It’s a chant beloved by opposition supporters to taunt rival managers during a bad run of results. It’s even worse if your own supporters join in. Real Madrid supports traditionally wave a white hanky meaning good bye to a manager they wish to see the back off. It’s a powerful message from a full house of 80,000 whistling disgruntled fans.
On the hour, every hour one of the main news items ,” The club are believed to be considering sacking the manager”. I imagine the poor fellow sitting at home with his family hearing this. He rings the chair of the board to find out what’s going on . But ominously the chair is not taking his calls. He rings other board members, all claim they have no idea where the story came from. He rings HR to ask what’s going on but they just refer him back to the chair. Eventually the chair rings him to deliver the bad news but not before he has heard through the media who has been offered his job!
In football the manager may be disappointed but is rarely surprised when given the sack. The reason is obvious. Not so outside of the game. It’s one of the hardest lessons to learn as a senior management you can get the sack for doing nothing wrong. Unlike football management it’s not all about performance. Unlike those lower down the hierarchy senior managers are not subject to disciplinary or competence hearings. That’s because they haven’t abuse the company credit card or been caught accessing porn on the company laptop nor have they mismanaged the budget. Well they might have but that’s not why they are being forced out.
Sometimes there is little advanced warning. Or perhaps it’s just you failed to notice the signals. The chair or chief executive asks to see you at short notice but their PA won’t say what the meetings about. Obviously you know it’s not good , probably going to be about a few feathers you have ruffled recently, the need to be more conciliatory, less opinionated or maybe a reminder that more is achieved by compromise than conflict. It’s a shock rather than a surprise to be told you have no future in the organisation. Now you know why the head of HR is present at the meeting, it’s to discuss your exit package. It’s a sort of no fault departure provided you’re prepared to sign the non disclosure agreement ( NDA ). You just didn’t fit in any more. It’s just one of those things, nothing you can do about it except move on. Of course it’s never referred to as getting the sack. No that only happens to football managers.
Blair Mcpherson former director author and blogger www.blairmcpherson.co.uk
