Lets say you’re trying to build a team. You have some young people on the team who are getting some much needed experience. While your team is not enjoying much success you feel that this experience will pay off in the long run. In an effort to be succesful now you bring in two industry veterans who have a track record of not making any teams better and whose presence will stunt the growth of the young people you’ve invested time and money in. This is how the Memphis Grizzlies do business and why they will never be a good(let alone, great) team under the current leadership. Here they have a great young nucleus, but instead of letting them develop over time they decide to bring on Allen Iverson and Zach Randolph, two notorious ball hogs and chemistry killers. I find myself scratching my head over these decisions, but then I remind myself,”This is the Grizzlies.” What’s this got to do with anything useful I might have to say? Too many times, I’ve seen churches, organizations, and universities scrap long range plans by trying to hit a home run with a big name. Again, too many times, no consideration is given to how the new person will fit into the organization. Let’s say you bring in someone to your organization whose been very successful in their area of expertise, but have no idea how to work or deal with the people on your team. That spells disaster faster than you can say “Bad PR.” Even if you’re bringing them in to overhaul a certain area(which may be desperate for it) you’ve got to give consideration to how it affects the entire team, church, organization, etc. Knowing when and how to do all of this is a mark of good(or poor) leadership. End up on the wrong side of these kind of decisions too many times and you could find yourself shopping yourself out to anyone who will take you. Unless, those in authority over you are clueless themselves and have no qualms with you running their organization into the ground. In that case, you’ll enjoy a long run with the Memphis Grizzlies or …um, other organizations I know.
Well written, but “universities”? Maybe so.