Seattle Seahawks’ Fabulous Collaborative Adventure
It’s not often that you see or hear the terms “collaboration” or “cooperation” in conjunction with the high-stakes, often ego-driven world of professional sports. But, by gosh and by golly, those are precisely the words we are hearing here in Seattle in connection with the much-beleaguered Seattle Seahawks. Not long after former USC Mega-Coach Pete Carroll was introduced, to great fan fare, as the ‘Hawks new head coach, it was announced that John Schneider – now formerly with the Green Bay Packers – has become the team’s new General Manager.
The big news is: According to Seattle Seahawks CEO Tod Leiweke, Mr. Schneider will work in conjunction with Coach Carroll in a new Seahawks’ structure that will have the GM and head coach working in a collaborative partnership on personnel decisions.
Now that, my friends, is a new twist on things.
Typically, professional sports organizations establish their administrative/managerial structure in a vertical “top/down” manner. A Head Honcho is hired who makes on and off the field personnel decisions, from who the head coach is, to which players to draft, trade for, or sign in free agency. The head coach, in turn, decides who will be his/her assistants, and trains and manages the team.
Apparently, the intention with the Seahawks is that Pete Carroll and John Schneider will work together in a mutually cooperative fashion to build and structure the football team through trades, the draft, and free agency. They, in turn will work closely with Mr. Leiweke on these personnel decisions. Coach Carroll, of course, will be the field manager of the team.
How refreshing is this!
John Clayton, the well known national and local Senior Football Analyst, has referred to this set up as a “three-headed” monster. This is certainly an understandable reaction to a very unorthodox way of doing business in professional football, where people are paid millions of dollars to make key decisions, and typically have strong personalities and egos to match their stature.
It is, of course, way too early to judge any of this. At the end of the day wins, as in “Going to the Superbowl”, will most certainly define the long term success of this “experiment”.
The Seattle Seahawks are to be commended for striving to create maximum efficiency and reward through cooperative problem solving. Let’s give this experiment some breathing room and see what happens!
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