So what exactly is management about then?

it's not easy being a sports manager, it's management in the public eye, which is a very dangerous place to manage anything.

There are also thousands of Joe Soaps with endless opinions, which you will hear ad finitum if the manager fails but will be buried deeper than a brookside character if he succeeds.

So what really is the managers job, well as you may know I run lots of management development programmes and I try to listen to to find out what makes some managers effective and some others fired.

The factors of success are...

1. Understanding how you affect / influence others.

This is a vital place to start, it's about having the respect of the individuals involved, some managers bring this with them and some create it as they go along, but any manager who does not have this gravitas, who cannot get the ears of his team is doomed from the start. Some managers use fear to create this, which is fine if you have endless resources, but for most manager they need to earn that respect.

2. Creating the vision.

No team has any chance unless they are pulling together, there has to be a common goal that everybody is pulling towards, this process of helping people to seperate the professional team goal from thier own personal goal is vital to success as a manager, although it is not a guarantee of getting there.

3. Creating the environment.

It's the managers role to create an atmosphere where staff find it easier and more enjoyable to operate than it used to be. A manager with good organisational skills who makes life easier and disassembles the obstacles in the way of his staff will gain the favour and respect of his players. They might still fail (which is sooo frustrating) but they have a better chance of you take care of the small stuff.

4. Communication skills.

The key thing here is to define what each staff member needs to do, and if they are not doing it, to find out what's in the way! If a manager can't discover and solve what's stopping team members doing their job, then it's totally impossble to improve that performance, and the manager will be judged on the collective performances of all the team members.

5. Exercising democratic authority.

You have to reserve the nuclear option, staff must know that you are "tough but fair" in otherwords, you will stretch people to the best of thier performance, but if after many efforts to improve that performance it's still not working out, managers must be able to be assertive and decisive in changing the team member because the managers job is to create the best team possible to deliver the best possible results.

6. Dealing with setbacks.

It's simply a fact of life that there will be setbacks, in fact it's the most difficult thing for many managers to accept, as a worker you are simply being judged from above and supported by your peers. As a manager you can get attacked from anywhere, staff, peers and senior management, as it becomes more high profile it can even be the media and anyone who can blog or get through to a radio show. The mental fortitude to keep going, to be tough, to see it through, even if half the country disagrees with you is necessary to be a good manager, but then is knowing when it's time to change... it's about how you deal with stress really, as the man said hundreds of years ago. "if you can keep your head while all others are losing thiers"

7. Keep developing and ressetting the vision.

A dedication to continual improvement is the only was to keep managers and teams fresh, whatever can be done can be done better, and although recovery, rest, and relaxation are absolutely vital, it's terribly important that teams are not allowed to sit back on thier achievments (it's the easiest thing in the world to happen, human nature and all that) so teams must be kept fairly on thier toes at all times.

8. Be lucky!

Waiting around!

In a previous life i was a "salesman", in fact i rang people who did not really want to see me and went to thier houses to sell them products that they did not really want to buy, and then i went to work the next day and did the whole thing all over again.

Not the most invigorating existence possible but sure it paid the bills and did'nt paddy kavanagh call insurance the last refuge of failed priests and poor scholars, or maybe it was poor priests and failed scholars.

one of the interesting things for me upon leaving the "sales" business is that i actually managed to convince myself that i was not a salesman anymore... the death of a salesman if you like, but i was dropping the name with all it's inferences. So for the last few years all those people who have not seen me in a while, who ask, "are you still in sales?" or "are you still in insurance?" are met with a very smug "no i work for myself now actually"

The truth is though i'm still in sales, in a funny way i was not running away from an occupation, just a label. through all the years of working as a salesman i never managed to shake of thinking of myself as Del Trotter or worse Jack lemmon from glengarry glenross (Gil from the Simpsons).

So this morning when i was all set and had the shirt ironed from my first appointment of the day, they phoned and cancelled and suddenly every feeling i ever had as a salesman came flooding back into my head..

They don't really want to see you, the product is useless, they'll never buy, you're no good..... one after another they whoosed through my brain, with me powerless to stop them...then i remembered i'm not that kind of salesman now...and that words are all about perception.

So if someone sees sales as gil from the simpsons, second hand car shyster, lying estate agent and they can't change thier perception, then they are far better off out of sales.. they'll always feel inadequate

However someone who see's sales as a positive helpful useful life enhancing occupation will not necessarily be better at it, but wow will they feel a hundred times better about themselves when they are working.

We are all in sales, whether we like it or not, solicitors, doctors, trainers, coaches, parents, sports people, it's just that some people don't connect it with the Arthur Miller "death of a saleman" stereotype...

for me..... i see it differently now...and i have to head into another meeting now....but if your man had not cancelled i would never have gotten to write this blog...but as time goes by i'm getting a bigger and better insight into the pure power of perception.

Cricket, Soccer, GAA, Basketball and Rugby.

Went to the soccer in Croke park on Saturday, and must now finally make an admission. i don't bloody like it...in fact i don't really enjoy watching soccer anymore, it's just boring.

I don't say this lightly, in the last two weeks i've been to two huge games, Celtic in the San Siro and Ireland in Croke park, which means i've shared the experience with almost 150,000 people and the truth is the emperor has no clothes, he's buck naked... secretly i bet loads of people find soccer boring but just can't say it because the entire populace is brainwashed by sky.

that's it for me.... the very odd celtic game perhaps, but just for auld times sake.

there was a very interesting sober discussion as the the merits of the above games before the game saturday, it seems that sport is a analogy for sex and that an affection for the various sports can tell a lot about one's preferences in the bedroom... here's a brief synopsis of the conclusions.

Soccer...... a lot of pointless pasing round the middle, when the action starts it tends to be very brief and only takes one or two passes to reach nirvana.

Basketball... relentless scoring... however it does tend to become boring after a while as most scores become fairly easy and routine, the only real excitement is in the last few minutes when it seems that despite all the scoring it might be ultimately pointless and meaningless.

Rugby.... a huge amount of huffing and puffing.... lots of build up to most scores... which take effort and committment to set up, wonderful sense of climax when finally the try is scored, possible over reliance on set plays in the modern game but overall a satisfying experience.

Cricket.... the ultimate in delaying gratification.... sometimes nothing happens for days... the opposite of basketball in the the big moments come very infrequently....a bit like fishing... but sometimes all that hanging around waiting for something to happen only heightens the satisfaction when it does.

GAA. ....A very physical game with lots of contact but more scores than rugby.... very little boedom involved, constant action but not always rewarded... good mix between build up and scoring rate...

Thye conclusion was that in cricket there's too much foreplay and very little action.... the tantric sport.

Basketball has far too much scoring and little or no build up... the Britney sport...sometimes exciting but ultimately empty..

GAA and Rugby have the mix about right..reasonable scoring rate and ultimate satisfaction when it all comes together.

and soccer....as i told you earlier....soccer is just plain boring.

Stephen Fry.

Totally fascinating documentary on BBC last night with the actor Stephen Fry bringing us on a journey through manic depression and bi polar disorder.

His main point seemed to be that his fear of the remedy (lithium) was greater than his fear of the depressions he goes through, and that he would not swap his mania for anything ...not all the tea in China was his exact phrase.

He was talking about the highs and lows of life, there are drugs that take away your ability to feel, but for him this "zombie" state would be a fate worse than death (and he's checked that out at close quarters a few times too)

I am in agreement with him here, although i am fortunate not to suffer with those illnesses, i do have some identification when he talks about the highs and lows of life, a guy once told me the secret to life was balance, calm, no highs or lows, just a serene calm that you felt on the inside.

I distinctly remember thinking.... how bloody boring...i'd hate a life like that, but until watching last night i actually had no idea why.... life is supposed to be highs and lows,... you can't feel one without the other... people who pretend otherwise are liars, so the feel good all the time merchants are just as buggered as the feel miserable all the time ones... the thing is... once we accept this, we can begin to work on it, we're dealing with reality now rather than some form of denial.

Some days life will feel wonderful

Some days life will feel desperate.

Otherwise it will just be plain boring.

Selfish - To be concerned with one's own interests.

Watched the new Adam Curtis documentary "the trap" last night on BBC2. He make's the case that modern society is predicated on the assumption that people are intrinsically selfish, this strikes me as the same theory that Richard Dawkins attempts to prove in the God Delusion.

I'm happy to go with the idea that people are basically selfish, but that does not mean that people are bad, the connection between selfish and bad is driven into us at a very early age, i remember telling my own children not to be selfish and that sharing is caring (ok maybe that was Barney) and still in the modern world we see grown up's constantly behaving in a selfish way.

But selfish is not necessarily bad!

There are 3 types of selfishness........

1. Stupid selfish.... you are a means to an end... if i had to i would kill you and eat you... i have no interest in you as a person at all... and this is explicit.

2. Smart selfish... you are still a means to an end... but i am prepared to forego the small stuff and co-operate with you in the hope that you will reciprocate and we can both win by this co-operation.

3. Rarely if ever seen... you are an end in yourself and i will help you even though it's not in my interest or may even be detrimental to me.

I think we have a lot of baggage with the word "selfish" therefore we act this way while dressing it up in all sorts of terms.... like advising..or helping out...or brownie points.

The truth (for me) is that we are all selfish, but that the world would be a better place if we were smart selfish...rather than either being ignorant selfish... or dressing it up to appear altruistic...

Most of the people who shaft us dress it up to make us believe it's for our own good.... watch QVC.

Blogging!

Following an interesting spat today on sarah carey's blog, i felt compelled to contribute on the responsibilities of bloggers... in fairness Sarah has a reasonable understanding of the issues but then this guy mark shows up and links critical comments on one's blog to "inviting someone into your living room and then having them crap on the carpet"

How can bloggers be arrogant enough to believe they can say what they like, about anything or anybody without entertaining the corrosponding responsibilities?

And i don't know about the bould mark...but i keep my living room fairly private... now when i put it in the middle of O'Connell St and allow anyone in the whole world to come in and have a look (while hoping they comment and tell me "oh what a lovely living room" ) then i'll undertand his point... until then i think it's tosh and rubbish.

Bloggers have huge responsibilities to ensure others are not libelled or slandered, there must be recourse for people who feel they have been hard done by... otherwise a weblog is a private fifedom where the blogger is crown prince and any edict may flow regardless of the consequences.

as for the anonymous bloggers.... i have no respect at all for thier views...if you can't put your name to it... don't bother publishing it...some of them can be funny...but that's about it...please don't expect us to take your political or social commentary seriously

well was it?

life is just full of turning points, stuff you get or stuff you don't get, and sometimes it's a bit random and it seems the gods don't like ya.

Other stuff is largely in our own hands, what we do, how hard we try, where we focus our energies, which tactics to employ, who to pick to be our allies.

And the outcome is never guaranteed either way, but what we do know is our responsibility to deliver the best of ourselves in spite of the lack of certainty, to give our everything regardless, and to do whatever we feel needs to be done to give ourselves the chance.... and then maybe the gods will look down and give us a wee smile.

The price of "right"

In his 1937 book "how to win friends and influence people" Dale Carnagie opens by explaining how most people are never wrong, how people's pride and self respect will rarely allow them to be wrong. One of the problems with accepting that our opinion may be "wrong" is that we can rarely ever see it ourselves, that we don't want to give in to others who think they are right.

I think part of the problem stems from our lack of ability to differenciate between fact and opinion. A fact is something that is scientifically verifiable, such as, "I am 6'6' tall, or I was born in County Roscommon".

Opinions on the other hand are what i think, or believe, or feel about myself or someone, or something, and opinions can be changed, usually by education and exposure, it's true that up to 150 years ago men did not think that women should hold property, and up until 90 years ago men were convinced women were too stupid to vote... these were opinions, it was also a pretty universal opinion that the planets moved around the earth and the world was flat..but these opinions faded in the light of education, exposure and understanding.

What does all this mean? I havent thought it out that well yet, but it appears (opinion) to me that opinions can be changed mentally, in order to change our opinion of ourselves we must "think" or "believe" something differently, wheras to change a fact we must take a certain action, it's a fact that i currently weigh 17st'8lbs... now if i want that to change i need to eat less and exercise more.

The truth is that all opinions are just that... opinions...and there is no absolute right or wrong involved, we only have helpful or unhelpful opinions... for example.. i want to get a ticket to a big game...i have two opinions i can choose from... i think i have little chance and it's hardly worth trying...or i am sure one will turn up so i'll contact absolutely everyone i know about it... only one of these gives us a good chance of getting one...

so (and i'm rambling now) we can change our beliefs, most of them are not ours anyway, they we're handed out like Sweets by people who knew feck all either....and we never take the time to look at them in the cold light of day... today i'm going to have a look at a few of mine... you could do a lot worse...

tomorow i'm heading to italy for the first time...it will be interesting to discover if italians are all suave, stunning, sleek creatures, who are good at football and fashion.... i have me doubts

Too much wondering!

A really interesting conversation with an old work colleague this morning threw up the age old question... are we better off not dreaming?

I'm not nearly as sure as i used to be on this one, my view a few years ago was that to stop dreaming was to stop growing and to stop living, but i am coming round to the view that you can overdo anything, and that this view is very cosy, but sets us up for a life of constant disapointment.

I had a conversation with my teenage daughter the other day that was about always wanting more, she'd like a bigger house, and a bigger car, and a bigger everything, and we chatted about how there will always be someone with a bigger one than you....and that brought me back to Alain De Button's book "status anxiety" and why people are suffering because of this incessant societal pressure for bigger, better, more. De Button's philosophical effort is miles ahead of Oliver James's "affluenza" which attempts to take on this issue from a psychological and sociological viewpoint.

Too many big words........ the deal is that we are worried all the time about keeping on the treadmill and how well we are doing, and the only solution we are presented with is to sell up and buy a cottage in Leitrim, grow our own nettles and drop out of society..... this way you have to either be a rat in the rat race or if you leave you have to renounce all rats and become self sufficient.

Surely to God there's more to it than that.....there has to be a middle ground...a place where we can participate in life without the constant nagging fear that we are not enough, without having to move to a place outside Mohill..... oh it's not easy being a wonderer!