In Others’ Words
August 22, 2014
I’ve read and heard multiple times – so I’ve come to believe it’s at least partly true – that one of the techniques that marketing departments or agencies use when developing campaigns to promote a product or service is to look at it from the consumer’s, customer’s or client’s perspective.
The point is often brought home that if management would use this technique as much as marketers, then management would be more effective and would label itself, rather than marketers, as the “creative team.” It chafes me to hear a CEO say he or she wants to know what “creative” has to say about a sponsorship initiative before the CEO will offer an opinion.
Thinking about what our customers want doesn’t require that leaders suspend their personal beliefs or reverse experience-based opinions. It merely asks that we look at things from a different and sometimes even opposite point of view. And to be truly revealing, it asks that we try to put into words where other people stand on a particular topic.
It asks us to actually try to describe what our customers see from where they stand and what they say they want. For example, in our work, it would ask administrators to think about and actually describe what coaches want, and vice versa. And it asks both coaches and administrators to think about and put into their own words what student-athletes want, and what their parents want.
This has been an ongoing part of my life, provoked I suppose by my marriage of 42 years to a woman whose political views often point 180 degrees from my own. And this approach has been especially enlightening on school sports’ most troublesome topics, some of which we are tackling at this time, like ...
- Out-of-season coaching rules
- Junior high/middle school programming
- Health and safety mandates
Membership Mentality
September 16, 2014
The Michigan High School Athletic Association is a membership organization – an association of schools, not individuals – that usually doesn’t think of itself as such. Most member-based organizations work hard to recruit and retain members because member dues are an important revenue source.
That’s not true for the MHSAA which charges no membership dues, no sport sponsorship assessments and no tournament entry fees. The MHSAA is free to join and its tournaments are free to enter.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think like a member-based organization or that none of the dynamics of membership-based organizations apply here.
For example, we are in the business of recruiting and retaining contest officials; and while we registered approximately 10,600 officials last year, that number is significantly lower than six years ago, and the average age is increasing. So, like any other member-based organization, we need strategies for attracting and holding new, young officials.
A new tactic launched this fall is the “Be The Referee” feature (Click Here) on a Lansing-based sports talk daily radio show and weekly television show. Our staff explains rules and points of emphasis, and then we make a pitch for new officials.
But the most fundamental strategy for recruiting and retaining officials is consistent, ceaseless efforts to improve officials’ working environment. This means improving the assigner-official relationship before events and the sportsmanship at events.
Ultimately, if assigners treat new officials unprofessionally and spectators treat them abusively, we have no chance to increase the numbers and decrease the age of MHSAA registered officials.