by Peter A. Arthur-Smith, Leadership Solutions, Inc.®

“Most organizations ignore ‘Mid-point Project Blues’ at their peril.”

    Living in New York links your author to the New York Yankees baseball team. It’s early August and just past the All-Star break: that nominal mid-season break point. Before that point the Yankees were still well placed, even if things were becoming a little strained. But coming out of that mid-point the Yankees seem to be in a tailspin: its starting pitchers seem to be falling apart, key players have been injured, and post-season play is becoming increasingly doubtful. What’s going wrong?

To be fair, the Yankees lost two potential star-starter pitchers immediately after pre-season training. Both needed Tommy-John surgery, which will put them out of action until next season. Fortunately its promising group of batters stepped up to the plate to compensate. They helped make the Yankees a possible post-season contender at the outset.

Just prior to the All-Star game its pitching team was beginning to show signs of falling short of expectations, as increasing numbers of opposing team batters stepped-up to perform. Both its third and fourth string starters began to wilt under the pressure as did some of its relievers. And so its General Manager, Brian Cashman, jumped into action before the end of a July trade deadline.

Short-term it looks as though the team has poured cold water onto its performance shortfall. When organizations horse trade fairly significant numbers of team members like this, it impacts their rhythm, undermines morale and creates uncertainty. It’s a fairly bad habit among many organizations of all shapes and sizes to trade people like cattle without giving too much thought to the consequences. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t; with the pendulum usually swinging toward the latter. The question is: ‘Would the Yankees have been better staying largely with what they had, rather than roil the organization by trading away established players and bringing in fresh talent?’  Of course, Cashman has not been helped by being situated in a heavy media market with a plethora of so-called experts baying at his door every day.

We won’t know the answer to the trading and fresh talent question until closer to the end of season. It’s to be noted that the Boston Red Sox, who are clearly on a strong roll right now, hardly made any changes before the deadline: other than add a strong pitcher, who happened to be a Yankee cast-off from two years ago. There’s every reason to believe that its minimal changes are reflected in strong team performance and morale. It’s also good for sustaining team spirit and keeping team members focused: as evidenced by its trouncing of the Yankees over a four game series when they arrived at Fenway Park in early August. Going forward the Yankees could be floundering for some time, while fresh team members blend into the mix and find their feet. Your writer only hopes that Cashman and team manager, Aaron Boone, took this possibility into account when making their team change deliberations.

All of this serves as a great example of ‘Mid-Point Blues.’ To give the Yankees credit, it sprang into action, whereas so many organizations roll into a mid-year funk and never emerge out of it in any meaningful way. People tend to become somewhat complacent during the summer holiday period. Like the Yankees, maybe they got off to a decent start but then, because they weren’t properly positioned to succeed, they began to fall apart mid-year?

So let us focus on two key issues to ameliorate against this possibility:

• Good Positioning – Unlike the Yankees, at the outset of your new business year, you should ask:

» Do you have the right team and market (game) strategy to be a market (league) contender?

» Do you have the right specialist players (batters and pitchers) to place you as a market contender?

» Do you have the right leaders – strategic and team – (General Manager, manager and coaches) to provide enduring team leadership?

(Note: This writer believes the Yankees pitching coach and several of its pitchers – a legacy of last season’s disappointments – were suspect from the get-go.)

These are all tough questions to ask and even more to produce objective answers. The latter objectivity is the difference between a great leadership team and a mediocre one.

• Mid-Point Blues – So many organizations are oblivious of this phenomenon. Because they aren’t cognizant of it and therefore don’t prepare for it. At least with baseball, football and basketball leagues, they all have All-Star breaks which unwittingly nudge the good teams to reckon with their progress. We don’t have such equivalent events in other arenas of organizational life; hence they need to be “manufactured.”

   Companies, institutions and government entities can do the same, but they have to prepare for it. Either anticipate for it as the New Year dawns or during the springtime rush, so as to set aside time mid-year for key players to come together and ask some tough questions, such as:

» What’s gone right so far?

» What could go more right?

» Are we meeting all our year’s intentions?

» Are we still committed to all the perceived advantages of our strategy?

» What immediate future key steps will continue moving us forward to sustain momentum beyond our mid-year point?

» To what extent will wholesale change roil our organization too much to realize the perceived benefits?

It would have been interesting to have been a fly on the wall within the Yankees domain to see whether its leaders got together to ask these questions, or whether it was done by fiat. It would also have been interesting to see whether they framed such questions from a positive, motivational point of view. Finally, it would have been interesting to know if they asked the final critical question listed above. With the wholesale changes that occurred at the end of July, there’s a strong suggestion they didn’t ask such a question.

Only time will tell if they will pay a price for that. Radical changes are often not a clever strategy where people are concerned; especially when they can hit player or staff morale in all sorts of hidden ways. “Signing players who will improve the squad – but not disturb its harmony – when winning was the key,” noted the Chairman of well-renowned Manchester City soccer club: it has just completed a record-breaking season in the English Premier League.

So the potential lessons to be learnt from Mid-Point Project Blues are:

» Anticipate potential changes early, so you can take a gradualist approach to change.

» Ask the right, tough questions to understand the realities of your situation.

» You will ignore “Mid-Point Project Blues” at your ‘disappointment’ peril: plan for it.

To learn more about “building momentum,” talk with: