Managing Sport Organizations Essay

Charleston Battery is a sport organization, which was formed in 1993 and, since the day of its foundation, it has been progressing steadily focusing on sport activities as well as the work with supporters, who are strategically important for the organization. The team of Charleston Battery is playing in the USL A-League and it has already achieved a considerable progress since the quality of the play of the team and professionalism of each of 28 players has increased substantially, to the extent that today they can compete with other teams playing in the USL A-League. At any rate, Charleston Battery had a long way to go from a beginning team to an experienced team with well-qualified employees and loyal supporters. In this respect, it is worth mentioning the fact that Charleston Battery’s supporters can regularly attend the Blackbaud Stadium which capacity is 5,113 spectators. The presence of spectators is very important for the team as well as for the organization at large, because along with moral support spectators contribute to the growing popularity of Charleston Battery that naturally brings considerable financial benefits and market promotion of the organization, which brand becomes more and more recognizable by the local population. Charleston Battery has already managed to attract 3,700 attendants at average and such attendance allows the organization develop steadily and develop long-term plans for the further growth of the organization. In fact, to a significant extent, due to the high level of attendance and popularity of Charleston Battery the organization has already managed to create two affiliate teams: Miami Fusion and Tampa Bay Mutiny. In addition, Charleston Battery has already gained D3 Pro League Championship in 1996, just three years after the foundation of the organization. Therefore, the organization performs successfully, but its recent and current successes are determined not only by professionalism and talent of its players but also by the effective management of the organization and by its positive organizational culture which makes Charleston Battery a real and effective team. The organization pays a particular attention to its supporters and provides them with a large range of services and offers of goods to buy. To put it more precisely, Charleston Battery offers service-fun entertaining sport alternative and affiliated goods. The organization sells food and drinks under its brand. Charleston Battery organizes marketing teams which facilitate its marketing performance and increase its effectiveness. Also, Charleston Battery organizes birthday and corporate parties, which contribute to unification of people working within the organization and these parties stimulate the formation of positive interpersonal relationships between all people working at Charleston Battery. Furthermore, the organization has its soccer academy and organizes tournaments which increase the professional level of players of Charleston Battery. However, the organization is not absolutely self-sufficient since the support of donors and sponsors is needed and Charleston Battery has special places reserved specifically to its sponsors.

Chapter 1

Classical view

On analyzing the organizational structure of Charleston Battery, it should be said that the organization has a flat structure. In actuality, such a structure provides the organization with ample opportunities to develop effective professional relations between all people working at Charleston Battery. Even though there are set hierarchy levels, they still do not lead to the formation of the authoritarian management style in the organization. Instead, employees have a large autonomy and are able to perform and realize their full potential while managers can focus on their direct functions.

The organization has specialized units which are focused on specific fields of the organizational performance, which makes the organization flexible and able to adapt easily its performance to the current needs of the market and customers. At the same time, there is a centralized managerial hierarchy which contributes to the order and stability within the organization since operations of all specialized units are under a centralized system of control. As a result, all employees feel their responsibility and they are doing their best to improve the organizational performance.

Furthermore, the organization is oriented on the achievement of goals which are set in the strategic plan of Charleston Battery. In this respect, it is important to underline that all people working within the organization are conscious of the goals the organization needs to achieve and they feel their responsibility for the achievement of concrete goals. Such a focus on the goal-achievement contributed consistently to the permanency of the organization because Charleston Battery operated for 12 years and have already achieved a considerable progress in the company-customer relationship and in sport.

At the same time, relationships within the organization are of the utmost importance for Charleston Battery because the organization tends to work as a team, which consists of 10 employees and 28 players. In addition, the organization actively cooperates with its donors and sponsors and readily accepts the assistance of volunteers, who help organize sport and non-sport events.

System view

Charleston Battery is an open-system organization that allows the organization to cooperate effectively with its sponsors as well as volunteers. At the same time, the openness of the organization stimulates the fast development of the organization because it readily accepts any external assistance and develops close relationships with its business-partners and other organizations as well as supporters of the team.

In the contemporary business environment, Charleston Battery cannot fail to be affected by social, cultural and economic conditions which, to a significant extent, define the development of the organization. The organization has managed to achieve a considerable success due o the popularity of sport in the modern society, while the attention of people to their health makes such sport organization as Charleston Battery a flagman of the promotion of a healthy lifestyle. Moreover, supporters of Charleston Battery can send their children to its soccer academy where they can learn to play soccer and substitute the players that play in the team at the moment. In such a way, the organization can educate devoted sportsmen and promote its public image as an organization which is concerned with health of people.

Furthermore, the organization is oriented on self-regulation that provides ample opportunities for the organization to grow and develop in accordance with the current marketing trends. In fact, self-regulation contributes to the flexibility of the organization and, therefore, makes its structure more effective and competitive in the contemporary business environment.

In addition, it should be said that Charleston Battery relies on its sponsors, Lotto and Blackbaud, whose input supports the organization financially. At the same time, self-regulated organization is able to plan and use its financial resources effectively to organize sport events and produce sporting goods for fans. In such a way, the organization can increase its revenues. In this respect, the cooperation of Charleston Battery with media is very important since such media as WACS, WSC 730 AM increases the audience of the team and, therefore, increases the popularity of Charleston Battery’s brand that naturally strengthens the marketing position of the organization.

Chapter 2

The role of management is particularly significant for the effective marketing performance of the organization because it has only ten employees that means that each professional employed in the organization should perform his functions effectively and, what is more, each employee should be able to take decisions in order to meet goals set by the organization. In this respect, the role of directors, who actually comprise the ownership group, is particularly significant. The directors of Charleston Battery are: Lawrence Freidrich, Juerg Gege, Jame Hawk, Chris Jefferies, Horry Kerrison, Dr. Eric G. LaVeen, Dan McAnaar, Dr. Kevin Riker, Geoffrey M. Smith, Timothy Smith and Chad

Waldorf. The CEO of Charleston Battery is Anthony E. Bakker and its chairman is J. Miles Barkley.

Furthermore, the executive hierarchy of the organization is headed by the President Nigel W.H. Cooper who conducts the general management of the organization and works on strategic development of Charleston Battery, while current and technical problems are the main concerns of his subordinates, whose work he coordinates, controls and guides. Among his subordinates, it is possible to name the Vice President, John R. Powers, who is focused on the external planning of the development of the organization. The General Manger of Charleston Battery is Buckley Andrews, who is also involved in the planning process and focuses on administrative problems and functions. The Treasurer Ann S. Hunter is mainly concerned with financial functions and accounting, which is very important, taking into consideration the fact that Charleston Battery is a fast growing organization. The Director of Operations is Betsy McAdams, who supervises operations of the company and she is also involved in the planning process concerning the future operations of the organization. The Director of Marketing and PR, Andrew Bell, focuses on the company-customer relationships. He plans and organizes promotional campaigns and advertising of Charleston Battery in local media. He also works on the development of marketing strategy and plans marketing development of the organization. The Ticket Sales Managers, Troy Lawrence and Caroline Cuttino, are also involved in the company-customer relationship since they need to maintain high sale rates of tickets in order to provide a significant support of Charleston Battery and increase the average attendance of its matches. The Head Coach, Mike Anhaeuser, and his assistant, Daniel Allen, are directly involved into the work with players. In fact, it is the Head Coach and Assistant Coach, who are, to a significant extent, responsible for the sport achievements of the organization and good work of players of Charleston Battery. At the same time, it should be said that coaches need a permanent support of other managers because the team needs technical and financial support to get equipment, to have a possible to train and play in normal conditions.

In fact, Charleston Battery functions as a team when all managers and employees know their own functions and they maintain positive interpersonal relationships which facilitate their professional work. At the same time, effective cooperation does not prevent the organization from being effectively managed by its leader who unites the team and guides its development performing functions of planning, organizing and control.

Chapter 3

In any modern organization, the process of planning can play the crucial role because the plan, on the basis of which the organization performs and develops, defines the goals of the organization and ways of their achievement. In this respect, Charleston Battery understands perfectly the significance of planning and the organization attempt to control the execution of its strategic plan regularly and introduce changes and corrections if necessary. At the same time, it is important to underline that the planning in Charleston Battery does not occur spontaneously. Instead, the organization uses a profound analysis, both internal and external, assessing the current marketing position of the organization, internal problems as well as potential of the organization. The organization critically evaluates existing weaknesses of Charleston Battery and analyzes the potential threats which can deteriorate the position of the organization on the market. At this point, the use of SWOT analysis proves to be very helpful in the planning process because SWOT analysis provides decision makers of Charleston Battery with ample information concerning the internal and external factors influencing the development of the organization.

Furthermore, it is necessary to distinguish sport planning and organizational planning since sport planning focuses on setting and achievement of sport goals by the end of the season and this planning can change from year to year depending on the opportunities and strengths of the team. The organizational planning involves all elements of the organization and is oriented on a long-run development of Charleston Battery as a multifunctional organization. As a rule, planning process consists in the development of plan for a year, but managers and the President of the organization maintain the permanent control over the execution of the plan and after consultations they can introduce changes in the plan. Each manager within the organization is responsible for the adequate fulfillment of his functions and the unit he manages and controls should meet the general goals of the organization defined in the plan.

Chapter 4

To manage Charleston Battery effectively, it is necessary to organize the process of decision making effectively too. In this respect, Charleston Battery has already reached considerable successes since the organization is characterized by the autonomy of its managers and employees, who are able to take decisions independently from the President Cooper, but, all the decisions taken should meet the strategic course of the development of Charleston battery. In addition, the organization is focused on specialized decision-making process. What is meant here is the fact that specialists responsible for a specific sphere can take autonomous decisions in terms of their responsibility and functions. For instance, the Treasurer can take decisions in the financial field but, it is impossible that this specialist would interfere into the work of the Head Coach or any other specialist. In such a way, through specialization the high effectiveness of decision making is achieved.

At the same time, all the decisions are taken on the basis of strategic plan of the organization and the performance of each employee is controlled. In this respect, the existing hierarchy of levels enhances the effectiveness of decision making because levels do not intersect and the President is able to control the performance of the entire organization and organize consultations on different levels involving all specialists. In addition, the delegation is applied in Charleston Battery that allows managers to substitute each other and perform different functions that increases their cooperation and interaction.

The decision making process involves several steps. Firstly, the problem is defined. Secondly, all possible solutions and alternatives are discussed in order to find out the optimal solution of the problem. On evaluating all of the suggested alternatives the best one is picked up and implemented.

Chapter 5

Basically, the current situation is characterized by the increasing significance of the role of leadership and motivation in the success of the functioning of the organization. It proves beyond a doubt that leadership and motivation traditionally were the major elements that contributed to the successful performance of the organization. It should be pointed out that specialists (Paese and Smitty, 227) often underline the fact that leadership could produce a profound impact on the motivation, while the effectiveness of leadership is often assessed on the basis of its motivating power. To put it more precisely, historically, the role of leaders was defined as the ability to head an organization, to unite people working within the organization and lead them to the success. This formula may be viewed as a simplified definition of the interdependence of leadership and motivation. Even in the past epochs, leadership and motivation were closely interlinked. At the present moment this link grows even stronger.

In this respect, it is necessary to emphasize that the concept of leadership was basically underdeveloped in the past and leaders were viewed as some outstanding people who managed to gain the leading position in society or an organization. It was believed that leadership was an innate ability that could not be trained and, therefore, it was considered to be practically impossible to develop leadership qualities if an individual did not have any internal inclinations to leadership. However, in the course of time, the interest to the concept of leadership increased as the need in effective leaders grew. The increased demand on leaders stimulated the researches on the problem of leadership.

In fact, leaders are viewed as people that are able not only manage the personnel of a company effectively but also stimulate the work of each individual working within an organization. In this respect, the link between leadership and motivation may be easily traced. It should be said that many specialists (Leach, 97) underline that effective motivation is one of the major aspects of the effective leadership because the major goal of a leader is to make other people to follow him/her or, to put it more precisely, to meet strategic goals and objectives which the leader heads the organization for. Consequently, leaders should provide the personnel with stimuli that could motivate them to meet the goals defined and, therefore, to fulfill the goals of the organization. In such a way, through motivation, the leader can be really effective because it is only really effective leaders that can unite and motivate people to meet their common goals regardless some personal interests and expectations.

At the same time, it is very important to avoid underestimation of the significance of motivation in the context of leadership. In fact, motivation is not just a tool used by leaders to meet their goals, or the goals of an organization. In stark contrast, motivation can be actually used by any manager to stimulate the positive performance of individual employees as well as the company at large. It is through motivation the effectiveness and productivity of work could be increased significantly. Along with the technological improvement and the increase of the effectiveness of the management style, motivation is a very important factor that influences the performance of employees and the entire organization shaping the organizational behavior.

Many specialists (Hughes et al, 227) indicate to the fact that organizational behavior may changing depending on the motivation of employees. To put it more precisely, the organizational behavior is highly dependent on the motivation of employees because when they are interested and motivated in the improvement of their performance they naturally increase the effectiveness and productivity of their work.

In this respect, it should be pointed out that specialists underline the importance of employees’ engagement into the process of strategic planning and realization of strategic goals of an organization. What is meant here is the fact that employees should primarily clearly understand the objectives the company targets to achieve. At the same time, the understanding of the goals alone is not enough for the success of the company, but employees also need to be motivated to meet these goals. In this regard, specialists (Leach, 106) recommend the larger involvement of employees that means that employees should be conscious of their role in the performance of the entire organization, they should realize that the work they do is really meaningful and is very significant for the organization and that they make their own contribution into the development of the organization. In such a context, it is very important to keep employees motivated making their personal success dependant on the success of the entire organization. Consequently, employees will be motivated to increase the effectiveness and productivity of their work as it will improve not only the performance of the organization but it will improve their own position.

Traditionally, motivation was closely interlinked with some material reward, which was considered to be the strongest stimuli that can encourage the positive performance of an employee. However, the recent researches (Paese and Smitty, 249) have revealed the fact that the performance of an organization can be consistently improved through the improvement of the internal atmosphere within an organization through the improvement of the organizational behavior and creation of a positive organizational culture. On the other hand, it is necessary to understand the fact that the positive results in the development of organizational behavior could be primarily achieved through the effective motivation. Obviously, it is practically impossible to keep employee constantly motivated through material rewards only. In this respect, specialists (Hughes et al, 248) underline the important of non-material motivation. For instance, the formation of the positive organizational culture can motivated consistently the performance of employees as they are satisfied with their workplace environment and relationships with other employees and the administration of the organization.

Traditionally, it is believed that the formation of positive organizational culture could be reached through the formation of liberal and democratic management style (Paese and Smitty, 256). In such a way, employees are supposed to be motivated as they feel that they are important for the company and that they are equal in relationships with other members of a team. Obviously, the role of leaders in this regard could hardly be underestimated because using democratic style of management they could make people to accept their ideas and meet the desirable objectives.

However, it is worthy of mention that in recent years the traditional views on motivation and leadership have started to change. To put it more precisely, the democratic and liberal relationships between leaders and employees, which were viewed as a strong motivating factors for employees to improve their performance, are nowadays considered to be not as effective as they used to be just a few years ago (Hughes et al, 321). What is really important nowadays is the flexibility of the management style of leaders and the high autonomy and independence of employees as a very important motivating factor. In this respect, it is necessary to point out that nowadays leadership is not viewed as some exceptional or innate ability or gift. Instead, it is considered to be an important managerial ability that can be taught and developed regardless the internal inclinations of an individual (Schmitt and Simonson, 122). Naturally, the success of the teaching and training of leadership qualities may vary depending on the inclination and internal potential of a person, but, nowadays, it is believed that a really effective manager should be also a leader. In such a way, a manager will be able to achieve the most effective results, while the motivation could much more effective if the personnel perceives the manager as a leader.

In this respect, it is important to underline that some specialists (Schmitt and Simonson, 134) indicate to the fact that the concept of manager and leader do not always coincide. As the matter of fact, a manager can be just a formal leader that does not necessarily mean that he/she is actual leader accepted as such by the personnel. In such a situation, it is rather possible to speak about the formal leadership than actual leadership of a manager because he/she may be recognized by the personal as a leader only because he/she has the official authority.

On the other hand, employees may have informal leaders, which can have no official power within an organization but which can affect the organizational behavior dramatically. In such a situation, it is very important that the interests and goals of formal and informal leaders coincided that means that managers should be able to identify the informal leaders and gain their support if managers are unable to become the actual leaders of the team working within an organization. This means that it is necessary to unite the efforts of leaders to lead the organization to desirable goals, which should improve its performance. Otherwise, conflicts between formal and informal leaders may lead to the deterioration of the organizational behavior and undermine the organizational culture.

Obviously, the personnel is traditionally oriented on the actual leader, which may be either formal, i.e. manager, or informal, i.e. a person who has charisma and leadership qualities the formal leader is actually deprived of. Consequently, if the informal leader has a different view or is unwilling to meet the goals defined by the administration he/she can influence other people that can potentially lead to the failure of the strategic plan the manager of the organization attempts to implement. In this respect, the motivation apparently plays a very important role as well as leadership does. In fact, the informal leader who is recognized by the personnel as an actual leader has larger opportunities to influence and motivate the personnel, while manager, if he/she is not recognized as the actual but only as formal leader, has little opportunities to motivate employees effectively. Specialists (Hughes et al, 155) underline that, in such a situation, employee will more likely motivated by the behavior of their informal leader than by various stimuli of the administration. Managers will fail to improve the situation as long as they cannot gain the support of the actual leader and as long as the personnel do not fully understand the perspectives of the development of the organization and their own roles in the performance of the company.

At the same time, in the contemporary business environment it seems to be obvious that the autonomy and independence of employees may, to a significant extent, minimize the risk of such conflicts between formal and informal leaders, though it does not mean that the high autonomy of employees decreases the significance of leadership and makes motivation unnecessary. In fact, specialists (Hughes et al, 295) view the high autonomy of employees as an effective means to increase the positive impact of motivation of managers on employees and the decrease of the risk of the development of informal leadership and its growing significance for employees. It is argued that through the high autonomy of employees they will become less dependent on informal leaders because they will realize their own significance and importance for a company, while the motivation from the part of managers will stimulate them to improve their performance because they will be conscious of the fact that they make a consistent contribution into the development of the company, while the latter directly influences their own well-being and future perspectives in this company. It is also worthy of mention that such a strategy is particularly effective in relation to creative people, who are nowadays considered to be the most valuable employees, because the independence for such people is a strong stimuli that can motivate such employees to fully realize their potential and implement their innovative ideas. The latter can be very useful since in the contemporary business environment innovations can provide an organization with the strategic competitive advantage compared to its major rivals. Nowadays, gaining competitive advantages through the effective motivation and leadership is particularly important because of the growing competition and the decreasing opportunities for the use of traditional motivation factors such as material reward, for instance.

The leader of Charleston Battery, Cooper uses a combination of various leadership styles that helps him to maximize the effectiveness of leadership. It is possible to trace elements of situation, transactional and transformational leadership in his work. President Cooper proves to be a supportive leader he can motivate and encourage his subordinates using not only material but also psychological stimuli, such as complements, positive interpersonal relationships, etc. At the same time, he is a powerful, charismatic leader who is able to unite his subordinates to achieve the set goals, but he is not an authoritarian leader because he is ready to collaborate and negotiate decisions which are normally taken on the basis of consensus. In addition, he is fair and open-minded that strengthens his influence on his subordinates.

Chapter 6

The evaluation process is crucial for the assessment of the effectiveness of the organization and introduction of changes in the plan of the organization, if the organizational performance does not meet the set goals. In this respect, Charleston Battery has an effective system of evaluation. The evaluation occurs on the basis of annual reports, external financial statements, results of the team and the organization at large. As a rule, the results and achievements of the organization are evaluated annually in January. On the basis of evaluation, the effectiveness of the organization is defined and the further plan of the organizational development is worked out.

Conclusion

Thus, it is possible to conclude that, at the moment, Charleston Battery performs effectively. It has managed to achieve positive results in the field of sport and organizational development. The organization is quite profitable, but still it relies on its sponsors. In addition, the orientation of the organization on the sport should be enlarged since it is possible to increase the organization’s revenues through expanding its products and services beyond its soccer team. However, to introduce changes the organization needs new ideas, which are apparently few in Charleston Battery at the moment. This is why its leader should take responsibility and start consistent changes to maximize the effectiveness of the organizational performance.