Candy Wrappers on the Back Stairs

The Kansas City Chiefs recently fired their General Manager, Scott Pioli, after a dismal four-year tenure at 1 Arrowhead Drive.   After Pioli had been in charge of the Chief's operation for a couple of years, the Kansas City Star ran a piece on his leadership style and its effect on the morale of the Chief's employees.   It was noted in the article that early in Pioli's tenure, he had taken the back stairs one day and noticed a candy wrapper on the floor in the back stairwell.   Apparently, Pioli let the wrapper sit there for a week and then picked it up and gave it to the club president.   At a staff meeting, the president brought out the candy wrapper and Pioli cited the presence of the candy wrapper as an indication that the Chief's organization had fundamental organizational problems, since apparently nobody in the organization had taken the responsibility to spot and remove the offending candy wrapper.   There were other rather trivial acts attributable to Pioli noted by the Star but the candy wrapper really sticks out as particularly interesting.

Pioli, who was billed as a player personnel guru from his tenure working for the vaunted New England Patriot organization, conducted his first draft in the spring of 2009.   His first year the Chiefs had a poor enough record to earn the No. 3 overall pick in the 2009 draft.   With that pick, the Chiefs selected Tyson Jackson, a defensive end from LSU, who most draft experts projected as a much lower pick.   Pioli and the Chiefs were said to be thrilled with the pick, noting that while Jackson might not get many sacks or make many tackles, he was the ideal defensive lineman to occupy the opponents offensive linemen so that linebackers and defensive backs could then get the sacks and tackles.   It might be notable that Tyson Jackson had been selected as Second Team All-SEC during his senior campaign.   So, yes, there were at least 11 defensive players in that one conference that people thought were better than our No. 3 pick.   Now with a No. 3 overall pick fans have a right to expect a star player who will have a huge effect on the games.   However, Tyson Jackson has had what might charitably be called a modest NFL career, never living up to his high draft status and paycheck.   I hope he has in fact occupied a lot of linemen because he hasn't gotten any sacks or made any tackles to speak of.

I have to confess that people who try to draw large conclusions from such things as the odd candy wrapper in the stairwell have always puzzled me.   Unquestionably, neatness and organization is a virtue and I would certainly hope that my employees would take the responsibility to police up our quarters when the need arises.   However, I would respectfully suggest that the odd candy wrapper doesn't tell you nearly as much about the effectiveness of an organization as whether they can manage to select a competent football player with a draft pick as high as No. 3 overall.   And not only was the 2009 draft by the Chiefs pretty non-fruitful, but the following Pioli drafts weren't much better.   And his initial personnel decisions, to trade Hall of Fame tight end Tony Gonzalez, run off many time Pro-Bowl guard Brian Waters, and trade for Matt Castle and give him a 63-million dollar contract might have even been worse decisions than Pioli's draft picks.   He ended up having to fire both of his coaching choices for the Chiefs.

I have come to this conclusion about the subject of organization.   All things considered, being well organized is probably the optimum way to approach your work and to seek to achieve success.   But it seems to me that many such process oriented people as Scott Pioli have been taught--and believe--that if you are well organized, then you will in fact be successful.   I would suggest that having a pristine stairwell is probably a good thing but that the state of your stairwell won't help your 180 pound back crash over from the two yard line on Sunday.   Unfortunately, it has been my experience that people who obsess over candy wrappers on the back stairwell usually tend to fail to focus on the truly significant things.   Focus is everything.   I hope that Scott Pioli can analyze his time with the Chiefs and figure this out for his next job.