Next season, Seattle Sounders FC will join the MLS. I previously wrote that their ownership has a refreshing approach to building the loyalty of their supporters.

Earlier this week, Seattle Sounders FC took it to a new level when they announced that every 4 years, their fans will vote on the retention of the general manager.

Talk about pressure.

General Managers in North American sports are largely immune to public criticism. Typically the coach will take the bullet for poor performance but usually the general manager has more authority than the coach to select players. So, it makes sense that the performance of the Sounders FC general manager would be up for referendum.
They followed it up with an additional announcement of their membership association

In our ongoing commitment to our fans the Seattle Sounders FC Members Association is the only members association in professional sports in the United States to offer its members a voice in club matters. Every member has a vote in determining the direction of the club. By purchasing season tickets you are automatically a member of the association and able to receive all benefits. In addition, non-season ticket members are eligible for a fee of $125.

It sounds a lot better than my grocery discount card. I would love to vote on the direction of the Rudderless Rapids. I am definitely going to buy a ticket less membership just to observe the experiment.

To form a membership association is a very non-North American thing to do. Other fútbol teams throughout the world have membership associations. Some even sell shares into the ownership of the team.

None of the 'major' North American leagues - baseball, basketball, ice hockey or American football would dare let their fans have a say in any club matters. These leagues claim that fans of a professional sports team 'vote' with their money. They can 'choose' not to purchase season tickets or merchandise and this 'sends a message' to the team that the fans are unhappy. It is a far cry from actually voting.

Granted, Sounders FC membership association has limited power - other than the general manager. For example, player acquisitions and team tactics are up for a vote. That would be folly. Minority owner and Chairman Drew Carey had this to say,

I was mostly interested in spreading the gospel of fan control over the team's management, like they have at Real Madrid and Barcelona. It had nothing, really, to do with wanting to own a business. We're all excited about bringing democracy to sports in America.

Their membership association is going to rock the MLS and I think they will rival expansion Toronto FC and venerable powerhouse DC United for fan support.

Three cheers to Sounders FC! Well done, once again.

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Like most people, I have fantasies.

Not those type of fantasies. I mean fantasies where you are some other person doing exactly the things you cannot do in your real life.

Some people want to be a singer in a famous rock band, others want to be right. Mine is 'world class striker playing fútbol in Europe'.

Alas, at 37 I'm probably too old to play for Manchester United. So, I write about fútbol and I play in adult fútbol leagues. We are 0-4 so far this season, our attacking midfielder went home to Brazil, and we lost our first and second choice keepers. My beloved Irish lad, Dr. Simon is our leading scorer with 1 goal.

In my PMI Mile High leadership class in January, Jerry asked us to write our retirement eulogy. We weren't dead, just retiring. I came up with another outrageous fantasy - coaching the US Mens National Team to back-to-back World Cup victories in 2026 and 2030.

Three months later, my son continued to beg me to playing fútbol. So I called the city's youth sports director. She ended up asking me to coach his team. I thought of my retirement tribute and figured, 'no problem'. I called my wife to discuss and gain enthusiastic agreement. She was all over it but warned me about my competitive nature.

She likes to bring up an episode from about 1998 wherein I was playing a lot of hoops. I way better at soccer but I loved playing hoops in college. Buddies from work formed a team and we played a lot. One night, we were playing a particularly hyped up team and long story short, I got a technical foul. Never mind [like all convicts] that it wasn't my fault, it was the referee's issue. Ever since then, I am now labeled as hyper competitive.

Probably it's true but I don't like to admit it in mixed company.

I listened to her advice and thought about how I would ever teach fútbol to 4 and 5 year old boys and girls. Enter, Soccer Help and Coach Doug. The Soccer Help site has a dreadful layout, but Coach Doug [who focuses on the younger kids] recently got a clue and revamped his site. For what they lack in asthetics, they make up for in content.

I recruited Alex, my new Argentinian friend and father of Camilla. Cammy and Aidan became close friends, waiting for Alex and I to break down the equipment after each practice. One of the first games we played at practice was called 'carrot' where we all put our arms next to our sides and run around kicking balls. We ended up calling ourselves the Carrots and as if by destiny, our orange jerseys showed up the following week.

Of course, the league does not keep score. This is because for some stupid reason, youth sports has lost its way since I was a wee lad. We always kept score and trust me, everyone on the field, coaches, players, parents, referees - they all keep score. It's like Fight Club. The first rule in Fight Club is: Don't talk about Fight Club. The first rule in youth sports is: Don't keep official score.

I think we won 2 of 6 games. We got hammered a lot and I realized a few things about 4 and 5 year olds. They need a lot more practice than I thought and I need to get a clue about coaching fútbol.

We kept our practices to 1 time per week for 30 minutes. This was perfect for waining attention spans but was not great for our results. On the advice of Coach Doug, I had three simple rules:

1. Have Fun!
2. Never touch the ball with your hands.
   
3. Listen to the whistle.

In fact, the whistle was the only way I could consistently get everyone's attention. We also, at the insistence of our best striker, Jonathan, we played Duck-Duck-Goose after every practice.

I had so much fun coaching, I was surprised. I felt a lot of emotion during the games but I focused on having fun - even when the other teams were taking things sometimes too seriously.

Emily came to watch me coach. She was surprised that I quelled my hyper-competitive temperament and said I was so great with the kids. I did get such a thrill to see their reactions to a successfull play such as a monster kick, a pass, or goal.

We tried to keep the instructions simple, again on the advice of Coach Doug:

1. Play defense
2. Go score
3. Turn around
4. Pass
5. Monster kick

The kids did great and I want to coach more. So, I am signed up for my state's soccer federations 'E' license. There are, as far as I can tell, 5 levels of FIFA-sanctioned coaching licenses before one can become a professional coach. Everybody starts with their 'E' license.

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As I wrote way back in February, the Colorado Rapids of Major League Soccer have officially entered their traditional mid-summer malaise. They have lost 4 of their last 6 games and have tumbled from first to fifth place in the MLS Western Conference.

I declared their off-season preparations as lacking sufficient attacking options. Strikers Connor Casey and Tom McManus were paired together one time this season and the Rapids won. Granted, Casey is recovering from knee surgery so he was not available. But in the past month he has shown fitness and he seems to have good fútbol instincts, particularly with Scottish national McManus.

Ever clueless when it comes to offense, coach Clavijo continued to stick with Omar Cummings. Cummings has great pace but cannot finish. He's missed more chances than many strikers get in a season.

As we near the summer transfer window, the Rapids have no entries in MLS Rumors. This is because they stupidly traded away their Designated Player [DP] rights for Christian Gomez. Gomez was great at DC United because he was surrounded by great offensive talent. He looks pedestrian and frustrated playing for the Rapids, who often do not finish runs and seem to have no sense when Gomez is about to send a great pass into open space.


The Rapids hailed the Gomez signing. Their rationale was that they have great young talent [they have won the MLS Reserve league 2 years in a row] and they only needed that key offensive player. Enter Gomez.

Checking the stats through 14 games this season, the Rapids should be higher in the standings of the MLS Western Conference. They are scoring more goals - 20 through 14 games - on pace to score 41 goals for the 30 game season. Last year in 30 games, the Rapids scored a league-worst 29 goals.

Ironically, their defense is worse than last year. Their goal differential in 2007 was -5. Through 14 games this season, they are even but on pace to allow 6 more goals than last season. Their first-choice goal keeper, Bouna Condoul has been away for a month and backup Preston Burpo has 1.75 goals per game in 4 games while Condoul allowed 1.3 goals per game.

Overall teams in the MLS are scoring more goals. The Rapids have not adjusted to this new world order.

I wonder if the players have given up on Clavijo, who is in the final year of his 4 year contract and there are no signs he will get an extension.

During his 4 year tenure, I have interviewed him and the players many times - at least 40 games. I'm not privy to their private conversations and I'm not at their practices. By from my quasi-insider view, I get the sense of constant disconnects between the coach an players.

When I ask him about player motivation, Clavijo routinely dodges the question with a standard rejoinder: these are professional players, I do not need to motivate them. He's added the concept that this year the depth of the team is so great that players are motivated to keep their position in the starting 11.

I disagree with his points because it does not translate to better on-field performances. Rarely do the Rapids play attacking football for 90 minutes. They seem like they are not on the same page. I have yet to identify the source of this inconsistency but it seems like the coach does not set clear expectations or perhaps is incapable of explaining what he wants to see when the Rapids have the ball.

His naive answer was to get Christian Gomez. This worked for exactly 2 games and then the MLS teams realized that if they hammer Gomez early in the game with a hard tackle, it takes him out of his rhythm. They also give him no space to make passes or create chances and this has resulted in limited success.

The miscommunications were no clearer after the 0-0 tie against MLS Cup champions Houston Dynamo. I interviewed English national Terry Cooke - a capable player who has led the team in assists the past two seasons. He's been riding the pine - apparently put into the Clavjio Doghouse. He game in at half time for this game and played well.

When I asked him why he was not starting each week, he went into a mini rant saying that he has no idea why the skipper won't play him. He gave several examples of why he thinks he should be playing and rhetorically asked me, "What else can I do?".

To me, this is a simple example of the problem with the Rapids - the players are on many pages and the coach is on his own. Why would one of your best midfielders be riding the pine and claim that he has no idea why his coach does not play him?

Clavijo told the media why he wasn't playing Cooke - he said that basically Cooke needs to play defense more from his midfielder position. Why do I know this and Cooke does not?

So in addition to the continous frustration of inconsistent play, I am more frustrated by the Rapids apparent unwillingness to make mid-season corrective actions. While the top MLS teams are making major signings as the August tranfer window looms, there are no rumors for the Rapids - no signs that they are trying to sign a capable striker or another experienced, attacking midfielder.

Comparing the Rapids roster to a team like DC United is laughable. United has a strong roster and has come into form in the past month. They have multiple offensive options and continue to look for any opportunity to make their team better through acquisition.

The Rapids claimed at the start of the season that winning the MLS Cup was their goal. Their managing director claimed that they were only one player away from achieving this goal. Halfway through the 2008 season, they are in 5th place and have few signs that they have the ability to win two games in a row, much less the MLS Cup.

They failed to win 2 play-in games to qualify for the US Open Cup, which is a more reasonable goal for a team like Colorado. [Historical note: the Rapids have qualified once for the MLS Cup final and once for the US Open Cup. They lost to DC United in the MLS Cup and they lost to the Rochester Rhinos [USL] in the US Open Cup.

I predict that they will not qualify for the MLS Cup - the Eastern Conference will qualify 5 teams and the fourth place team in the Western Conference [probably the Rapids] will be left out of the cold.

On the old isuma.org, I wrote many rants about former coach Tim Hankinson. He was terrible. Clavijo is merely below average. Unfortunately, even when Clavijo leaves this year, I have no confidence that Kronke will have the capability or foresight to hire even an average coach.

I think I should switch allegiance to LA or DC United. Both play exciting, attacking fútbol and their front offices have the balls to find quality players. Their results speak for themselves - both teams have won the MLS Cup a combined 6 times, the US Open Cup a combined 4 times and each have won the CONCACAF Champions Cup 1 time each.

The Rapids have won squat and will not for the foreseable future. So much potential, so little leadership. What a waste.

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In 2006, when the parent company of Blackberry [Research in Motion] was embroiled in a patent infringement lawsuit, people were concerned.

The doomsayers / IT pundits warned that the world's economy could collapse if all of these important people [like me, of course] could no longer receive email on their mobile Blackberry devices. Never one to think for itself, my idiotic company decided to yank out the Blackberry infrastructure.

They picked the trusty Palm devices, specifically the Palm Treo. I was sad to see my never-break-long-battery-life-no-hassles-blackberry go by the wayside. My infant son threw this phone across our hardwood floor more than once. Did my Blackberry complain? No and it never stopped working. Ever.

Trying to be open-minded, I gave the Palm a nod for a higher eye candy factor. I've always been a sucker for a pretty face.

One problem I did not expect is that the messaging team picked Goodlink to provide wireless data synchronization for Microsoft Exchange. Never mind that Palm could natively synchronize to MS Exchange, we bought into the 'we need a higher level of security' offered by Motorola's Goodlink.

Apparently, we didn't get the message that Motorola sucks at writing any software that is actually used by normal people. So, I suffered for two years with this hellish combination of Goodlink and Palm.

It's not just that the Palm is really a shrunken computer [with it's ARM chipset], but it's that the movement of data across the wireless card causes brutal interruptions in the touchscreen sensitivity. I have literally hung up on so many people and conference calls over the past 2 years that I lost count. I try to hit the touchscreen to mute the phone, it doesn't respond and after a few more touches, the phone is rebooting.

Let me wax poetic about the beautiful Goodlink interface. Email on a small screen never looked so pretty and so slow. Between the ridiculous load times when Goodlink is 'reading emails' and 'indexing headers' and making me wait for 3 minutes, I could have written a book.

So, after I literally broke my Treo 650 in a fit of impatient rage, I got the 'upgrade' to the Treo 700. More memory, same crappy performance. The current state of this phone is for Goodlink to corrupt something, followed by total device lookup with a 'assertion failure', followed by my erasure of everything and a reinstall of Goodlink.

For an IT guy, this is is a state of hell. The worst part was that I had known mobile device bliss with my Blackberry.

This experience with Palm Treo has taught me a few things about mobile devices. First, no phone companies can write decent software. Most device makers surely do not use their own devices because generally they sport unusable user interfaces. Too many gee-whiz animations and not enough responsiveness. A phone should respond to all commands immediately.

The next thing I learned is that there are two kinds of devices: those that started as a phone and those that started as a handheld computer. I base this assertion on the fact that on the two handheld computers I have owned [Palm, Sharp Zaurus] were terrible phones. They were not immediately responsive to all commands. They plodded along, interrupt driven, like a typical Windoze program. These devices should be banned from the voice networks.

Those devices like Blackberry that grew up as a phone are nimble and responsive. They often have better battery life. They may have less swiss-army knife features touted by Palm, but they just work. It's a phone that acts like a phone and has a bonus of getting email.

The best thing about Blackberry is that the layout of the menus and applications make sense. I never had to read the manual for either my old or new Blackberry. Yes, they are that intuitive. The Goodlink sofware sucked and the number of apps that come with the Palm was stupefying.

In one example of Palm software madness, I tried to load up MP3s onto my Palm so that I could have an iPod-like experience while I am whiling away time in an airport. Alas, synchronization to the Palm was a 4 hour trial using the attractive yet dysfunctional Windows Media Player.

After I finally loaded 1 GB of MP3s onto the expansion card, I went to plug in my iPod head phones. Guess what? The Palm audio jack was the mini size, not the standard headphone jack size. So, I had tunes and no freaking way to hear them.

I thought, maybe the brilliant guys at Palm would allow me to hear tunes through my bluetooth. Sounds reasonable, right? Too bad it doesn't work.

This example is the fundamental problem of a 'handheld' computer / phone. It doesn't do one thing well, like be a phone, it does a bunch of things half-assed. I think the iPhone may buck this trend, but I have not played enough with the one I gave my lovely wife uses. Also, as an independent contractor, she's not tied to a byzantine corporate 'messaging' infrastructure based on MS Exchange.

So, gentle readers, one can understand my thrill when my Blackberry 8830 arrived on Friday.

I'm free at last. I'm free at last. Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last.

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The MLS was named the 2008 league of the year by Street and Smiths Sports Business Journal. It beat out 4 other prominent American sports leagues: National Football League [NFL], Major League Baseball [MLB], National Basketball Association [NBA] and the WTA [women's tennis].

Surely there are a number of reasons for this decision. It's clear that the MLS strategy of growing deliberately is paying off.

MLS Commish Don Garber reported that:

• Broke 3M in attendance for the first time in its 13 year history.
• Average match attendance in 2007: 16,770.
• Traffic to MLSNet.com up 80%.
• David Beckham #1 selling jersey in the world.
• 780% increase of jersey sales.

These are great numbers and many of them are attributed to the highest paid fútbol player in the world, David Beckham.

Personally, I think there is a lot more to this story than Becks.

Quality of Play - The quality of MLS has jumped noticeably this year. Since I cover the Colorado Rapids at American Soccer News, I see a lot of MLS games in person. Unlike in years past, other games did not hold my attention due to the pedestrian nature of the play, compared to more established leagues like the EPL. Now, I watch 3-4 games each week.

Televised Matches - This is the first time in the league history that all games are televised. You can get the MLS Direct Kick through your satellite or cable TV provider. This allows you to see every game. Most are regionally broadcast, but there are 3 games featured nationally each week - ESPN2 Thursday night soccer, Fox Soccer Channel on Saturday night and Telefutura on Sunday afternoon.

Soccer-Specific Stadia - This is one of the long-term strategies of the league - to build stadiums that are home to their teams and owned by the team. There is a lot of revenue to earn when you can get parking and concession revenue. Most new teams receive a franchise because they agree to build a soccer-specific stadium.

In-Depth Coverage - The people who run MLSNet.com have learned that people will spend a lot of time on your website if you have great content. In addition to the written stories, previews and match reports, MLS has amped up its video content. In particular, each team now provides video clips of interviews of players and coaches. I spend probably 2 hours a week on this web site - more time than on any other site.

Profitability - The league has lost around $350M since its inception. Two teams have shown profits - the LA Galaxy in 2003 and FC Dallas in 2005 - interestingly the year when each team moved into their own soccer-specific stadium. The NY Times reported that MLS Commish Don Garber stated that three more teams will turn profits in 2008: Toronto, Colorado, and Chicago. All three have their own new soccer-specific stadiums.

Pundits speculate whether the league will have long-term viability. I think it will for two reasons: there are enough hard-core fútbol fans in the US and the quality of play will continue to elevate. When the quality reaches a certain level, hard-core sports fans will take notice of the league. These are people like my friend Mike who now has a healthy respect for the game, despite that he never played it and baseball and football are his 'favorite' sports.

I think the limiting factor to improve the quality of play is the MLS salary cap. Its about 2.3 M per year for each team. A paltry sum to pay approximately 18 players. Each team can pay one player [the Designated Player] any salary they wish and only $400K counts against the salary cap. This was nicknamed the 'Beckham Rule' as he is paid about $5M per year.

I expect the cap to rise as the league earns more money. The MLS has a player's union and they probably will lobby to push up the team salary cap upward. I also think that they need to determine a minimum salary because some players get paid $18K a year. Sad.

I am excited for the MLS and I congratulate them on their award.

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About 8 months ago I purchased a Macbook Pro for my lovely wife. She had been slaving away on my trusty [old] DELL Latitude. It was still running Windows 2000 and was essentially a boat anchor.

As the IT guy in our house, a role I hope to turn over to my 5 year old son [someday], I am supposed to fix her laptop when it breaks. It would break often for many reasons.

Using my snazzy ITIL skills, I applied meticulous problem management to the dozens of incidents. I figured out that Windows sucks for the home user. Way too many updates, way to fragile for anyone not trained in the Microsoft strategy of all-of-our-users-are-actually-part-of-our-QA-team.

I had admired Apple computers for a long time. I really began to use them at University, but I never owned one. They were usually too expensive. By the time I graduated and got my first software engineering job, I became enamored with Linux. I forgot about Apple and became a Linux wizard.

After spending about 5 hours de-worming my wife's DELL, the next day something else broke. I think it was the network card. This laptop was built [gasp] before the days of in-built wireless. I went to get a new PCMCIA network card and instead dropped $2400 on the Macbook. My reasons were simple: she needed a new computer for work and I was sick of dealing with Windows.

One amazing thing about my wife is her ability to test the limits of any warranty. She is a normal person who doesn't know the gruesome underbelly of Information Technology. I know that computers will break if you sneeze too hard. Especially fragile are those marketed and built for consumers. I am lucky to get the 'business class' laptops from DELL that [ahem] cost as much as a Macbook Pro.

Since she is not sensitized to the fragility of the machine, she is not extra, super careful like me and stuff breaks. This is an indictment on computer makers, not her...

In any case, I have learned to pay for the 'extended warranty'. I used to resent it until I realized that she is acting rationally in her expectation that a) it should just work and b) she may break it by accident or whatever. But, I finally I realized that I would actually save money by paying for support up front. Apple's extended warranty also had some other nice features in terms of priority support and response. I know this is the business model of computer manufacturers but that is probably a topic for another post.

A few months later, we began to have problems with her power adapter. It was heating up abnormally. I took it to a local Apple store for her. I was blown away at the friendliness of the staff. they replace the adapter with no cost to us, even though it was not covered under the extended warranty.

I convinced her to use OpenOffice for her legal documents - she's a corporate attorney. It worked OK, but some of the features she uses such as 'track changes' were buggy when she would exchange files with colleagues running Microsoft Office. So, back to the Apple store [near my work] to purchase Office 2007 for the Mac. Again the store help was friendly and happy to help.

I have shopped at CompUSA, Best Buy, and MicroCenter. Never was the staff friendly or helpful. Mostly, they were not trained enough and usually my knowledge of IT equipment from work meant I was luckily self-sufficient. The Apple store help [two different stores] were all magnificently helpful and friendly.

Lately, the adapter was acting up again and we decided it was not the new cord, but something on the laptop itself. Then, my 11 month-old daughter grabbed the LCD and essentially short-circuited it. Ouch. No warranty will cover 'acts of infants'.

So we took the laptop back to the Apple store and hoped for the best. The power adapter port was faulty and would be replaced for free. The LCD was on our dime [I will take it out of my 11 month-old daughter's allowance!] and it was $700 to replace. Ouch again!

The genius bar guy did not have a replacement LCD in his store and my wife pleaded to get one asap as she has a lot of work this week and cannot be sans laptop. We started making other plans to get an external monitor so she could at least work this week. We went back to the Apple store and the tech had already located another screen and it was on its way to the store now, about 15 minutes after she left it with a 2-3 day repair turn-around.

Today is Memorial Day in the U.S., no one should be working but most retail stores are open. So, the Apple people found a new LCD, had it driven to their store and installed it - in less than 4 hours. Try getting that kind of service from DELL or HP. Forget it because it won't happen.

Oh yeah, one other item. The tech also determined that her keyboard was faulty [on it's way to a break] and replaced it as well. This would have cost another $500 as the keyboard is part of the shell of the laptop [the metal case] but thankfully was covered by the extended warranty.

My wife picked up the computer 4 hours later, happy as a clam that she would be ready for work this week. I am [relatively] happy that the $1200 repair bill was only $700 so the $350 extended warranty just paid for itself. I am sure there will be more uses of the extended warranty in the next 2.4 years.

Beyond the financials, my wife is satisfied that she can take her computer to the Apple store where the employees are genuine and do not talk down to her [since she's not an IT gal]. She feels capable that she can now deal with issues on the laptop without calling me in a panic at work.

Yes, the Macbook is expensive - more expensive than most Windows computers. Yes it costs more [a lot more] to repair. We are willing to pay a little extra to avoid the aggravation of getting repairs and the friendly Apple store employees sure help when things go awry.

Contrast that to the average experience of a Windows user. Case in point is our nanny, Kara. She has a nice Gateway laptop, running Windows XP. It's one of those writing tablets. Sure enough, it needed a repair. She had to send it back to Gateway for repairs. She's out for at least a week.

So, kudos to Apple for treating people like people, instead of unrealistically expecting them to understand IT. A lot of other computer companies could learn from Apple's strategy.

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In the past few years, I've been watching more English Premiere League [EPL] fútbol. It is one of the top leagues in the world and I find that most games are enjoyable. Definitely there are great players in this league and they are competitive as I can imagine.

As I watch more fútbol, I've stopped watching the top 4 traditional American sports: baseball, football, basketball and hockey. I'm annoyed by the constant commercial interruptions and despite my affinity for my TiVo, I just can't take it anymore. Even going to watch games live is boring, only buoyed by the fact that the constant commercial 'time outs' allow me to be social.

The guy in the photo plays for Major League Soccer side and my hometown club, the Colorado Rapids - Nick LaBrocca. he's a talented, young midfielder who has won a starting position in only his second year in the league. The Rapids suffer from a lack of leadership, but that's another post.


The talent differential between the EPL and MLS is significant. The EPL can afford to pay 100x more per player [on average] than MLS. Comparing the two leagues, it is interesting to observe the players react to situations on the field.

I've noticed that most of the EPL players are consistently good at accepting the ball from a teammate's pass. Most do not have to watch the ball when they dribble. Most importantly, they will guide their first touch of the ball to a place where they expect to be next. In short, the have a plan for the ball before it gets to them.

The average EPL player has developed enough ball control that they can focus on the strategic aspect of the game, rather than simply worrying about keeping the ball at their feet. The main advantage is that he keeps his opponent guessing as to his next move. Add this type of ball control with a cohesive offensive plan and your fútbol team stands a much better chance of success.

The average MLS player tends to trap the ball, look up and then decide what to do with it based on this observation. The result of this sequence is that the ball in the MLS game moves less fluidly during the match. Most agree that it is not an attractive style of fútbol.

It occurred to me that the simple concept of a first touch in fútbol is a great metaphor for leadership. When people in your organization don't know where they are going, they will not be agile or fluid with their decisions or actions. In effect, they have to trap the ball, look up and then decide where to pass the ball. Multiply this by many times per day or week for each employee decision and it's no wonder that organizations of more than 3 people cannot get anything done.

Utimately, effective leaders provide the necessary framework for the members of the organization to make decisions in full knowledge of the next step - the strategic next action - in a fluid way.

What I observe in the corporation that pays me is that strategic next actions are not happening inside a framework of leadership. I see heroic individuals who are adept at strategic planning [and not necessarily at the executive levels] pulling rabbits out of hats to keep the corporation viable.

Our first touch sucks and I think there are many reasons. Most importantly, long-term planning is not rewarded in any meaningful way. We have yearly goals that may have some weak ties to strategic plans. I have not made a strategic plan for my department of 18 people. I'm too busy wearing three hats.

Even if we were more effective at strategic planning, there is this misguided notion that business must be agile. This is a myth, brokered by Wall Street speculators and dot-com millionaires. The successful dot-com companies had a core competency and stuck to it.

Of course there is always the pressure of the financial performance of the company. Every public company gets pressure to meet the numbers. Billions of possible capital can vanish overnight when your company reports lower than expected earnings.

Finally, companies that do plan ship off the planners into an ivory tower - they are so detached from actual business operations that when they hatch their 500-page missives, no one bothers to read it because they know it is a work of fiction.

So what is one to do?

I have some ideas that I will post at a later date, after my third and final PMI Leadership Institute in June.

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