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Persuasion

April 13, 2012

“People are persuaded by relationships more than reasons.”

That’s the one statement I remember from a radio interview I was inattentively listening to during a recent long drive.  I don’t remember the topic, the speaker, the interviewer or the radio station; but that single statement soaked further into my soul as the miles passed by.

I began to think of many instances when I gave the benefit of the doubt to a person I knew well.  And the times when both sides of a debate had merit but I decided in favor of the source I knew better and trusted more.  Relationships.

I thought of my own failures to direct a change or defend the status quo because I depended solely on solid rationale and disregarded the biases and baggage of those I needed to influence.  When I didn’t take time to cultivate allies because I was so certain that the idea itself was powerful enough to carry the day.  When my confidence that “what was right” would ultimately prevail, but it did not.  Relationships.

Twice during the past four months we have seen a preview of how, more frequently in the future, people will attempt to influence decision making in school sports without building genuine relationships.  Once as a first strategy, and once as a last resort, a constituent of our state utilized the World Wide Web to generate support for a policy change.

In each case an online petition was initiated that generated, from across the nation and around the world, a large number of emails, many of which were vulgar, profane or ridiculous, triggering all email to the MHSAA through that website to be filtered as spam, never to be seen by the decision-makers.  This approach is the antithesis of effective persuasion.

No organization of substance should be swayed by bored souls surfing the web who, by mere chance, stumble across an issue and then ring in, without real knowledge of that issue, and no real stake in its outcome.

Change of Pace

January 30, 2015

Michael Schwimer is little known to us in Michigan. He was a 6-8, 240-pound relief pitcher out of the University of Virginia who was drafted in the 10th round by the Philadelphia Phillies in 2008.

In his minor league career, Schwimer earned 20 wins against 10 losses with a respectable 2.51 ERA. He struck out an eye-popping 12 batters per nine innings.

When Schwimer made his Major League Baseball debut for the Phillies in August of 2011, he served up a game-tying home run to the first batter he faced. He was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays in February of 2013, and was released by the Blue Jays the following August. You might say Schwimer majored in the minors. That’s where he peaked as a professional baseball player.

As a player, Schwimer made few waves. He wasn’t a “game changer.” And yet, he may still be known as one who helped to change the game itself.

Schwimer is widely reported to be the first MLB player to use a glove that was made of synthetics, not leather (which weighs twice as much), and was made using a plaster cast of his hand. It was a custom-made, form-fitting glove.

The result looks almost like a toy glove, fit for T-ball; but MLB gave it a “thumbs up” in December of 2011. MLB players have been warming to the glove, although very slowly.

To which Schwimer responds: “It takes forever for any change to occur. But when change happens, it happens really fast.”

That almost sounds like something Yogi Berra would have said – like, “it takes forever for change to occur, and then it doesn’t.” But experience very often teaches us the truth of this sentiment.

As the MHSAA reprocesses two of its toughest topics ever – out-of-season coaching rules and 6th-graders’ roles in school sports and the MHSAA – it seems like there is no progress toward change. And no change is the possible outcome of both long journeys.

But it’s also possible that, for one or both topics, the time will come when wisdom and will combine to create constructive change, which then seems to be occurring almost overnight.

My hope is that we find that formula before a rash of problems causes a tipping point that results in a rush toward solutions that are poorly conceived and/or politically imposed by outside entities.