Real-Life Communication
Your communication skills are so good you can survive the rigours
of providing 20 hockey players with the proper equipment amidst the commotion
of the practice or game-day dressing room. (And you can do this in spite of
the fact that many of the players speak with thick accents and have difficulty
understanding English because they are from countries where English is not
the native language.)
However, as a sports equipment manager, not only
do you have to be able to communicate effectively with players in the dressing
room, you also have to be skilled at dealing with coaches, team managers and
equipment sales representatives.
"Communicating with others is one
of the most important things I have to do," says NHL equipment manager Barrie
Stafford. "For example, before I justify my budget to the team's accountant
controller, I've got to communicate with the players and coaches, as
well as the hockey equipment sales representatives."
So, now you are
sitting in the accountant controller's office. This is one of the two
or three face-to-face meetings a year you have in which you must make a verbal
report to justify your budget to a department head. You are relaxed because
you know you have done your job well and have not wasted your team's
money making foolish equipment purchases.
The controller is at his
desk, sifting through the equipment purchase orders you made the previous
year, and then he says: "I noticed that you spent $8,883 on elbow pads last
year, an increase of $2,586 from the year before. Why is that?"
In
answering the controller's question, the process you go through before
you make any large equipment purchase orders is revealed. Research is the
first step. Many companies are eager to be the equipment supplier for your
team because they know that if your professional team endorses their goods,
it is high-profile advertising for their company. For this reason, many equipment
companies send you, the equipment manager, booklets which extol the benefits
of their companies' products.
What do you say?