Real-Life Communication
Your communication skills are so good you can survive the rigors
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?