What Do You Say to those not selected?

In the ballpark, tryouts are always a mixed blessing. The players are a year older and the season is always filled with promise. When selecting teams I looked “for the right players not necessarily the best players.” There were always more players trying out than there were spots on the team.

Some managers took the easy way out. After tryouts, they posted a list with the players that made the team and were generally unavailable to discuss their selection process or give feedback to the unsuccessful players and their parents. All too often players and their parents would get the wrong idea and go away frustrated and angry.

It is difficult to look a child in the eye and discuss why he wasn’t selected. A lot of the time it wasn’t because he wasn’t skilled. However it is a good exercise in preparing your thoughts and being specific on communicating their talents and what a player needed to do to be more competitive. On occasion we referred players to other coaches who were going through the same process.

In the boardroom personnel would send a number of applicants qualified for the position. After looking at all the applications we would interview five applicants for the job, make a selection, and notify personnel. The Personnel Department then sends a letter to those that were not selected. Your hiring task is over and you can go back to the task of doing your job. Wrong! What do you say to the four not selected? You can’t take the easy way out as did some of my colleagues in the ball park. Why? Because there is a good possibility that the four highly productive and experienced employees would lament over not winning the promotion, feel devalued, and leave for another job. Now you suddenly have four positions to fill instead of that one.

It’s not easy being a manager but leadership is a choice. In a high tech world we need to brush up on our high touch skills and how to do that is for another blog.