bozo's return

Euro 2012 - Shock Horror

Will Bozo be able to reawaken his interest in football (especially during the baseball season) in order to take his customary jaundiced view of major tournament proceedings?

Frankly I just don't know.

There is no such thing as a major sport with no millionaires any more (after Albert Pujols got paid $240 million be LA to play baseball ...I mean, seriously!). But sadly soccer players are the only too hideously visible tip of that iceberg. And their tantrums, cheating (on the field and on their wives...) and hideous salaries have made taking an interest in serious football very difficult. Perhaps Bozo was the only man in Europe whose exposure to the Champions League final was the last 2 penalites...

Even a return to the Premiership by West Ham hasn't made him look forward particularly to the premiership. While acknowledging that the sport he does like are also flooded with millionaires, he just doesnt feel much joy in watching the 22 millionaires you get on a Premiership football field any more.

But major international championships have an allure all there own - as we all know. And this one - Euro 2012 - has a particularly worthy reason for being watched.

 

It is the last tournament to be contested by 16 teams. Starting in 2016 we shall have 24 participants.

Can you imagine what a bad joke some of those early group games will be when about half the countries in Europe are eligible for a shot at the title? Doesn't bear thinking of! And will we have fewer meaningless qualifiers?

No!

Fewer qualifiers maybe - but the avergae meaninglessness of each of them will go up.

And, will England win?

Don't be silly.

 

Management Matters (still)

Regular Bozo readers will know he is a baseball fan.

They will also know he is a great admirer of the management skills of Joe Maddon - the manager of the Tampa Bay Rays - and has quoted him and his wisdom on this blog in the past. Well I have no quote from Joe today but it is time to give him another accolade.

Last year everyone said was the Rays last big chance to win something. Many of their stars had contracts expiring and they would all walk off into the sunset to get big contracts that Tampa could not afford to give them. That the team would be broken up, that it was back to square one for Maddon and Tampa, if not square zero.

The first nine games seemed to prove that was true. The team did indeed lose almost all of its best position players. Most of its relievers and was 1-8. Bottom of the division after nine games on April 10th.

Since then...poor denuded undermanned Tampa has won 22 and lost only 8.

They are now 23-16.

They are now top of their division ahead of the biggest salaried teams in Baseball (The Yankees are second, two winw behind, and the big spending Red Sox remain under .500 and still flirt with bottom of the division).

To my mind this is all about Joe Maddon's knowledge. Both of the game, and of management.

There are some big similarities between sport and business. Key people get paid a lot, sometimes they get paid so much that managing them becomes hard.

When i was trading it was always the case that managers in a trading room had to be great traders or no one would respect them.

It's kind of understandable.

it;s also utter cods.

If you look at great sporting managers and ask them to show their player's medals, you can be disappointed.

Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger, Jose Mourinho... no great success as players

Joe Maddon, no great success as a player.

But they can manage, They understand their jobs intellectually.

And they know how to create a winning team.

And guess what... unlike the other names I mentioned, Joe Maddon's winning team isn't the highest paid team in their sport.

This makes Maddon superior (in my mind) to Fergsuon and Mourinho by far.

The question for you folks in business is this.

What sort of manager are you?

A cheque book manager?

Or a good manager?

 

Reward Strategy and Management, the Sports Allegory goes on and on and on...

I turn my attention today to Manchester City.

The Sunday Times carried a front of the Sports section piece about there being a clear out of talent (??) from the City wage bill in the transfer window.

The names mentioned will sound familiar... Wayne Bridge, Sean Wright-Phillips - among others.

Players that have played for England (if not as regular starters) but cannot maintain a regular place in the City side... more on that later.

City have spent, let's face it - GAZILLIONS!

And so far what has it got them?

Well the good news is they appear to be fourth in the Premiership... only 3 points adrift of the leaders.

The bad news is they are only three points ahead of Spurs, 6 ahead of Bolton and Sunderland and only 7/8 ahead of West Brom and Stoke!  I think its fair to say that Stoke and West brom have spent a fair bit less than Man City.

The point isnt so much that they seem to have got very little in return for spending all that extra cash (although that is part of the point too), the point is that all of the transfer fees and all of the wages spent on a significant percentage of their playing assets are now going to be written off.

In your business that would be called failure.

I am not having a go at Mancini - I think he is quite a talented bloke. I am not even having a go at mark hughes, i think he is quite a Welsh bloke.

What i am having a go at is the concept that your reward strategy can involve throwing money at talent for no return.

Because while the retrun of 4th place - with a remaining fighting chance of winning a title might seem to be good - it wasnt achieved by virtue of all the talent being paid for.

 

At the end of the day wayne Bridge and Sean Wright-Phillips are journeyman who have never held down a starting place in a premiership team since they started playing for big clubs! Not at Chelsea and not at Man City. They still sign for big clubs - because the teams where they could play 90 minutes every saturday won't pay them what they are "worth", at least in their own eyes.

The warning sign should be they prefer to get paid big bucks to sit on the bench than smaller bucks to play actual football.

The thing is that there are a lot of mediocre people in the commercial world who are also benefitting from poor reward strategies that allow them to get paid and don;t manage their performance.

Creating a successful business, like creating a successful football team is about more than wages. If all your employees want is wages, you have got the wrong employees. 

And before Bozo's Antagonist writes in - i am not saying wanting wages is wrong - I a saying wanting ONLY wages is wrong... and if thats all you can offer your employees, all you will get is 4th  place and a load of people you wish you could get rid of in the january transfer window

 

Enjoy

Why Major League Baseball is more interesting than the Premiership

Many you know that Bozo has followed the  major US sports since he was a teenager.

A client actually asked me to do some analysis on what business can learn from sport in the pay and performance management arena, and as i was doing the research and the number crunching I unearthed some interesting facts about the last ten years.

Let us have a look at winning the championship.

Year            Premiership        World Series                       Superbowl

2001            Man U                Arizona Diamondbacks        Baltimore Ravens

2002            Arsenal                LA Angels                            New England Patriots

2003            Man U                  Florida Marlins                Tamba Bay Buccaneers

2004            Arsenal                Boston Red Sox                New England Patriots

2005            Chelsea                Chicago White Sox            New England patriots

2006            Chelsea                St Louis Cardinals            Pittsburgh Steelers

2007            Man U                Boston red Sox                    Indianapolis Colts

2008            Man U                 Philadelphia Phillies            NY Giants

2009             Man U                NY Yankees                        Pittsburgh Steelers

2010            Chelsea            San Fran Giants                    New orleans Saints

 

So... in ten years the premiership has been won by 3 different teams; the superbowl by six different teams and the World Series by 9 different teams.

What we are discussing here is competition. I make no claim that baseball is a better game than football... or more popular - or anything.

I merely say that in the past ten years 30-35 different teams have participated in the premiership - yet only three different teams have won it...

30 teams have participated in Major League Baseball, and, 9 different teams have won it.

I think I know which competition is more interesting.

I would state that back in August there were only five teams that had any hope or prayer of winning the premiership. The three that have won it in the past, plus outside bets man City and Liverpool.

I would state that on January 1st 2011 we will have -at most - a three horse race and the likelihood is that at least two of those three will come from the list of three who have won it in the past ten years. Let;s face it - in the eighteen years of the premiership;s existence, those three teams have won seventeen titles.Please don't try to tell me its an interesting league. More fans will be involved in the relegation battle than the title battle.

It;s not competitive, it's not fun - unless you are Arsenal Chelsea or Man U.

There are additional reasons why  Major League Baseball is more interesting.

There is clear evidence that you cannot buy success!

The premiership club by club wage bills are hard to locate online. Not so MLB salaries.

In the year that they won the world series, here are the rankings of the salary bill Out of 30 teams) for the world series winners:

2001 Arizona Diamondbacks - 8th highest salary bill

2002 LA Angels - 15th

2003 Florida Marlins - 25th (yup 25th wage will out of 30!)

2004 Boston Red Sox - 2nd

2005 Chicago White Sox - 13th

2006 St Louis Cardinals - 11th

2007 Boston Red Sox - 2nd

2008 Philladelphia Phillies -12th

2009 NY Yankees - 1st

2010 San Francisco Giants - 9th

 

The average rank of wage bill is 9.8 out of 30, and the median is 10 out of 30.

One of the reasons that 30 out of 30 teams start with a shot at the world series is that you cannot buy the title.

Not only to the Florida Marlins prove it - but let us consider the case study this year of the San Diego Padres.

they had the 29th wage bill ($37.8m) and were picked by every pundit to finish last in their division.

Real no hopers.

On the final day of the season they trailed the SF Giants by one game - and were playing those same SF Giants on the final day. A win would have placed them in a tie with the team that went on to win the World Series.

OK - They lost. BUT They finished with 90 wins and SF with 92.

SF's salry bill was $98.6 million.

In salary paid per win the Padres come out top of the league, having paid just $420,000 for each win - compared with SF's $1.070,000 - and the NY Yankees $2.172,000 dollars per win.

I like football - and so do millions of others. They must do - because every year millions of people pay huge ticket prices to watch a tournement which the team they support has no chance of winning.

 

So we can be sure of one thing - those people pay to watch football - they don;t pay to watch the Premiership.

If I were head of marketing for the premiership I would take careful note of that fact.

It is the most boring big money tournament in the world because in its history the title has been won by only four different teams....out of over 30 that have tried - and let us face it Blackburn was a massive abberation - it took management genius from K Dalgliesh - manic scoring from A Shearer and even then only a wierd result on the final day between west ham and man u let the title slip out of the big three's hands.

Aside from one single year it has been - Boring, boring, boring.

In days to come we might look more at the waste of money involved in buying success... and the lessons for the Fulhams and West Hams of this world.

 

Enjoy

 

Classy ~ Not Classy

I have never been what you might describe as a "fan" of David Beckham.

But, I think like most of the country, the qualifying campaign for 2002, and the tournament itself brought me round to be an honest, affectionate admirer of the man.

David Beckham proved that for some at least, being a multi-millionaire doesn't disqualify you from total commitment.

His commitment to the England shirt made him an awesome England captain. The 2002 campaign was the best since 1990, and hasn't been bettered since, and it was partially because no matter what the flaws and weaknesses in the talent pool and the weird tactical ideas of Sven that team fought its guts out for 90 minutes.

Well for 120 minutes usually, before an awful shoot-out disaster.

Contrast this with the 2010 "golden team". Who strolled and sulked and rolled over and died with no pride and no commitment, proving that being a multi-millionaire does indeed hinder commitment for anyone of lesser character.

Beckham has not retired. He has never complained about being a squad player, he has always been committed to be there if needed, in any role needed. He has been retired by Capello. But i predict that if he were asked to turn up in the next squad, despite low hope of starting - he would be there.

Beckham is classy.

Compare with Paul Robinson.

I accept Paul can give up on international football. He was dropped. Then, somewhat surprisingly he is asked to have another go, despite performances against Croatia that were more howler-filled than even poor Robert Green managed.

what does he do with that opportunity for redemption?

He says no. But he says it in the worst possible way!

he proudly says that he couldnt make the decision before... because he hadn't been asked. Actually of course he could have made a phone call at any time and said he was retiring. instead he wanted to be wanted so he could take the infantile joy of snubbing the request.

Robinson ~ NOT classy.

Rewarding Failure

We do this all the time don't we?

We have obvious examples like Fred at RBS.

To which we can add all those investment bank bonuses that got paid by institutions that would have ceased to exist if they hadn't been bailed out - or their counterparties hadn't been bailed out.

And to which we can add Capello who got a new £11 million 2-year deal just before he managed the most gutless English world cup failure in modern memory.

We can add all the players to the list too. Not just the John Terry's. (How i despise him!) But all those millionaires who have never won a single trophy. Ever. Micah Richards leaps to mind.

Everyone will shout at me. It's the marketplace that drives those deals, not the recipients.

And I shout back:

"I KNOW!"

My question is why? How?

As a former football fan (honestly I cannot stomach it any more) I understand that as money comes into the game the people on the pitch want and have the power to gain the lion's share of that money. And all of us who pay to watch foootball (live or through tv subscription) are guilty of rewarding the failure of most players.

I see one huge problem.

Reward without Risk

Goldman Sachs sub prime debt cowboys had no downside, still have no downside. If it goes well they get paid gazillions. If it goes badly they get paid, er gazillions.

Frank Lampard gets paid the same no matter what Chelsea win, and no matter how much his country gets humiliated at the world cup.

You cannot tell me that reward truly motivates people if their is no real difference between success and falure.

If you people don't start to realise that recruiting and retaining is not about money you will contrinue to throw large sums of it away recruiting and retaining the wrong people.

The proof of this is not a less well-paid and less well-known German team showing enormous and understandable hunger to prove themselves. The proof of this is an equally well-paid, equally well-known Spain showing pride integrity, commitment, desire and excellence.

Yes it is about management. No it is now about "the manager". Because management is also about the system that creates the team. And the same goes for your team that succeeds or fails in your business.

Read back a few weeks to my piece on "the employee value proposition".

It wasn't just that Winston Churchill was a great manager, a world class motivator, it's that Britain, at that point in time, no matter how unequal and flaed it was, still had a value proposition that the British valued and would fight for.

Don't ask yourself if you pay your rising stars enough money to stop them getting poached. Ask yourself if you have created a company that they'd fight for.

Am looking forward to the Germans now....

Admission of guilt fine

Apparently Pavlos Joseph has been released by the South African Authorities following payment of a £65 'admission of guilt' fine.

If this is the going rate for admission of guilt fines it is even more surprising that multi-millionaire failures Terry, Lampard and Rooney haven't taken the opportunity to own up to the fact that, over four world cup perfromances they, and their colleagues were guilty of being rubbish at football. That rubbishness at football would have existed even if the now infamous Lampard goal had been allowed. Indeed, had the goal been allowed, it is pretty laughable to assume that England still wouldn't have let in a few goals. Even more tragic for lovers of actual football (as opposed to patriots) would have been if this goal had in fact led to some sort of fluke English defeat of a vastly superior German team.

As an aside I note that a Sunday Mirror journalist has been accused of orchestrating Mr Joseph's intrusion. As if anyone was needed to orchestrate a waltz through the England defense.

I didn't watch Ghana beat the USA because I was at a wedding - but having seen them narrowly lose to Germany I don't think England would have beaten them either. I have since watched Spain, Brazil, Holland, Argentina, Paraguay and Spain.

Forget the household names of the English team... (if only we could) and instead remember the four performances ... Based on what we had seen England would not have the slightest prayer against any of those teams.

Justice was done in the result. There may be teams that more deserve a quarter final place than a couple of those in the last eight, but based on perfromances and not reputation, England were not one of them.

As for the genius of incentive pay that upped Fabio's contract before the tournament, he needs sacking. Although he can take comfort in the fact that most investment banks will see him as being eminently qualified for their own reward teams.

Will the real World Cup Start soon?

A few random thoughts today.

I still have the hump with Wayne Rooney. I read his apology and if you think Wayne said or wrote those words you have never heard a Wayne interview. Given that the apology was written by an FA PR girly (no gender bias implied) I am still not sure he is actually sorry.

He may not have noticed that in every commentary on every game so far it has been impossible to hear supporters above the noise of the vuvuzeles. On friday you could clearly hear the England supporters singing the national anthem throughoput the match - no matter how depressing it got. England has been the noisiest supported team in the tournament so far. The fans did their bit. wayne and the millionaires (great name for a post punk hardcore band) did not.

Of course having seen Italy yesterday and Spain last week and Germany, etc etc. Not to mention France. I mean seriously! It is hard to look at the tournament and say that anyone has really shone.

The South American teams certainly appear to have the edge. But the genius involved in Brazil's second goal doesn't make the hand ball any less a reason for it to have actually be disallowed.

If you want a dark horse it might be orange. The Dutch are trying a new approach. Normally they play like demons in the group games and blow up somewhere in the knock-out. This time they have qualified on two fairly pedestrian wins. Maybe keeping their best in the tank.

The tournament never really starts until the round of sixteen. But this one might be about to start in the final group games.

From the round of sixteen you need to put together a four game winning streak to take home the world cup.

However for a lot of the fancied teams - Germany - England - Spain - the final game of the group is going to be a must win too.

For a lot of teams the knock out is starting a game earlier.

That should make it fun

Lessons in management from Fabio (not!)

Srcond update today - i didn't think we could mix this with the Wayne Rooney, because this is about real management. Not immature overpaid boys.

Back in the world of real management we see another great how-not-to lesson from the world of football. It was every bit as telling as the lessons of the French farce.

When Fabio Capello dropped Robert Green he sent a message to his team. I don't think he meant to, but he did. Because as we know communication is what the audience receives NOT what you think you said.

The message he sent was:

"One mistake and you are OUT!"

If you think (as I do) that England played with fear and trepidation and not fun and confidence, then you have to give consideration to the idea that this fear came from Fabio's approach to Rob Green's mistake.

I know Rob Green is West Ham, but then so was David James once, but I am NOT trying to Defend Green i am trying to tell you that how you treat people who make mistakes is noticed by the people who don't!

You cannot innovate without risking making a mistake. You cannot create a new product that will sell billions without risking making a product that will sell hundreds.

This part of your management style is crucial. How do you react when someone makes a mistake? Do your staff feel that it's "One mistake and you're out?" Because if they do your team, your department and your company will stagnate.

And it isn't just about being sacked. it;s about being punished. It;s the b*ll*cking, the tutting, the sighing.

Of course not all mistakes are created equal. And some rules, regulations and limits are set so that staff know the parameters within which mistakes are allowed and not allowed. It may be that Fabio feels that Rob Green's mistake comes into that category. But his team played with fear, and if nothing else his selection decision message was badly communicated. Would Wayne Rooney get sacked for missing a penalty? or a tap in?

BUT the reality is YOUR company needs to be empowered to make some mistakes, and how you react to mistakes is crucial both in reality and in perception. Your team's perception of how YOU react to mistakes is more important than what you think your reaction is.

Don't learn from Fabio,

Please

A Question for Wayne Rooney

Hello Wayne,

if you paid £1.5 million for the chance to watch a team play football. And they were utter utter rubbish and couldn't beat St Dunstan's Blind School, would you boo?

Because £1.5 million is a lot of money to waste watching utter rubbish isn't it?

You see you think the flights to South Africa, the hotel rooms and the food and the match tickets don't cost a lot of money. But that's because YOU get paid £6-7-8 million a year.

What those ordinary working people in the crowd paid to come and support you was for them, the equivalent of your £1.5 million - it's 2-3 months salary.

So, personally, I think if you have paid 2-3 months salary to go and support your country, and the highly paid millionaires on the pitch put on a display of truly appalling football against a second rate nation, then you might feel that the multi-millionaires deserved to be boo-ed.

I think you would boo if you were the shelf-stacker at tesco that your IQ and educations has fitted you to be, and you had given up half a year's wages to watch that utter, utter disgrace we sat through last night.