Pigskin Communication Problems

Project Management Lessons from the NFL National Anthem Protests

Without taking a side in the infamous and ongoing protests in the NFL, there is a key lesson about project management found between the kneeling, protesting players and season ticket holders burning their jerseys in a retaliatory protest of their own. When you look at the work that project managers do, at its simplest level, we communicate. Through emails, through meetings, and through project plans. Conference calls, diagrams, documentation, and more emails. In order for us to be successful in our roles, we must be expert communicators.

Through all of our communications, including written, verbal, and physical, our job is to keep our teams on point. What is the objective of this initiative? What is the message that you want to send to you stakeholders? More importantly, is that message consistent? For the NFL protesters, all of the same applies. Before even looking at the message that they are sending, I am confident in saying that their communication plan is non-existent and they are not seeing the intended results.

Start by taking a look at the physical communication, as this is where the protest really starts. Some NFL players, with a varying headcount participating each week this season, decided to take a knee during the playing of our National Anthem in the NFL’s pregame ceremonies. If you knew nothing else about the protests, what message would those kneeling players be sending to you by doing this? Many fans say this is insulting to the country and those that defend it, our military and police forces. But like these veterans and others, they see kneeling as a sign of respect and say it’s no insult at all. 

Looking more into the results of the protests, is the kneeling successful?

• As mentioned above, there have been many examples of people sharing videos of the time they officially transitioned from from die hard fan to former fan. See here, here, and here for fans incinerating their hats, jackets, and jerseys. One former Marine seen HERE even went nuclear and lit up his season tickets. Generally speaking, it’s usually not a good thing when your consumers are proud to burn up your products and publish the videos to the world on YouTube.
• On the flip side, Kaepernick seems to have done well from starting this movement. While there are plenty of people up in arms about what he started and how he started it, there are obviously a lot of others that support him. He even has the awards to prove it! 
• OK, so a player that started this movement but cannot get a team to sign him to a new contract won some awards for starting the aforementioned movement. While that’s either nice to hear or infuriating depending on where you see the issue, what is the state of the NFL as a result of the turmoil? This article in Forbes would argue that the viewers aren’t too happy with the protests. They have a business to run and need advertisers, sponsors, and the like. Those depend on viewership and ratings.
• Even if ratings are in fact down for the season, the main objective of a protest is to initiate some change, right? It's hardly pocket change but the players did get the NFL to agree to donate $100,000,000 to various social causes over seven years. Not bad, right? I’d say that the players can chalk that up as a win for their efforts…. Or not? Is it just a pay off? It seems like the players that wanted the social issues elevated and promoted on their public platform to initiate change now do not want the NFL's money to help on those issues. If not that, what does success look like for these protesters?

Differing understandings of the message is problem #1. The fact that the messages received by the stakeholders (fans) are not only different, they’re polar opposites… problem #2. Those that find it insulting are not only mad, they’re enraged, giving us problem #3. The protesting players, who do not seem to be unified in their definition of success for this dissent, comes in at problem #4. There are likely several more smaller problems to be found in this issue if we kept going but you can see that all of these are a part of, or possibly the result of, communication.

Again, regardless of whether the protests were about police brutality, not liking the National Anthem singer’s voice, the debatable management style of the NFL commissioner or whether or not Girl Scout cookies are delicious, we should be able to agree that the act of kneeling during the National Anthem is generating mixed results as seen by the torched merchandise and new awards on Kaepernick’s wall. This is not even close to debatable! These mixed results, at polar opposite ends of the issue’s spectrum, are precisely why project managers continue to be needed and valued in the business world (among other reasons). We simplify the complicated. We unite the divided. We clarify the unclear. 

As I have said throughout this post, it does not matter which side of the issue you find yourself. The execution of the protests and the resulting communications have become a nightmare to some, a long overdue rallying cry for change on an issue, political banter to others, and a distraction from the entertainment for even more. While there are no guarantees, investing time in your stakeholder and communication plans early on in the project will greatly increase the odds that you can avoid the confusion we see from the NFL player protests on hotly contested issues within your projects. Remember that you are the expert communicator on the team! Always be mindful of the messages that you are sharing and do not hesitate to course correct if or when you see mixed results from your stakeholders. Control the message and you will have better control of your project!