May 30, 2009
By Brenda Benedict
NASCAR executives took historic action this past week by holding meetings with the stakeholders in the sport to elicit ideas for improving the product presented for the fans.
Brain France, the Chairman of NASCAR, explained the purpose of the meeting.
"Even though we've always had a pretty good open door policy and good approach, we just know we can do better. We can all gain more when we are sharing ideas and having an exchange on the issues that matter most to them. We had a lot of stakeholders here today, and they are central to the success of NASCAR."
The meetings, held at NASCAR’s research and development center near Lowe’s Motor Speedway, were attended by drivers, owners and crew members. After the meetings most of those present commented that they felt that their voices had been heard.
Brain France commented, "Clearly, if there are some adjustments that we learned today that can be incorporated without changing the financial model for the team owners, we want to be open to that. We heard some ideas today that we're going to consider and weigh. And they heard some reasoning why our thinking was staying the course on the new car the way we have."
Rick Hendrick, ever the diplomat said, "I think today was a really great step, Brian, Lesa and all those folks answering questions and taking some criticism and explaining why some things are like they are and giving everybody a chance to speak up. I think if we can do more of these we can see that we all can work together to make this thing better. There's a lot of smart people in that garage area."
Hardcore Sports frankly reported, “The overall feeling amongst the drivers, owners and NASCAR officials was the town hall style meeting was a step in the right direction. While little was actually accomplished (emphasis mine) during the two meetings held on Tuesday, NASCAR and its competitors feel as if they understand each other more clearly and can now move forward to address the main issues facing the sport today.”
I don’t want to be cynical but it may be too early to get excited about an improved sport in the near future. NASCAR will have to act on the advice they received yesterday before I am going to buy their line that they “know they can do better.”
Listening may be the first step but it will take it some real changes. Even more than that, there should be a willingness to admit that the NASCAR organization isn’t all-knowing and invincible. I did not hear anything of the sort from NASCAR. What I heard from France after the meeting was, “It was good to hear them express what they think really would work well.”
I worked in an organization that prided itself on getting input from the employees before making decisions that affected all of us. But what we quickly learned was the solicitation of input was not genuine. No matter what the employees said, the leadership made the decision they were going for in the first place.
That kind of insincerity will quickly turn everyone cynical.
I just hope NASCAR is not doing this. They must now act on what they learned Tuesday. Listening patiently to the input and filing it away without so much as a real change to the sport will cause fans and stakeholders to feel used and powerless.
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
