Happy New Year!
In the season of Bowl Games and NFL Playoffs, you just cannot underestimate the power of football in the United States.
And put it in Pennsylvania or Texas or Florida or Georgia and you have a super-powerfully influential sport.
For university’s in the football business you just have to understand that graduation rates may fall for athletes, academic standards may be hurt in the US New and World report annual rankings but the overall student body will love it. With painted faces walking around campus with no shirts on or bikini tops in frozen weather it is an iconic American vision on the college campus today not to mention alumni and television dollars pouring into their … company… uh college.
Those of us that attended schools that don’t have a big football program are envious but like my neighbor up the street who made up for it by adopting Michigan as his preferred college football program (he flies the Michigan banner on his barn) we survive and pick a team and follow them anyway.
Penn State was one of those teams for many people until yet another sex scandal hit another major Pennsylvania institution ( the Archdiocese of Philadelphia the other) much to former Senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s chagrin.
So the business law point of all this has to be yet another situation where institutions are dwarfed by personalities in them. This is not unusual in a entrepreneurially minded country just as Bill Gates dominated Microsoft and the late Steve Jobs dominated Apple Computer Co., the power of personality in our age transcends some organizations.
So how is this managed?
When the person, the founder or the iconic football coach messes up so royally that a double standard is used to confront the problem — like let’s ignore it– the institution is fatally wounded. It leads to severe damage whether your PR firm thinks so or not you should investigate it because in all likelihood it is happening in your organization.
Is there someone who is such a royal pain in the ass that people begin to create new systems to deal with them?
Are incompetent people protected?
What of succession planning and delegation of authority to mentor new leaders in a positive way so that an institution does not become so reliant on the image of the iconic [fill in the blank] partner, founder, engineer etc that the entire company sits in wait for change to come but it doesn’t until the New York Times is at your door?
Whether we believe it or not many companies especially smaller, close corporations and family businesses have the same succession strategy as North Korea!
So try to resolve to avoid the Joe Paterno problem and look towards modern techniques to evaluate the state of your company with key employees.
A little effort now that may be slightly painful is better than the implosion that occurs when you look the other way just ask Joe Paterno!