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Cake or Death? - Manage This. Please.

Goaldeje

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We've all had managers, yes? Good ones, bad ones, horrendous ones. We've all had people who exert a great deal of control over one aspect of our life, sometimes to the point that it impacts other areas of our life. I apologize in advance, but I want you to remember what it was like when you had your worst manager ever.

You know, the guy who scheduled you at times you specifically requested off? The gal who was unrelenting and demanding, without ever expressing anything but distaste and distrust of your work. Maybe they belittled you to no end, perhaps just flat ignored you. Maybe they took your favorite red stapler away.

Whatever the reason you disliked/hated/loathed that person, think back to your work experience during that time. Were you, at all, motivated? Did you do your best work? Did you accomplish what you were brought on board to accomplish or did you come up short?

So many times, we come up short in those situations. We don't feel valued, our work loses its importance, and our performance suffers. Certainly, we bear the lion's share of the responsibility for lack of performance; but our managers do as well.

Can you imagine what it would have been like to work for Dan Snyder ten years ago? Ugh. Impatient. Demanding. Irrational. Belittling. Just plain terrible. Is it different now? Maybe. Maybe not. We've been told he has stepped back into the shadows to leave the "football" people alone to make their decisions. Does anyone really believe his presence doesn't permeate the thoughts on those who work in Redskins Park?

Is it possible that the reason Jay Gruden played a gimpy Trent Williams this year was because he needed any kind of an edge he could get to finish at more than 3 wins? When he was hired, I doubt Jay told Bruce and Dan that 3 wins sounded about right, 4 if things went well. I'm guessing he forecasted 6 at a minimum. And as the season wore on and that 6 got further and further away, he panicked.

Or how about Mike Shanahan, coming off 6-10 and 5-11 before catching lightening in a bottle with a transformative rookie who exceeded everyone's expectations and dazzled the league? Any chance one of the reasons he continued to play Griffin in that playoff game was because in the back of his mind he wanted to prove to the Impatient One that he could still win a playoff game?

We'll never know the answers to those questions of course. But I've worked for plenty of demanding, unreasonable bosses in my sales career, and I can tell you how much it drains you. How many times I have inflated my forecast artificially, or been tempted to inflate my results to get them off my back. Sales is a pretty bottom-line business. So is coaching in the NFL from the looks of things. I can tell you about the times I've been demoralized because I wasn't hitting my sales plan or my forecasts, and how it impacted my efforts and results in a negative way.

The flip side of that coin is what happens when you get a great manager. Someone who empowers you to try new things, to innovate ideas and pushes you to excellence. I've had some of them too. They do exist. We need to find one. NOW. Dan Snyder may very well have stepped back to the shadows, but his past actions hang in the air like a stink you can't quite get rid of. We need a buffer. Someone to stand in between Dan and the team and empower our coaches and players to be excellent.

I don't know who that would be. Judging from his press conference the other day, it isn't Bruce Allen. If Dan is smart (and so what you will about the guy, stupid he ain't), he will find THAT guy. THAT guy needs to set the tone at Redskins Park, one of empowerment and accountability and excellence. THAT guy can relegate Bruce to whatever role he thinks would work - ambassador, charity guy, contracts guy, whatever. As long as he doesn't have to give another press conference again, we should be in better shape. Let THAT guy do the talking from now on.

Go find him, Danny. Go find a leader of men. Let him evaluate the personnel in the building and make changes as he sees fit. We had that guy in Joe Gibbs for a while. Go find someone who can lead like Joe. Bring him home.​

More...
 
This. Just...this. *sigh*
 
I've had some pretty bad managers in my day. From retail to warehouse, whether I was part of the management team or the lowest guy on the proverbial totum pole. Sometimes these people get into a management role & they take off with their belief system & somehow are able to convince their bosses that treating their employees like hot garbage on a scorching August day is the way to go. I currently work for a guy who strangely takes both roles. Best & worst manager I've ever worked for. It is a twilight zone type of environment where he rewards you with gifts that are completely unrelated to the job (he once brought me a Redskins jacket for catching a costly error & it turned out that jacket was the wrong size...so he brought me another one-I mean, wow) & then that same day, has been known to eat your soul for making what would appear to you & the rest of the crew as simply misspeaking or not giving an exact part number to locate a product in the warehouse. I have loved & hated this guy within the same 5 minutes on multiple occasions. My work sometimes suffers for it. I believe in having & maintaining a solid work ethic & letting the quality of my work speak for itself, where so many others concern themselves with quantity (and quantity is not the name of the game where I work).

I said all that because as I was reading the OP, I understood where you were coming from with this. On the days when I have been shamed for not speaking properly in front of several of my coworkers, I have not really been interested in maintaining that work ethic & putting forth my greatest effort. It's not right, but it is natural to respond that way. On the other hand, the days when he rewards me for my good work at any level, it lifts me up & I am willing to take whatever measures I already live by to the next level & really try to shine. I am often held back & hindered be the fact that I am limited to what I can & cannot do in this job, what role I can take & what level of leadership I am granted because of him, as well as others in the management team, but I try to take it as far as I can.

When I apply my scenario to the Redskins & what we have seen go on at Redskins Park for so long, I can kinda see it like it is at my job right now. The best & worst of management. The best being that the owner really takes interest in the players' lives outside of football (ie. flying the entire organization to Miami for Sean's funeral) & the worst being when he sees someone in FA that he cannot be thwarted from going out to get (ie. Fat Albert) & forcing the Redskins (and us, the fans) to deal with his decisions.

All that said, I can't disagree with you Goaldeje. All the elements & signs point to Bruce being a "yes" man & is starting to remind me too much of Vinny. He seems to not really have the answers that we seek & if he does have them, he is either not interested in exploring those answers because it may mean he has to give up his position or doesn't really know what he's supposed to do about it. I honestly don't know which is worse. Knowing, but refusing to fix it or being completely oblivious to what really is wrong, despite millions of people telling him. Whatever the case, a GM that can manage this team properly & be that buffer between Snyder/Allen & the team/fans is exactly what we need. Someone whose only concern is getting this team back to it's winning ways & actually knows how to do it. I have read & heard on several occasions AJ Smith's name being dropped for this role. I am not always knowledgeable about GMs & "behind the scenes" guys around the league, but that name I know. Any reason to suspect that he would come here & if so, would it be the right move for the Redskins?

We need for this FO to take a long, hard, honest look at itself in the mirror & recognize it's weaknesses. "Are we doing everything we can to make this work?" "Are we, in any way, shape, or form standing in the way of progress ourselves?" "What else can we do to change the course of this franchise to get it back on track?" And the all too important question, "are we willing to take those necessary steps, even if that means removing myself from the equation & allowing someone else to make the football decisions to get us back on track?" And honestly, my feeling is (and I doubt I'm alone here) until they take a look in that mirror, I think any season we actually have a winning season will probably be a fluke & will not last. And, the worst part of that will be that the winning will only fortify the FOs thinking that what they are doing is ok. Even though everyone else around them can see that it isn't.

So, here we go, another off season of uncertainty, debate, waiting, & hoping. All of us keeping in mind where we truly are as a franchise & I truly believe that if the Redskins don't start looking like & acting like a real NFL franchise, we are not so far removed from the stands looking like old Caps games when they were playing at the Cap Center, when you could get tickets for $4 in the "Eagles Nest" & then walk down to behind the glass & sit down because there was only 4,000 people there & even if you sat in someone's seat, all you had to do was move down a little to the next empty row. Redskins fans have started becoming more disenfranchised with this team & the way things have been handled. Even the most loyal of us have started looking for other things to do on Sundays because we can't take the heartache anymore. So, yeah....the Redskins need a great manager. And now. Because if they don't right this ship, long-term, & sooner rather than later, I fear for the future of the Washington Redskins.
 
GCS, not gonna get into much of your post other than to say I don't agree with your point about the owner getting involved in players live outside of football. Yes, that move to take all the players to Sean's funeral was beyond generous. But it is not healthy how the majority of the time it's only the big-ticket players Snyder treats with such reverence. I would suggest that is more damaging to the team than it is good.

How many players did Snyder fly to Alabam on Redskins' One to see the surgeon when injured? It alienates players and affects moral.
 
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GCS, not gonna get into much of your post other than to say I don't agree with your point about the owner getting involved in players live outside of football. Yes, that move to take all the players to Sean's funeral was beyond generous. But it is not healthy how the majority of the time it's only the big-ticket players Snyder treats with such reverence. I would suggest that is more damaging to the team than it is good.

How many players did Snyder fly to Alabam on Redskins' One to see the surgeon when injured? It alienates players and affects moral.

Oh...I guess I didn't say that right. My bad. I wasn't necessarily trying to say that him taking interest in a players life outside of football is a good thing when, in fact, as you stated, it's the big-ticket players he's doing that with. I guess I was meaning to say that he seems to care about the players & their families & I have heard stories of how he has taken interest in all of his players in the past, not just a few. That he has been personally involved with them & their families & not just the big-ticket players. Now, I guess the truth is, I really don't know how in depth that really is or even how true it is, only that I have heard those stories. But I didn't mean to imply that it's good that the owner of the team favors one or few players over the rest & takes real interest in them while virtually ignoring the rest of them. Just that he is a personable guy with the players as a whole.
 
Yeah, I do not doubt his love for team...I just think his love for money is greater.
 
Dan's tenure as Redskins owner has often involved a lot of window dressing.

Hires/signings that have often been viewed by the fan base as steps in the right direction for this organization, over time, have proven to be mirages.

The hiring of Bruce Allen was the latest example of such...a guy with ties to the storied history of the team, a "real" GM who would help push the franchise in the right direction after the fiasco that was the Vinny Cerrato tenure.

Dan has perfected the art of selling hope.

I guess my point is that finding the right guy to run this organization professionally will be a monumentally difficult and almost impossible task until Dan himself truly takes a look in the mirror, figures out what he needs to do to be a better owner, and takes concrete steps on a personal level to get to that point.

After such a terrible track record since having his fingerprints on this organization, I'm not personally convinced he's done a good enough and honest enough job of self-evaluation.

That's the starting point that's likely been overlooked in a huge way.
 
Yup...we all kinda hoped he'd learned his lesson after the hiring of Zorn instead of Gregg Williams.
 
Dan has perfected the art of selling hope.

I honestly believe that that is coming to an end. Meaning that we as a fanbase are starting to get wise to this & I don't know that he will be able to keep that up for too much longer without having some real substance backing it up in the future.

I guess my point is that finding the right guy to run this organization professionally will be a monumentally difficult and almost impossible task until Dan himself truly takes a look in the mirror, figures out what he needs to do to be a better owner, and takes concrete steps on a personal level to get to that point.

After such a terrible track record since having his fingerprints on this organization, I'm not personally convinced he's done a good enough and honest enough job of self-evaluation.

That's the starting point that's likely been overlooked in a huge way.

I agree. They have evaluated every other position & explored every other option. I don't think they (Snyder & Allen) have as of yet looked at themselves as anything other than part of the solution. Which is pure insanity to the rest of us.
 

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