Silverstone Group review of Nebraska Athletics finds a strong, high-performing department

Savage Husker said:
grandpasknee said:
Coach Power said:
grandpasknee said:
Have had experience with Silverstone Group. For the right price, they will tell you anything you want to hear, IMHO. Take this report and $6 and you can get a nice coffee at starbucks.
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"NOT CREDIBLE UNLESS YOU EXPLAIN YOURSELF FURTHER!"
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Golly, since you responded in all caps I reckon I'd better answer! :-) I was integrally involved with a project where Silverstone was the consulting group. Their "direction" changed multiple times based on what different leaders wanted to hear. Beyond that, there are ongoing activities that preclude me from commenting any further. If that means I'm not credible in your eyes, I suppose I'll still sleep OK.
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I'm not rebuttling just to play Devils advocate, but if it's what different leaders wanted, what else are they supposed to do after that many change of directions? It almost sounds like a leadership problem from the organization they audited. Or is there something more to it that you haven't had the chance to explain in detail yet?

Second, you're not the first person I've heard explain a story that silverstone hasn't lived up to their name, thus dropped the ball on a client.

Third, I helped pry a nice sized account away from them a couple years ago and saved a client $10-$20k per year.

So, my overall point is, I don't disagree with your statement about silverstone overall, but your particular situation would take more detail for me before I discredit their audit process. Sometimes I've learned, when as much as you try to sell a service the right way, no matter how true you try to be your customers, you also sell to your client what they want because they won't listen.
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That is true, part of the issue lies with the leadership that engages groups like Silverstone. Another aspect that you almost hinged on is, what the "salesperson" sells and what the company can deliver are two entirely different things.

 
dman22 said:
I'm a little surprised to see no one mentioning the part about former staff members trying to sabotage the athletic department leadership. But I suppose that topic has been beaten to death around here.

"It appears some former employees were working to sabotage rather than support the efforts of the leadership and staff of this department. Behavior described during the interview process by the interviewees themselves strongly suggests that, in some cases, this was happening."
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No. They'd never do that!

 
dman22 said:
"It appears some former employees were working to sabotage rather than support the efforts of the leadership and staff of this department. Behavior described during the interview process by the interviewees themselves strongly suggests that, in some cases, this was happening."
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Probably because that's a vague and ambiguous paragraph. Are they saying that sabotage occurred while at Nebraska or after leaving Nebraska? Are the saying that the interviewees admitted to sabotage?

It's a poorly constructed paragraph. I guess I'd have to see the whole report.

 
I read the report. Wow, I've read a lot of corporate consulting assessments and this one was fairly meaningless. All of the hedged and vague language aside, about 80% of the survey respondents were non-coaches. 70% were from AD staff/support employees. There was no breakdown of support. While the report says things were generally positive, knowing how coaches replied is more meaningful than general support staff.

 
I disagree w that cm.

The support staff is he frontline of day to day operations. For instance there's only 1 head coach of the volleyball team. There might be 15-18 people who support that team.

1 head coach for football, 60-75 who support it.

If a coach is doing HIS JOB then he knows very little of the office politics and other daily goings on.

Sure, hearing from the head coach is a good way to gauge it, but hearing from 20-30 people and averaging how how they feel gives a broader scope of dept health.

 
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