I just finished a great book called “Dream Job”. It’s
written by the Richard Peddie, the former CEO of MLSE (Maple Leafs Sports and
Entertainment) and he talks about his career journey and the things that helped
him get an amazing job – one a lot of people would consider a dream job.
There are two things that he spends a great deal talking
about. The first is vision and values. He talks about how he believes that
these two things are integral to a company’s success. And not just having a
vision and a value statement but actually believing them and incorporating them
into the daily aspects of the business. A vision statement is a mental picture
of what an organization wants to accomplish over time – the ideal future state.
A value statement is a bit different in the sense that it lets everyone know
what a company’s core beliefs and top priorities are. Peddie uses Enron as an
example of a company that had a vision and a value statement (one that talked
about ‘integrity’) but obviously didn’t follow it. The second thing he focuses
on throughout the book is leadership. He talks about how important it is to
develop the best staff, and to ensure they continue to grow and develop into leaders
for the company.
Peddie also offers some interesting insight about the deals
that MLSE could have made but didn’t (ex: buying the Argos, buying an English soccer
team, buying an NFL franchise, etc.) and why they didn’t make those deals. He
discusses how his previous jobs (General Foods, Pillsbury, SkyDome) helped to
prepare him for this job and what he didn’t learn there but wished he had. He
gives some useful advice when he says that you should never leave a job without
being promoted at least once – that your resume needs to show growth and
diversification.
For me it was particularly interesting because his story is
very much linked with that of Labatt, which is the company I work for
currently. Labatt used to own 41% of SkyDome, 90% of Toronto Blue Jays and 100%
of the Toronto Argonauts (CFL) until they were acquired by Interbrew in 1995
and had to sell off those assets. Through his friendship with George Taylor,
who was the Labatt CEO at the time, Peddie got a job at Labatt Communications
Inc. (which later became NetStar). Apparently LCI is the company that launched
TSN and at one point included TSN, Discovery Channel, RDS and Dome Productions.
That blew my mind – that the company I currently work for launched TSN (a
company that has since launched TSN2 and is soon going to launch TSN3, TSN4,
and TSN5). These channels also had to be sold off in 1995 due to the
acquisition by Interbrew.
All in all, a very interesting and inspiring read –
especially for someone who aspires to a dream job in the world of sports
management.
