I love the Ryder Cup! For non-golfers, the Ryder Cup is a team competition between top golfers from the U.S. and Europe and occurs every two years. The event has been around since 1927, but has really grown in popularity since the late 1970's.
Besides great golf, the event has provided a great laboratory for looking at the impacts of various management styles on a team through the years. This year was no different and culminated with a contentious post-event press conference in which American star, Phil Mickelson, essentially chastised the management style of the American captain, Tom Watson.
Let's set aside the debate about whether or not the management style of a captain actually impacts the on-course performance of star athletes like Mickelson. A part of me says "no" and in this aspect Mickelson sounded like a whiner in the press conference. If Phil and company can't motivate themselves to play well in the Super Bowl of golf, it's doubtful that Vince Lombardi, Nick Saban or John Wooden would be able to coax winning performance out of them.
But in the real world, the management style of the team leader does greatly impact the performance of the team, and on this front, Mickelson made some very valid points. Tom Watson utilized an old-school, top-down, authoritarian management style. He made all the decisions because in his mind, he knows best. And like most authoritarian managers, he implied that he made all the right decisions and the players (employees) are to blame for the loss.
Mickelson's point was that the team performed better under Paul Azinger in 2008, the last time the U.S. team has won the event. Azinger utilized a personality profile assessment to group players with compatible partners. He also engaged the players who earned their way on the team to help select the final members of the team. This is a great lesson for small and mid-sized business owners who run their businesses like Tom Watson ran the U.S. team. Thinking you have all the answers doesn't necessarily translate to peak performance by your team.
The way Watson was chosen as the leader also contains lessons. The PGA of America selects the captain. First, like many executive teams, they tend to be reactionary in their approach to selecting a leader. The Americans lost in 2012 with captain Davis Love III, whom they determined to be too soft. So their answer was to select someone tough. And no one is tougher than Tom Watson. Second, like many executive teams, they overvalue the wrong criteria. Every U.S. captain in recent memory has been a major champion - meaning they've won at least one of golf's four major championships. Being a great individual contributor has never been a valid criteria for selecting a team leader. We've all witnessed the top sales producer fail as sales manager, for example. And third, like many executives, they undervalue succession planning and continuity. Each U.S. captaincy has been a whole new team with a totally different philosophy.
Contrast that with the European team that won this year with Paul McGinley as captain. McGinley only won four European tour events in his career and never finished higher than 6th in a major championship. McGinley served as vice captain in 2010 with Colin Montgomery (who also never won a major championship) and 2012 with Jose-Maria Olazabel. McGinley is beloved by the European players and he brought stability and continuity from the 2010 and 2012 teams to his own captaincy. Had the Euro's lost, I have a hard time believing a member of their team would have taken to the podium and skewered McGinley the way Mickelson skewered Watson.
No vice captains from Paul Azinger's 2008 championship team were part of the 2010 team, and while there have been a few repeat vice captains, the U.S. hasn't tended to view the vice captaincy as place to develop future captains. Captains are selected primarily on the merit of their individual accomplishments, not on their past performance as vice captains or their demonstrated ability to rally a team to peak performance.
The Europeans use a succession plan which puts a premium on effective teamwork over individual accomplishments, while the Americans bounce back and forth from "soft" management styles like Love III and Pavin and "hard" management styles like Watson and Hal Sutton. The Europeans consistently win and the Americans consistently lose. Is anyone paying attention at the PGA of America?
