Final Post

Post #8: Based on the themes we have discussed in class throughout the semester, describe one major change that you would make to an organization that you are familiar with. This change could have to do with the organization of space and time, or the use of team based work, management practices, gender relations or any number of other themes that we have covered.

I have spent the past two and a half years working with the Student Managers Organization (SMO) at Notre Dame, and it is definitely an organization that deserves to be analyzed and had some changes made. There are 21 junior managers that will move on to the 17 other varsity sports that are active at the University. The organization is so large and organizes team functions for over 200 people. With SMO, the fall semester of junior year is spent strictly with the football team. We work fall practice, daily practice, set up and take down the equipment used during every practice and move equipment wherever it needs to be moved. We also travel with the team to its various locations, attend meetings, and meals with them.

The football sect of the organization is a large organization in itself. We have our own building and offices in the Gugelimino building, and we can have practice outside on grass fields or inside on the turf fields. The physical space for the managers at least is not in an office. We work primarily behind the scenes, and we have a “mudroom” that basically holds a lot of equipment such as balls and cones, and the players’ game cleats. It is not a comfortable environment, but we do not do much work in there in the grand scheme of things, so it doesn’t need to be a nice place to rest and think. Because the managers are the lowest in the football pecking order, we do not have a nice place, and the surroundings let us know that. We do however make the best of it. The camaraderie between the 21 people is very strong, and if we are doing work in the manager mudroom we simply get cozy. We work in several other places, but it is known that other than the equipment that we bring in, we aren’t allowed to touch anything, and as a woman, if a player enters the locker room, I have to leave. The physical space on game day is one of enjoyment. Like the stage of a theatre or the floor of the Coliseum, the Notre dame stadium, or whatever stadium we happened to be playing in, would be my place to work. With all of the experience I had gained through practice, and the discipline I have learned throughout my time in the organization, being on the front lines of a division 1 college football game seemed like a reward, no matter the outcome. All of the hard work through good and bad weather, cramped conditions and hard labor were worth it to be at that game at that time. The physical space may have been the most enjoyable aspect of my work

The way that the organization functions as an organization is more complicated than the space environment. In managers, as well as the football organization as a whole, there is a definitive pecking order, and this pecking order uses communication in several different ways. The first way uses communication as information transfer. Kevin White, the Athletic director of Notre Dame is on the same if not a higher level than Charlie Weis, only he doesn’t have any say in what goes on in practice. Charlie Weis leads the team, but he also has various tasks and opinions of the managers. He tells Henry Scroope, and Matt Kerls anything that he feels we should be doing, or helping him out with on the administrative side. Henry, who is in charge of Matt, tells my boss Kathleen what he wants us to do in terms of practice, equipment and relays any messages that Charlie may have said to Henry about us. It is an order from the top down, and at times can almost be a problem. This type of communication can be problematic because it “does not account for differences in interpretation between speaker and listener” (41). At some times when there is no time to ask questions, if the message is not conveyed strongly enough from the top down, the message can be skewed and changed slightly. Also if there is no room for discussion, it also leaves no room for reasoning it a task will be very difficult. Kathleen helps the managers out by relaying messages back up to Henry, but it doesn’t always get done in a timely fashion, and does not always help out a manager.

It is also in this top down method, that SMO reminds me of classical management. When we first arrived at fall camp, we were issued 2 t shirts, two pairs of mesh shorts, socks, tennis shoes, hats, polos and a “casual” blue shirt, all with the intention that during fall camp, as well as other football functions throughout the year, we would be dressed the same. In fact, at the end of the year, when a few people were wearing the wrong color t-shirt and shorts, there was a problem. With classical management approaches, there were, “…ranks uniforms, regulations, task specialization, standardized equipment, command language and drill instruction…this success served as a model for organizational action, one based on the division of labor and machinelike efficiency” (65). The student managers, especially during practices were well-oiled machines, that rarely made mistakes, and worked very quickly, and of course, the power and instruction came from the top down. Mixed in with classical management also came the idea of scientific management. We were slow at the beginning, and they told us this. Gradually with time and confidence we got better, but as the semester went on and we grew tired, there would be a reminder of how we need to keep moving faster. What is interesting about this thought is that as junior student managers we were always hurrying up to wait. We would hurry up to set the field for the players, but they wouldn’t arrive to the field for about a half an hour to an hour after we were done. This inefficiency on the side of the team or the head managers would be something that I change. If we finish setting up we should go to practice so that the momentum isn’t stopped.

SMO shows some of the colors of bureaucracy. As defined by W. Richard Scott organizational bureaucracy has the following characteristics, “ A fixed division of labor among participants, a hierarchy of offices, a set of general rules that govern performances, a rigid separation of personal life from work life, the selection of personnel on the basis of technical qualifications and equal treatment of all employees” (77). While this ideal bureaucracy was not seen as completely possible, everything but the last two, are exactly what I have encountered through my experience. I am not saying with this that I did not enjoy my job as a student manager; this is not a resistance narrative. I do think however that the organization may have worked a little better if in some areas it lightened up.

This semester I was one of 6 women who worked daily with literally over one hundred men. It was an incredibly different atmosphere than many can imagine. The atmosphere was also not just one of male dominance, but one of male dominance of the most testosterone-ridden sport. These were manly men, who lifted weights, drank protein shakes, hit other men with equipment on. These men were nice, but because I was not used to being so underrepresented as a woman, it was hard adjusting at first. I have a brother, so I know how to handle joking around, but at times I had to grow a tougher skin to “roll with the boys.” I already stuck out because I was female, I didn’t want to stick out because I didn’t fit in. If I were to change the organization I wouldn’t change the amount of testosterone driven men that I worked with, I would perhaps change the fact that they don’t always realize what they are saying, especially around women. In order to become one with the managers and the team I had to push aside my female instincts to match everyone else
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Although there are a few aspects of the organization that I would change, I wouldn’t have traded my experience for the world. Working in an organization that resembled classical, scientific and bureaucratic management helped me gain experience and a tougher skin for work once I graduate from Saint Mary’s College.