Conversations in Management
On
its face, this observation is indisputable—what makes it
remarkable is that the line is taken from a full-page ad in the
July 6 edition of USA Today promoting the Versus
network’s coverage of the 2007 Tour de France. It alludes to the
pledge to be drug-free that all Tour riders were required to
sign prior to the start of the race. It’s the first time anyone
can recall this level of damage control being required to
hype a major sporting event. It’s also the sad recognition that
cycling, as Tour Director Christian Prudhomme said, “has lost
its dignity.”
No one can
fault Versus for trying to defuse some of the controversy
that swirls around Tour athletes. Ratings for their live
coverage of the Tour plummeted by 50% between the 2005 and 2006
races. While some of this had to do with the retirement of
seven-time winner Lance Armstrong, much of it had to do with the
doping scandal that regularly sidelined major contenders. The
problem seemed to reach its apex when last year’s winner, Floyd
Landis, tested positive shortly after his amazing win. It didn’t
end there. The Discovery Channel team’s best hope for a win,
Ivan Basso, ended up with a two-year suspension shortly before
this year’s race. While claiming the doping scandal wasn’t a
factor, The Discovery Channel announced that they would
discontinue their sponsorship of the team after this season.
It’s a sad
state of affairs for the Tour de France. Cycling at this level
of competition is like no other sport. It involves exquisite
athleticism, strategic nuances and what’s commonly called
grit. It’s a team sport that crowns a single winner while
maintaining a degree of civility fast vanishing from society at
large. Yet now, it’s all been compromised. Virtually all
coverage of the Tour includes some reference to the doping
scandal. Every rider, coach and manager is under suspicion.
Every stage win carries the unspoken fear that it’s not a clean
win. In the post-Landis era, even the final crowning on the
Champs-Élysées will include a measure of restraint. No one
believes that all the riders—or even most of the riders—are
dopers. The decline of the Tour’s stature is due to a few
individuals who believed that a personal win was more important
than the competition itself. The few have compromised the
many.
Is this
starting to sound familiar? Most of us have faced the same
situation at work where the misdeeds of a few have generated an
avalanche of rules to keep us all in line. Drug testing, time
clocks, security cameras and email monitoring are all the
results of a few people acting badly. While it’s said that
cheaters only cheat themselves, in truth, all of us pay the
price. The self-serving, “me first” crowd can be counted on to
keep behaving badly and we seem ready to let them do it. We’re
predisposed to avoid confrontation with the result that more
restrictions are placed on everyone in the hopes of controlling
the problem children. What’s forgotten is that left
unchallenged, the bad apples will continue to spoil the barrel.
Of course
the Tour will survive. By confronting the doping issue the
sport’s integrity—if not its dignity—can be restored. The rest
of us need to demonstrate the same kind of fortitude. It’s
important that we stay on the high road and confront the
cheaters when we find them. Let’s pledge to stop working around
problems, winking at minor wrong-doing and punishing everyone
for the bad actions of a few. Call it the yellow jersey
initiative (maillot jaune for the purists) and credit yourself
with at least one stage win on the Tour de life.
—Ebert
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