Scott Berkun

Love and hate: the management of Mark Cuban

Where do you draw the line for passion?

Watching Mark Cuban’s behavior as owner of Dallas Mavericks, currently vieing for the NBA championships, is a love and hate fest for me. There’s are hints of goodness in him, but it’s lost in his choices of expression. He’s an echo of some tech-sector VPs and managers I’ve worked with: a core of good intentions, misguided by imaturity and self-centric egoism.

His passion and emotion about what happens to his team is real and wonderful to see: he’s not a guy in a suit, he’s personally invested in what happens (Seen at right wearing the jersey of a suspended player). It must be a boost for players to work for someone so visibly passionate and interested in what’s going on. Finding that kind of empathy from managers is rare in all businesses, including the NBA.

But the problem is how those emotions are translated into behavior. Cuban complains, vents, rants and draws more negative attention to himself as if working only from the Billy Martin & Bobby Knight (Mr. chair thrower) playbook. He deliberately violates rules, challenges not only officials but the league commisioner, showing little respect for the game. Drawing heat away from the team can be a sweet management move, but his behavior often seems more about his own feelings rather than driven by protecting the emotions of the people that work for him.

A noble man, with respect for himself, his team, and the game, would find an appropriate forum to vent his complaints, but Cuban lacks restraint: there seems little wisdom between his feelings and actions.

Instead of spending $1.5 million in fines over 5 seasons, he could pay to bring every single NBA referee to a training camp of his own design, or driven by a coallition of (other disgruntaled) coaches. He could find some positive way to both bring other people to support his view, and to effectively be an advocate for positive change. Why not found an NBA referee recruiting program? Work with other owners to boost their salaries to draw better talent? Regarless of whether his complaints are valid or not, there are more respectable ways for handling them.

But as of late, he makes it all too easy to pidgeon hole him as the spoiled rich kid who expects the world to circle behind his wake and give him what he wants when he cries. Whether he deserves this stereotype or not, being percieved in this way can’t possibly serve whatever his true ambitions for Dallas are.

Hard conversations

An interesting link from Reforming project management: Harvard Business school writes about Morning meetings – a daily meetup where leaders meet to get in sync. The essay is ok, but one passage caught my eye:

In contrast, two qualities characterize high-functioning leadership teams: (1) hard conversations happen—difficult issues move quickly from people’s heads to the conference table; (2) accountability is shared—individuals on the top team feel a responsibility to the organization as a whole, not just for their piece of the action.

What a great goal – hard conversations happen. I can’t tell you how many teams are stuck in the 5th level of hell for the single reason that leaders never let hard conversation happen. And the kicker is accountability – nothing more fun to work in a team culture that’s proactively accountable, with everyone taking their fair share of heat when things go wrong – suddenly people spend more time working instead pointing fingers.

Now if only someone at Harvard would write an essay on how to make hard conversations and accountability happen :)