Change the Name and Start Moving Forward

I grew up a Raiders fan. My Mom’s side of the family is from El Segundo, California where the team practiced for years and it was just a natural thing for a kid to grow up love Marcus Allen and the Raiders. When we moved to DC, I tried to hold out and stay true to the Raiders but eventually the home team won out. I converted to the burgundy and gold and never looked back…until now.

I’m a sixteenth Blackfoot which isn’t enough to become an official member, but my opinion on this has nothing to do with my tiny drop of Indian heritage and everything to do with something most people learn in kindergarten. Step one to getting along with people and being successful is just being nice. My mom would always say “Just start by being nice and think will generally be ok.” I’m pretty sure the team didn’t choose the name to be hurtful. So why should they change it? Because if a large group of people are hurt by something you should stop doing that thing if you can.

Rather than debating who is in charge of who’s feelings or talking about the “storied” history of the franchise. Just change the name. This isn’t going away and eventually the name is going to change. The question is when and how gracefully.

For management this is an opportunity to do make the right decision. I guarantee there are people in the organization that know this is going to happen and will be relieved when it does. There are also those thinking that changing now is an admission they were wrong to not change the name before. That changing is an admission of previous guilt and wrong thinking. There may even be a few who think the name is ok and don’t understand why choosing a name for their team that a large number of people find offensive is ok.

I think its the first two groups of people that need to think hard about what the future holds. The third group missed the just be nice lesson in kindergarten and probably isn’t going to change their minds anytime soon. In business there is the concept of sunk cost and I think that applies here. While the team’s management has expended resources both real and emotional on keeping their tradition and their name, that time has passed. It is now simply a matter of when the name change is going to occur. The sooner it happens the sooner you can begin the process of building new traditions and focusing on the game and their on the field product. Instead of spending precious time and resources fighting change and maintaining this link to the past the team should be working to move forward.

In management clinging to the past and tradition can often hide a fear about the path forward or how to change. I’m not saying there aren’t people in the organization that believe that keeping the name is ok or that don’t understand why anyone cares. I’m just saying that I don’t believe the team will be called what it is today in five years and rather than focusing efforts on pushing that date out further management should embrace the inevitable and begin working towards a new era. I think that the team’s focus on maintaining its name shows an unwillingness to understand that this is unwinnable fight and a lack of thinking about the opportunities a name change might bring. Great managers know what battles to fight and find opportunity in challenging circumstances.

Until this team figures out how to move forward I’ll be putting the silver and black on and trying to stay up late enough to re-discover my Raider roots.