Over the weekend the Washington Post’s Mark Giannnoto wrote an interesting article about coaches lobbying to influence the NCAA Basketball Committee regarding at-large selection into the NCAA tournament. Over the past 10 years former George Mason Head Coach Jim Larranaga has been the loudest voice in the wilderness trumpeting the cause for Mid-majors to be included in the field. Looking at the success of Mason, VCU, Butler and other non-BCS teams, Larranaga’s message had seemed to be substantiated by the results. While his rhetoric had some validity, everyone who has any connection to the NCAA selection process, knows that all the banter in the world is not going to change the decisions by the committee.
Now fast-forward to this week to the sunny climes of South Beach where Larranaga now resides as Head Coach at the University of Miami, his message had an entirely different ring to it. About 180 degrees from his thought process for the last ten years, Coach L opines, “In this particular year looking at their non-conference performance, it would appear to me that those spots should be reserved for high majors who played a much more difficult non-conference schedule and were far more successful than any of the teams in the mid-majors.” Of course, Laranaga’s Hurricanes are one of the “high-majors” who are in contention with many mid-majors for the last few at-large spots in the tournament. With tongue in cheek Virginia Tech veteran head coach and bubble participant Seth Greeenberg remarked, “Jim's a smart guy. It’s amazing, though, eight, nine months, he had revelations.”
While we all understand that every leader is charged with supporting his team, leaders and coaches must understand by changing one’s value system and thought processes because of their own particular situation, people quickly understand that the leader is self serving and self absorbed, characteristics that are severe hurdles to engaging constituents. Every leader needs to understand that people are not naïve and oblivious to the past. Credibility plays such an important role in getting buy-in from followers, that any breach of credibility will detract from long-term success for the organization. Additionally by trying to elevate your situation by demeaning the success of others is always a bad idea. In an interview with David Teel, Larranaga totally discounted his former school when asked would you be saying the same thing if you were at Mason with (at the time of interview) a 14-2 conference record, he responded, "... if you look at their non-conference strength of schedule, it is in the 300's." (Actually at the time of the interview, Mason's strength of schedule was 239.) "That's not the type of resume the committee has looked for over the years." My parents told me, "If you can't say something nice...."
To make the Larranaga flip flop that much more a bad idea, the reality is that what he says will have absolutely no effect on the final outcome of who is selected as at-large participants. When a leader talks just to hear themselves talk, they risk saying something that can hurt their own personal image. In this case by trying to position his own personal well-being at the expense of his former employers, Coach L has drained all the goodwill he built with the George Mason family over the last 15 years. I encourage everyone to focus on themselves and what they can control and not focus on what they cannot control. Your time will be used much more productively.
No comments:
Post a Comment