The Future Of General Managers: Adapt Or Die
About Case Study Authors
Ibex Tactics LLC, was founded by Alex Bolowich & Ben Foodman. Before starting the company, Alex and Ben were working with athletes on an individual basis, helping them improve their mental performance using sport psychology-based interventions. While both professionals had incredible success working with some of the world’s most elite athletes, a significant portion of the time they were unable to help some of their clients due to the poor cultures these athletes were immersed in. As a result, Alex and Ben created Ibex Tactics LLC, which dedicated towards providing science-driven solutions to helping teams build resilient cultures.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION: The Triad Of Success To Be A Winning General Manager
PART I. Introducing Tier 1 Services To New Clients Seeking Organizational Psychology Services
PART II. Why Having Applied Experience With Human Psychology Is a Critical GM Skill
PART III. How To Use Sport Psychology To Identify Athletes That Match The Team’s Culture
PART IV. Our Client’s Experience “Before & After” Using Tier 1 Services
Introduction: The Triad Of Success To Be A Winning General Manager
One of the hot topics in sports that is being discussed is the role of a general manager (GM). The role of the GM for a sports team has been conceptualized as overseeing a team's day-to-day operations, including player contracts, recruitment, coaching decisions, and team finances, acting as a key executive in the sports organization. Many outside observers tend to agree that for the majority of sports, a GM has the most impact on the success of a team and their performance is influenced by what we call the Triad of Success (we will discuss this more in the next section). But with the changing landscape of NIL, Artificial Intelligence, and dwindling resources in the sports space, it is becoming apparent that the GM role needs to evolve.
Based on our analysis of the GM position demands, if sports teams continue to rely as heavily as they do on this position, they will never achieve their desired performance goals. Part of the reason for this is because GMs are expected to be “experts” player and coach evaluations. But part of player/coach evaluations also involves understanding human and social psychology…which most GMs do not have advanced training in. However, some GMs and higher-level administrators are recognizing this and have created specialized positions such as the associate GM. For this issue of the Case Studies, we want to talk about how one of our clients hired us to take on a type of associate GM position.
Part I. Introducing Tier 1 Services To New Clients Seeking Organizational Psychology Services
While the role of the GM will vary across different sports industries, when GMs are identifying talent, there appear to be three consistent features GMs need to be proficient in evaluating: the psychological skills of the prospect, the performance skills of the prospect and the social skills of the prospect. At Ibex Tactics, we refer to this as the Triad of Success. Usually, GMs can identify the performance potential of a prospect at an elite level, but the vast majority of GMs have no training on being able to establish a formal framework for understanding the social and psychological skills of prospects. But as our Tier 1 client Jim found out, you can elevate your organization to much higher levels when you delegate tasks that fall outside your expertise to specialists rather than trying to solve problems yourself.
While Jim’s title was not officially “General Manager” his role was identical to a typical GM’s position. Jim had just been hired to be on the coaching staff for a college basketball team and was tasked with leading the recruiting efforts and managing the NIL resources. Jim had served in a variety of roles prior to this new position which included being a scout for many teams, equipment manager, and assistant coach. He had developed a reputation as being able to identify and project elite athletic talent that other scouts had overlooked. He felt confident that he could succeed in this new role but knew that he had a “short leash” with the head coach and athletic director. It wasn’t because he had a bad relationship with the coach, but rather this was due to outside pressure from financial supporters of the team to deliver a quick turnaround. While no one officially said he had a limited timeline to bring success to the team, he estimated year 3 would be his “contract year”.
Part II. Why Having Applied Experience With Human Psychology Is a Critical GM Skill
Jim spent much of his first season on the road evaluating up and coming basketball players, and creating a prospect board composed of athletes who he was interested in bringing into the program. These players were ranked by their skill level, mutual interest in the program, and what their NIL evaluation was as a player. Jim would watch hours and hours of tape and would speak with as many people as possible to identify “character problems” and the work ethic of the players. While Jim was initially excited about the first recruiting class he was bringing in, the results did not match his expectations. Many of the players Jim recruited either transferred, sustained season-ending injuries, or were not “fitting in” with the senior members of the team.
Jim knew that he needed to turn things around fast, and part of the biggest problem he had was that there was too much work but not enough help. Luckily, Jim had had a professional relationship with one of our coaches and asked for an initial consultation to see how Ibex Tactics could potentially help. After conducting an extensive interview, we determined that Jim would be the best fit for our Tier 1 services based on the following reasons: first, Jim was in a program that naturally had an excellent culture established. All of the coaches and even the athletic director was pulling in the same direction when it came to the mission statement and vision for the program. Where Jim was struggling was trying to figure out how to identify talent that possessed a psychological disposition matching his team’s culture. This is where we came in to help his team.
Part III. How To Use Sport Psychology To Identify Athletes That Match The Team’s Culture
For the next several weeks we spent extensive time speaking with all of the coaches and administrators to get a sense of the “stated” culture of the program and IF that actually matched the experiences coaches and athletes were having in the team. We assessed how aligned all members of the program were, team dynamics, and HOW Jim went about psychologically assessing whether prospects matched the culture of his program. Interestingly, two critical concerns arose in our assessment. First, when evaluating Jim’s recruiting process on how he determined if athletes were a good fit for the culture, without hesitation, Jim told us “I talk with their families, coaches and really just go off of how I feel about the prospect”. Second, while there was a unique stated culture that matched the actual experiences of the members of the team, there were no formal enforcement mechanisms. We explained to Jim that given current trends, there was an opportunity to leapfrog his competition by lowering his attrition rate amongst current players and incoming freshmen. To demonstrate this, we cited numerous studies on NIL and transfer portal impact on teams and how he was playing the same game as everyone else.
Per the NCAA study: In Division I, 20,911 student-athletes entered the Transfer Portal in 2022, an increase over the 2021 total (17,781). Of this total, 78% of the entrants in women's sports were on athletics aid at their departing school, while 65% of those in men's sports were on athletics aid upon portal entry. Additionally, 30% of the student-athletes who entered the Transfer Portal in 2022 were graduate students, only 1 percentage point lower than in 2021. While 13% of all Division I student-athletes were entered into the Transfer Portal in 2022, 7% of all Division I student-athletes successfully transferred to an NCAA program after portal entry. In Division II, 10,324 student-athletes requested to be entered into the Transfer Portal, and a combined total of 3,033 successfully transferred to another NCAA program. In 2022, 1,649 men's Division I basketball players were entered into the Transfer Portal, a slight decrease from 2021 (1,687). Eighty-four percent of these student-athletes were on athletics aid at their departing school. Of all the Transfer Portal entrants in Division I men's basketball, 1,123 transferred to another NCAA school to receive athletics aid, a slight decrease from 2021 (1,198). In Division I women's basketball, 1,276 athletes were entered into the Transfer Portal, which is an increase over the 1,130 entrants in 2021. Ninety-three percent were on athletics aid at the time of entry, and 939 received athletics aid at the school to which they transferred, an increase from 2021 (770).
If Jim was more efficient in his psychological profiling of incoming prospects with the goal of reducing attrition, bringing in prospects who enhanced the cultural environment and individually possessed high-levels of intrinsic motivation, his competition would be spending more time competing in the transfer portal and less time identifying prospects that had better long-term value for the program, therefore creating a stable culture that would outlast their competitors. We also explained to Jim that he needed to convince the program to regularly enforce culture using tailor-made approaches that maintained macro-level alignment. Jim was in agreement with our strategy and coordinated a strategy with us for how we could create these systems in a way that was unique to his organization. Over the course of the next several months, we would have weekly phone calls and on-site meetings to collaborate with Jim on what types of systems he wanted to use, the assessments that would help bridge the gap between their program’s culture and potential prospect matches. At the end of our work with Jim, he was stunned with the results.
Part IV. Our Client’s Experience “Before & After” Using Tier 1 Services
At the end of our work with Jim, he reported that compared to his previous jobs, they saw a significant improvement in regard to reducing transfers out of the program. When administering player and coach satisfaction surveys, they saw increasing positive trends in their scores. While the environment had always had a “family-type” culture, they found that employing the Ibex Tactics strategies for enforcing their culture strengthened the team bond and chemistry. Jim also found that he had more time to focus on future prospects which allowed him to not only get a head start on his competition, but also maximize his strengths as a type of GM. The head coach and athletic director were also very satisfied with the outcomes, and approved an extension of our contract with Jim’s team so we could continue to assist Jim in identifying prospects that psychologically and socially matched the team’s culture.
NOTE TO READER:
Alex and Ben wanted to compile their expertise in the Ibex Tactics Case Studies to help teams in the sports and corporate sector better understand how many of the issues they are dealing with are more often than not related to culture. Most teams recognize that culture is an important component of their success, but do not always have the resources or expertise to analyze the complexity of culture. If you are interested in learning more about the services that Ibex Tactics offers to help with culture development, use the contact form below and sign up with your email to receive updates on new services and case studies!
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