Thursday, November 02, 2006

Stand Up to People With Power

George Ellis was the sports information director at North Dakota State University in Fargo, North Dakota for 30 years. The school was moving from a lower athletic division to Division 1 status--big time competition. They decided that Mr. Ellis wasn't the person they wanted for the role of sports information director and fired him, citing poor job performance. Mr. Ellis sued for age discrimination and this week won his suit against the powerful North Dakota institution.

I am appalled at what athletic department executives did to Mr. Ellis. You simply do not fire an employee of 30 years unless that employee did something incredibly egregious, which Mr. Ellis did not do.

I’ve spent the past 30 years as a Secret Service Agent, an executive at the Star Tribune Newspaper, a Ph.D. student of leadership, and, for the past 13 years, a consultant to leaders. I am a prolific writer about leadership and will talk about leadership to anyone who will listen at any time. In my career I put people in prison, fired many people, and feel most organizations are in dire need of greater accountability; however, I believe that what they did to Mr. Ellis was wrong.

The corporate and institutional worlds are filled with George Ellis’s: the ordinary and everyday people who invest their lives in their schools or companies only to be tossed aside by men and women hungry for fame, money, victory, and the next step up the occupational ladder. I’ve felt the anguish of men and women whose careers were ended and their life’s work marginalized by “leaders” who lack empathy for other human beings. I only wish the leaders of the North Dakota State Athletic Department who testified in this case could feel for themselves 10% of the pain, anxiety, and disillusionment that Mr. Ellis and his family must have felt.

Who will be held accountable at NDSU? Why didn’t they offer Mr. Ellis a decent early retirement or another position until he retired out of respect for his age and 30 years of service and avoid looking like big bullies? Athletic Director Gene Taylor’s testimony was deemed “not credible” by the judge. Did he lie under oath? Women’s Athletic Director Lynn Dorn made comments about Ellis being too old to do the job if NDSU went to Division 1, which, the judge wrote, showed evidence of age discrimination. Her incredibly poor judgment in saying what she said cost NDSU hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs. Her mistake was immeasurably larger than anything they fired Mr. Ellis for.

NDSU says it will appeal this case. I urge NDSU to pay the settlement and move on. You have lost me as a ticket-buying fan, and I am sure you have lost others. Don’t make a bad situation worse for yourselves. The leaders of the athletic department who appear to be so full of themselves should remember that while they may think of themselves as ‘big fish,” they are still swimming in a tiny pond. Some humility is in order.

Congratulations to Mr. Ellis. It took courage for him to stand up to a large and powerful institution. His victory gives hope and inspiration to victims throughout our society and community who are abused by those with power.

4 Comments:

At 6:05 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

How can a person in the position of providing information be lauded for routinely giving incorrect information, or for giving it late? NDSU's case was that errors and missed deadlines were big factors in the decision.

Age discrimination is Ellis' spin, which was intriguing to the media, fuel for his attorney, and ultimately how he won and is receiving the sympathy you and others show.

A retirement package or different position -- as you suggested -- is probably how Dorn's comments were intended. So how can you say this should be offered, then turn around and blast Dorn for her comment?

NDSU is a quickly changing and rising institution, and some of my colleagues on campus who knew Ellis say he admitted he didn't like change.

Taylor wasn't even around when the comments were made. He's done a lot right for his teams, and I think he was right again.

 
At 12:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anonymous, I'd be interested to know what you do for a living. I'm not going to claim to have all the information on this case. However, as an SID, I know that if NDSU is anything at all like many, and possibly the majority of institutions, they were asking Ellis to handle an unreasonable amount of work.

I know for a fact, that a majority of SIDs at Division II and III institutions, and many lower-level Divsion I schools, work hours in extreme excess of 40 per week. It is not an exageration that many people in this position average more than 60-70 hours per week during the school year.

That is average, not once in a while. And it is not inflated. I would be willing to bet that many, if not all of the shortcomings that led to his dismissel were ultimately beyond his control. I doubt they really had much to do with the decision, and were simply a convenient excuse.

The school is to blame here, but they are just following a dangerous trend. Overwork and underpay, then cast aside for someone younger and cheaper.

The ironic thing is that Ellis said he would have retired and continued to work at the school for free. And you want to blame him. He gave 30 years to the school, and they can't even ask him to retire. Maybe I'm missing something, but not based on what was reported in the article.

No offense to anonymous, but I just see a whole different side of things.

 
At 11:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

You have lost me as a ticket-buying fan, and I am sure you have lost others. Don’t make a bad situation worse for yourselves.
**********************************

You are not going to a BISON game ever again huh?

So you weren't at that Kansas State Home game where they couldve sold 10,000 tickets.

You weren't at the DOME with 19,710 and 1200 more turned away?

Anonymous is right on in HER assessment of the situation, i think I know who she is.

Futhermore, NDSU is bigger than 1 person and 1 person is NOT going to tarnish the simply amazing things being done on the athletic field/court and in the classroom and research centers.


I suppose you feel sorry for the minimum wage earners as well huh??

classic.

 
At 4:53 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good Post. NDSU should learn from the Fargo School district... if you have a personnel problem...just give them a new title and a corner office somewhere they can do no more harm.

 

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