BETWEEN COACH & CONSULTANT

Football coaches are professional who are saddled with the responsibilities of managing a team with the sole purpose of winning or in the case of Arsenal, just strictly business purposes. A consultant, in this instance refers to professional who is responsible for the overall performance of the hotel in which he is consulting for. Both professions are required to pick new staff or work with existing back room staff depending of course on their choice. The buck stops at their tables in the sense that they have to live with the consequences of their decisions or indecisions. Sadly, they both have to report to bosses who are naively passionate about their businesses.

The world cup group stage was rounded up some few days ago but not without thrills and fills. Within the first week of the world cup, there have been casualties. The reigning champion crashed out understandably; and as the time of writing this piece the future of the elderly coach seems uncertain. The Azzurris were also homesick as they barely played their last group match before heading home. Again, their coach has been thrown into the labour market. Those are the high profiles coaches’ resume as at now, and as the saying goes, a coach is as good as his last match. Let’s face it; it is not easy managing a group of very egoistical twenty-two players who all want to play at the same time. The locker room politics is also there for the coach to contend with. Some job!

The hotel consultant is either hired to kick start the hotel from onset or hired to right the wrong of the Owner who presumably felt that managing hotel is a piece of cake. Whichever way, the consultant often gets kicked out like his counterpart on the field of play. Performance will buy you time on the job, but the problem with time is that it is time bound. Excuse the pun. Personally, I have often made it a point of duty to have a binding contract signed by both parties before committing to the job. Does it ever work? Like the old NEPA, it never worked. As one hotel owner once told me, this contract is not binding, “when am tired of you, I close my hotel gate, and when you are tired of me, just go”. Sounds familiar? Well, the reasons for this mutual mistrust between owners and consultants had once been treated on this domain.

Beyond this is also the issue of non-interference. When hotel operatives get information and directive from more than one source they are likely to be confused and unproductive. At a later stage in his career, Fernando Torres was face to face with empty net and was still torn with where to shoot as confusing directives were coming from both Abramovich and Jose Mourinho. Hotel consultants are so often faced with this interference dilemma; and some contemporaries have asked me of the way out of this occupational hazard. My response has always been take a walk. Coaching and consulting are not pensionable professions.