standard boilerplate language in every policy statement, employee manual, and PR piece in existence. Unfortunately, the first thing most companies do when times get difficult is began hacking away at their greatest resource. The euphemisms are varied: restructuring, re-alignment, right-sizing, down-sizing, taking advantage of market opportunities, etc. In the case of a professional sports team, players are the greatest resource that a team has; without the players, there would be no sports teams, period. Brett found out the hard way that restructuring does not always refer to a player's contract.

Management myth number three: we would be loyal to our employees if they would be loyal to us. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Unions were started because employers took advantage of their employees; they are perpetuated for the same reasons. Until the NFL players association began clamoring for free agency, and started striking to get management's attention, the players were locked into one team for life, with little chance of establishing market value for their services. The pendulum may have swung too far with players having little or no loyalty to a franchise, but as Green Bay demonstrated, there is little loyalty to one of the best players in the game when it is deemed that his time is up. Employees at most companies are confronted with the realization that employer loyalty goes out the door once times get tough. Ask any of the millions of blue and white collar workers who found themselves "restructured" or outsourced over the years, how much loyalty the company exhibited towards them.

Management myth number four: trust us, we have a plan. This one is closely allied with myth number three - the company has a plan and you're a part of it, until you're not. Brett found out that companies can change plans quickly, and then you're stuck holding the bag. You walk in one day, and you don't fit in, you've become expendable, you have been replaced by someone who fits the plans better (usually younger or in most cases - cheaper). As Brett learned, trust and planning don't often go together when companies change direction.

Management myth number five: We value your input. That's where most companies stop: what they don't say is: "We value your input, just as long as you keep it to yourself." Brett found out that you can change your plans, or have a change of heart, and then want to talk about it to your employer. He thought his employer would listen, because they said they would listen. They said it over and over again, most companies do-unfortunately, they don't mean it. What they meant was, we'll listen to what we want, and what happens to reinforce what we believe, otherwise, keep your opinions to yourself.

Management myth number six: We value you as a person. Right. Then why do the actions of so many companies scream out just the opposite? As Brett found out, and so many people know, you are a commodity. Commodities are used. When you cease to have value, you can be discarded. A corollary to this myth is, don't ever have the temerity to express your opinion to the public if it contrary to management's opinion. Brett did the unthinkable: he called management's bluff, and then went to the media to say that maybe he should have been treated a little differently.

Athletes, like entertainers, usually don't have to face the harsh realities of the workplace until they get too old or seem too outdated to stay relevant. Then, they find out what most people already know: companies, teams, management, call them what you will, often don't mean what they say, or respect their athletes or performers longer than their useful lives (there's that commodity aspect again).

The sad part about all this isn't the fact that a star athlete found out the hard way that management teams are looking after their (perceived) best interests, but that it occurs at all. Companies and teams in general would be better off if they actually meant some of the things that they declare in these six management myths.

As for me, I hope the Jets go 16-0, meet the Packers in the Super Bowl and beat them 74-0.

Author Biography

Peter Ponzio, the author of Children of the Night, is a CPA with over 30 years experience in Corporate Finance, holding positions as divergent as Treasurer, VP of Sales Administration, Vice President of IT, and General Manager of an internet start-up company in the late 1990s, and CFO at a subsidiary of a Fortune 100 company.

Mr. Ponzio graduated with a degree in English literature from Loyola University of Chicago, and an MA in Literature from Northwestern University.

Peter's website can be reached at http://www.peterjponzio.com