Hire Fast, Fire Slow?

[Randy Carson]

In the corporate world, there are two commonly held bits of wisdom when it comes to employees:

1. Hire slow. Fire fast.
2. When is the best time to fire someone? The first time you think of it.

Bad hiring decisions are expensive, and the sooner you admit a mistake, the less it costs you in the long run.

So, it strikes me as odd that in the world of college sports, when a coach is fired or resigns, the university seems to make every effort to announce the new coach ASAP. Common arguments for this approach are:

• It's a small world; all these guys know one another.
• AD's keep a short list in their top drawer.
• Recruiting is affected by the vacancy.
• Yada, yada, whatever.

I'm not impressed with our success at hiring great coaches. In the past 40 years, Bobby Cremins stands out in my mind. (You can name your favorite, if you want to...my meter started running in the Pepper Rogers era. This isn't that thread.)

This is about whether we should be taking more time and getting it right next time. Maybe that will have a bigger impact on recruiting than getting it done quick. Just sayin'.

 

[iceeater1969]

After the disaster Baylor hired an interim coach and did a 1 year coaching search - got Rhule.

After Rhule they spent real money to get their current coach from LSU
. He won and they gave long term contract.

We are cheap

 

[Vespidae]

I think one of the problems in college football is the belief that the coach is all knowing and you hire whoever you think your savior is. When I was in Japan, they don't think this way at all. First, they ask "what is the way" (or process, approach, etc) that we will use to succeed? Then, how do we increase our capability to deliver on that decision?

When I ran businesses, we wanted to the best in the world at one particular business model. The executives really didn't matter as much because we taught them the system when they arrived and we asked them to adapt to us, not us to them. It is HUGELY expensive to change business philosophies every 4 years and disruptive as well. You cannot mature with a philosophy if the philosophy is always changing.

Sports, in my view, is insane. It would be far better to develop an adaptive philosophy of the "Georgia Tech Way" of playing this sport or that sport and then, TStan should be raising money to make that Way the best in the world. You can argue that times change and requires massive restructuring (like what we are going through right now), but as my strategy professor said, that's more of a report card on bad management and delayed decision making.

I haven't met one person, including TStan, that would last 6 months working and running a Fortune 50 business.

 

[Backstreetbuzz]

I worked for a Fortune 500 company for 35 years before retiring. I would have to say I never worked with one executive that I was impressed with. It absolutely amazed me that some of them could find their way to work every day. Maybe they were also not impressed with me, but I managed to spend about 15 hours a week working for the company and about 30 hours a week working for myself, which netted me much, much more.

 

[lv20gt]

It's not the corporate world. I don't know of why people keep making arguments centered around logic based on that.

So how much time you think should be taken? 6 months? Think we would ever make a good hire bringing in a new coach in april?

Hiresare made quick because the new coach needs all the time he can get to put his staff together, manage a recruiting class, analyze the roster inherited, and then start organizing for spring practice and workouts and conditioning.

It's not about time. It's about timing.

There is also a very limited number of even possibly qualified candidates and it's usually easy to narrow that list down even further by those qho have no interest.

 

[Vespidae]

It's not the corporate world. I don't know of why people keep making arguments centered around logic based on that.

So how much time you think should be taken? 6 months? Think we would ever make a good hire bringing in a new coach in april?

Hiresare made quick because the new coach needs all the time he can get to put his staff together, manage a recruiting class, analyze the roster inherited, and then start organizing for spring practice and workouts and conditioning.

It's not about time. It's about timing.

There is also a very limited number of even possibly qualified candidates and it's usually easy to narrow that list down even further by those qho have no interest.

There is nothing in this list that an average manager doesn't see in the real world. Does the AA have to deal with revenue? Yes. Expenses? Yes. Hiring? Yes. Facilities? Yes. Media? Yes. Strategic Planning? Yes.

Welcome to the corporate world. The only difference is your product is sports.

 

[lv20gt]

There is nothing in this list that an average manager doesn't see in the real world. Does the AA have to deal with revenue? Yes. Expenses? Yes. Hiring? Yes. Facilities? Yes. Media? Yes. Strategic Planning? Yes.

Welcome to the corporate world. The only difference is your product is sports.

Well yeah, when you create a list specifically to make a comparison look the same it will look the same.

And I'm sure you'll continue to be mystified about why college athletics departments aren't run like fortune 500 companies.

 

[Sheboygan]

In the corporate world, there are two commonly held bits of wisdom when it comes to employees:

1. Hire slow. Fire fast.
2. When is the best time to fire someone? The first time you think of it.

Bad hiring decisions are expensive, and the sooner you admit a mistake, the less it costs you in the long run.

So, it strikes me as odd that in the world of college sports, when a coach is fired or resigns, the university seems to make every effort to announce the new coach ASAP. Common arguments for this approach are:

• It's a small world; all these guys know one another.
• AD's keep a short list in their top drawer.
• Recruiting is affected by the vacancy.
• Yada, yada, whatever.

I'm not impressed with our success at hiring great coaches. In the past 40 years, Bobby Cremins stands out in my mind. (You can name your favorite, if you want to...my meter started running in the Pepper Rogers era. This isn't that thread.)

This is about whether we should be taking more time and getting it right next time. Maybe that will have a bigger impact on recruiting than getting it done quick. Just sayin'.

IMO, "hire fast, fire slow", occurs in a lot of different worlds. Even ( and especially) in my current job working for my church.
In my former corporate life, it continually puzzled me that they would bring in the new "superstar" - instead of hiring from within- who turned out to be a dud.
My rationale for that was that the "superstar" could hide a lot of flaws with a big smile and a well written resume. Plus throw in a little ( or a lot) of slick salesmanship
and it was a slam dunk. And also, many of the higher hirings nowadays have agents ( salesmen ) working for them too.
Compare that to the current employee who might have rubbed a couple of people the wrong way for whatever reason. With the current employee , i.e., coach, you have a track record to evaluate on a daily basis.
I don't remember all of CPJ's coaches, but wonder if any were considered to be the HC......

 

[smokey_wasp]

Not realistic to treat this like a corporate hire, IMO. All the reasons you mentioned and yada yada'd are actually very good, logical reasons why no one does this. Sacrificing a whole recruiting class is going to affect you for years, as will any delay in a coach getting his system installed. Players aren't going to sit around in limbo waiting for you to find a coach. They are going to hit the portal if you don't make a timely hire. Your new hire will be walking into a self-inflicted disaster.

There are usually only a handful of realistic candidates who have mutual interest, anyway. I'm not sure what extra time is going to do for you.

Hiring coaches is a crapshoot. It just is. Not just for us, but for everyone. There are simply too many variables to predict who is going to be successful. We've actually been pretty fortunate on the football side to get 3 pretty good ones in a row with GOL, CCG, and CPJ.

I can understand the desire to find some "secret sauce" to ensure success, but it isn't realistic.

 

[RonJohn]

There is nothing in this list that an average manager doesn't see in the real world. Does the AA have to deal with revenue? Yes. Expenses? Yes. Hiring? Yes. Facilities? Yes. Media? Yes. Strategic Planning? Yes.

Welcome to the corporate world. The only difference is your product is sports.

I think the big difference is that changing a HC is less like hiring a new president. It is more like hiring an entire new executive staff.

If General Mills fired their CEO and president and took one year to hire new ones, the system of executives would still run the company. Factories would still make Cheerios. I could still go to the store to purchase Multi-Grain Cheerios and would likely not see, hear, or understand any difference.

If a college football team fires their HC, very few of the systems can continue to operate.

• Strength and conditioning could continue.
• Recruiting would be extremely difficult. Not only would recruits not know who the HC is going to be, they wouldn't even know if the position coaches recruiting them would be on staff after a new HC is hired. (I can't remember a case in a Fortune 500 company in which a new president cleared out the entire upper and middle management of the company)
• What would the players practice in the "volunteer" player only practices? They won't even know what offense or defense the new coach is going to run.
• If it takes a year, what happens during the next season? Does the team continue with the offensive/defensive systems that were not working before? Does the AD, a booster, or some guy off the streets dictate to any remaining staff that they operate a different offense/defense?

Also, it would be like telling the players on the team that the next year is meaningless. The team would lose an entire recruiting season, so the "meaningless" years would probably stretch into the entire time that most of the players are still eligible. Even before the portal and one free transfer, many or most of the players would transfer in that situation. The coach hired one year later would enter will an extremely reduced roster, and it would take years to even get back to being competitive.

There are timing issues that prevent taking a very long time to do a meticulous search after the coach is fired. However, TStan should already be quietly gathering information and having off the record discussions to find a new coach. If the team has a remarkable year this year, then the information gathering and informal discussions don't hurt anything. If the coach is fired after this year, then there should already be a list of targets to go after. If big boosters believe that TStan will be shown the door if the season is bad, then people in the GTAA should be doing the same things.

 

[kg01]

It's not the corporate world. I don't know of why people keep making arguments centered around logic based on that.

......

Exactly. Anyone that doesn't recognize this is completely missing the conversation.

 

[boger2337]

Being one of the 5 cheapest teams in the power 5 doesn't help. you can wait months and still get what you pay for. It all comes down to money. Unless you pray you find a diamond in the rough it's purely luck getting a solid coach with what we are willing to spend.

 

[bobongo]

The two most important qualities in a head coach are leadership and organizational skills, IMO. Get someone with those qualities and everything else will fall into place.

Collins has little in the way of organizational skills, or he would not have assembled such a poor staff and stuck with it until induced to change it. He thought he had leadership skills, but even he must be doubting that by now.

 

[bobongo]

Being one of the 5 cheapest teams in the power 5 doesn't help. you can wait months and still get what you pay for. It all comes down to money. Unless you pray you find a diamond in the rough it's purely luck getting a solid coach with what we are willing to spend.

I don't believe it's just pure, dumb luck. Of course, luck could be involved, and often is, but there's also the element of an AD getting down and doing his homework, and knowing what qualities are most important to fill the job. Any AD could hire someone with a proven track record in P-5 if he had the money, but we need someone who will be properly recognized by our AD as having the qualities needed to succeed in our particular situation if given the chance. We had better be thinking and looking outside the box. All I'm saying is that an AD worth his salt will get down to work and find us somebody whom we can afford and who will succeed here. And I have no doubt that such a coach is out there, somewhere. It's TStan's job to find him.

 

[Vespidae]

Well yeah, when you create a list specifically to make a comparison look the same it will look the same.

And I'm sure you'll continue to be mystified about why college athletics departments aren't run like fortune 500 companies.

There is nothing different about running organizations. They may differ a bit, but the basic concepts are the same. We clearly differ on that, so there's no point to respond.

 

[Vespidae]

I think the big difference is that changing a HC is less like hiring a new president. It is more like hiring an entire new executive staff.

If General Mills fired their CEO and president and took one year to hire new ones, the system of executives would still run the company. Factories would still make Cheerios. I could still go to the store to purchase Multi-Grain Cheerios and would likely not see, hear, or understand any difference.

If a college football team fires their HC, very few of the systems can continue to operate.

• Strength and conditioning could continue.
• Recruiting would be extremely difficult. Not only would recruits not know who the HC is going to be, they wouldn't even know if the position coaches recruiting them would be on staff after a new HC is hired. (I can't remember a case in a Fortune 500 company in which a new president cleared out the entire upper and middle management of the company)
• What would the players practice in the "volunteer" player only practices? They won't even know what offense or defense the new coach is going to run.
• If it takes a year, what happens during the next season? Does the team continue with the offensive/defensive systems that were not working before? Does the AD, a booster, or some guy off the streets dictate to any remaining staff that they operate a different offense/defense?

Also, it would be like telling the players on the team that the next year is meaningless. The team would lose an entire recruiting season, so the "meaningless" years would probably stretch into the entire time that most of the players are still eligible. Even before the portal and one free transfer, many or most of the players would transfer in that situation. The coach hired one year later would enter will an extremely reduced roster, and it would take years to even get back to being competitive.

There are timing issues that prevent taking a very long time to do a meticulous search after the coach is fired. However, TStan should already be quietly gathering information and having off the record discussions to find a new coach. If the team has a remarkable year this year, then the information gathering and informal discussions don't hurt anything. If the coach is fired after this year, then there should already be a list of targets to go after. If big boosters believe that TStan will be shown the door if the season is bad, then people in the GTAA should be doing the same things.

Please read my comment above. I am referring to the AA. It SHOULD be run like a business. It IS a business.

 

[JacketFan137]

It's not the corporate world. I don't know of why people keep making arguments centered around logic based on that.

So how much time you think should be taken? 6 months? Think we would ever make a good hire bringing in a new coach in april?

Hiresare made quick because the new coach needs all the time he can get to put his staff together, manage a recruiting class, analyze the roster inherited, and then start organizing for spring practice and workouts and conditioning.

It's not about time. It's about timing.

There is also a very limited number of even possibly qualified candidates and it's usually easy to narrow that list down even further by those qho have no interest.

people want to act like they are experts because they had a good job and for some reason that means we should respect their opinion on the matter.

if we let this forum run the team it would be even worse and we’d be in even greater debt as we hire, fire and rehire constantly.

they are also ignoring the football implications of not having a coach.

 

[RamblinRed]

I'll add that in general GT has made very good hires in the FB program over the last 40 years.

IMO Ross, O'Leary, Gailey and Johnson were all above average college coaches (some more than others). If they weren't GT wouldn't have won nearly as much as it has over the last 4 decades. Without an above avg coach GT is a lower third (maybe lower quarter) P5 program in pretty much all other aspects. It takes a really good coach and staff to make GT an above .500 program.

The hiring schedule in college athletics is largely dictated by the recruiting schedule.

 

[iceeater1969]

You guys are talking past each other

Each make good points with long well reasoned posts which are embedded in the DNA of corporate executives.

The timeline from great to bad or bad to good in football is - directly connected to people and there skill sets.

Money talks and people w skills walk .

At my epcm consulting company we got and retained the best people by moving the fortune 500 executive compensation package down into our regular managers. We paid good but not great monthly salary and gave huge yearly performance bonuses. For the great guys we let them convert their bonus to stock ( which when we sold resulted in some very happy managers) so they became owners.
I think we need to get very very creative and generous w position coach performance bonuses.

CAN GT PAY QUALITY NFL POSITION COACHES ENOUGH TO CONSIDER GT ? IF WE GET THEM THE NIL MEANS WAY LESS.
RECRUITING PLAYERS PLUS OC AND DC GETS GETS EASIER.

 

[roadkill]

Agree, many good points on both sides of the "argument". GTAA is a business - but a non-profit, and one with somewhat different goals and objectives than a typical Fortune 500 company. Regardless, there are some basic management principles that ought to be adhered to. College football is going through a crazy era now, with head coach salaries going nuts, NIL (all players ("employees"?) causing them to be free agents, and other changes across the conferences. It is not an easy landscape to navigate.