If you can't change the people, change the people

The above saying is attributed to 'Unknown' by the wonderful people that created the Archie Query Form - and based on many other famous sayings attributed to 'Unknown' he/she must have been one of the greatest minds that we have ever known. Anyway - enough about him/her - let's move on to this weeks word jumble.

If you can't change the people, change the people.

There are 2 ways to look at this statement and they are quite polar (which is a real thing as the earth is round and flat earthers are nuts). As a person who has had a few positions in management (to others misfortune), mainly on the sales side, changing the people often means interviewing for new employees however as a rugby coach (certified by USA Rugby) changing the people means something completely different as we don't hand out pink slips to kids learning the game. Since it is rugby season (it is always rugby season for me) lets look at that interpretation first.

As a sports coach you have a finite group of people to work with in a season, you may get some kids transfer in but pretty much the players at the start of season are the players at the end of the season barring injuries or their parents moving to Zanzibar (we will miss you next year Ben). So in this scenario you cannot change the people however you might need to change the people, not that I am saying that you have to change them as they might already be perfect however in reality we all know pobody's nerfect (that sentence was as confusing to write as it was to read). So how do you change the people? For us at the Cary Claymores the challenge has been multifaceted as rugby is as foreign to most of our kids as I am, and probably almost as hard to understand. Let me rephrase that, rugby was foreign to most of our kids at the start of the season and although some are getting more fluent there is still plenty more to learn, there always is. Many of the kids playing with us had never even seen a game apart from maybe some 7's clips or Jonah Lomu highlights on the Tube of You's (not to be mistaken with the Welsh porn channel Ewetube). We now have kids that have changed completely in their understanding of the game they play in heaven, we changed the people.

On the, lets call it, "professional" side of my career, as a manager part of your job is also to be a coach, but in many cases you can change the people you manage by changing their employment status. Sometimes that threat potential can change the people, sometimes it cannot so the potential has to be realized to effect the change required. Basically that is a nice way of saying you have to fire some people sometimes to get the rest of the people (or some of the rest of the people) to change - not necessarily the best way to manage however sometimes you just cannot change people so you have to change the people. The bad management technique, that I have had the misfortune of working under once, of just being a couple of assholes until people want to leave because they don't want to work for a couple of assholes is a way to change people also.  However that methodology it is not a smart way of causing change as the damage done to the organization can take many years to correct and the people that were treated badly will recall in the future the assholedness of the managers action and probably not want to buy from them in a future role (make that definitely not) no matter how big a pile of bovine excrement that ex-manager tries to shovel when you speak to them years later - oddly specific I know but I am sure you get the gist.

Combining the two different methods of how to change people to change the people is the best way to effect change (ok, now the squishy thing between my ears is really starting to hurt), it can sometimes take a bit of prodding and cat herding in the case of youth rugby or can take some judicious employment status readjustments (when done correctly). Either way there is a way to change the people, techniques differ based on personnel and management styles, long term goals and the managers asshole quotient. Personally I prefer change affected by good coaching but I also know that sometimes changing personnel is warranted, however there is a right and wrong way to do it. On that note this weeks lesson is complete :)



This weeks blog was bought to you by the new sponsor of Poets Day - Paddy O'Beers in downtown Raleigh. Pop in, say Hi to Zack and he will give you a 10% discount on a free glass of water. Paddy O'Beers, where nobody knows your name, and they are unconcerned that you came, you want to go where people know, beers are not the same, you want to go where no one knows your name.

As always the contents of the above word jumble is 100% the unjustified opinions of someone who once might have done something somewhere and lived to sometimes tell the story. Any inference that any specific person may be an asshole is 100% deliberate and solely based on the fact that they are an asshole, no matter what they think :) If this weeks blog has offended you in anyway then there really is no hope for you.


Work hard, play hard and earn your inspiration

Happy Poets Day