Mavinator’s Weblog

There has been quite a bit of controversy over the past few weeks regarding the Boston Red Sox, specifically about a few of their pitchers who have been accused of drinking alcohol in the clubhouse during games that they were not scheduled to pitch in. I’m not sure what the pitchers did or didn’t do, and I’m not even sure of whether or not they have admitted to drinking in the clubhouse. I have a few thoughts about the controversy though and how the Red Sox late season demise might have been predicted.

My thoughts center on a single thing: values. We all value something, as individuals and as organizations. Now, these values might be the result of intense soul searching or they might be the result of the values our parents instilled in us as children or they might be the result of our own experiences or they might be a result of a combination of these things. Regardless of where they come from though, we all have values. That is to say, we all value something.

I think the Red Sox have valued doing things well, doing them with excellence, and doing things that bring a big return. Over the decade of the 2000′s, they invested a lot of money and time into certain players, front office personnel, and even in their ballpark as a means of doing things with excellence. Their world series victory in 2004 seemed to spark a revival of Red Sox values that worked its way through players, management, and the entire organization.

The result of all of this was an amazing string of seasons beginning in 2004 and going through 2010. They won a couple of World Series, were annually in the playoffs, and were constantly mentioned as one of the best organizations in Major League Baseball.

However, I believe that at some point they started living off of momentum and let their values begin to slip. They were the Red Sox and they did things well. Winning seasons were a given. Doing things with excellence was a given. It seemed as if they didn’t even need to try as hard because the momentum they were riding would carry them to excellence.

I’m not sure where it began but at some point, perhaps during a lopsided victory, a beer in the clubhouse seemed to be ok. “It’s just a beer, after all, and I’m not even scheduled to pitch today.” “We’re winning the game by 6 runs, for goodness sakes.” Then, maybe a day later or maybe a week later, a beer seemed like a good idea. Maybe the Sox weren’t winning by such a big margin, but “I’m still not scheduled to pitch for a couple of days.” From there, it became easier and easier.

Would the manager hear about this and say something? Would one of the guys in the clubhouse stand up and put a stop to this behavior? No, no one was willing to say anything because they were winning, they were in the pennant race, and no one wanted to start a controversy or start trouble on the team.

Finally, drinking in the clubhouse was ordinary, every day, and no one said a word about it. The values were slipping. Once the values started slipping, the wins started getting more difficult. Once the values started slipping, the pennant race became more difficult. Once the values started slipping, the team went into an abysmal slump and fell out of the playoff race on the last day of the season. Once the values started slipping, the controversy began and here we are in late October hearing about how the clubhouse was out of control, there was no excellence in the organization, and the team needs to clean house and get a jump start.

That’s the way it is with value slippage. We start to veer off course just a bit. Things are going well, we have great momentum, and the values start to slip. That thing that we spent time on so that it looked excellent wasn’t so important any more, because we had momentum. Those things that everyone could count on our organization to do and to be were not happening because we were living on momentum and on past successes. We didn’t need to be quite as clear and crisp in the things we did. And suddenly, we’re out of the pennant race, suddenly we are ordinary and no one is interested anymore.

And, the worst part of it all is that no one said a word when the values started to slip. Everyone was either too caught up in the momentum of success or they were too afraid to speak up and call us to accountability. Values slipped right before our eyes and no one said a word!

Unfortunately, this isn’t such an unusual story. It’s a story played out over and over every day in our culture. Businesses, churches, civic organizations, families, and any other type of organization are susceptible to value slippage and so, so many fall to it.

My advice is to guard your values, appoint someone to watch over them. Empower someone to speak up when they sense value slippage. Empower everyone to speak up when the sense value slippage. Don’t let values slip because no one is watching out for them. You see, I don’t think the Red Sox demise during the playoff stretch had anything to do with whether or not a couple of pitchers had a few beers and some fried chicken in the clubhouse, I think the Red Sox downfall goes much deeper than that. I think their demise can be traced directly to value slippage.

The Who asked the question a long time ago, “Who are you?” If we can answer this question, then we are more likely to know what we value. If we let this question continuously ring through our ears, then we are more likely to guard those values and fight value slippage tooth and nail.