Dan

Calabrese

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January 1, 2009

Can Tom Lewand Fix the Detroit Lions? From Across the Fence, the Answer is Yes

Why am I rooting for – and sort of expecting – success from the Detroit Lions?

As the fan of a rival team, I should be sitting back to enjoy the continued slapstick comedy. Owner William Clay Ford just rewarded the top two executives of an 0-16 team with promotions. He didn’t even bother looking outside the organization for better leadership. Fans are fit to be tied. Local media are beside themselves. So why my contrary view?

I suppose it’s all about my continued belief that new years can bring redemption – and perhaps because I am seeking my own. It’s also because of a pool and a fence.

Lions fans wanted a complete housecleaning – from president to receptionist to head coach to players to janitors. It’s hard to blame them. There is nothing this organization does well. Although I grew up in the Detroit area, I am not one of those fans. Since I was eight years old, my gut has wrenched and spilled the purple blood of the Minnesota Vikings. (Why is too complicated to get into.)

So while my fellow Michiganians have suffered the frustration, embarrassment and abject horror of rooting for the Lions, I have laughed. Whatever our problems – Super Bowl losses, 41-doughnut at the Meadowlands, love boat scandals – at least we were not the Lions.

Now comes the ascension of Tom Lewand as team president and Martin Mayhew as general manager. Both worked for the team during the disastrous presidency of Matt Millen. When Ford needed new leaders, promoting Lewand and Mayhew was the easy thing to do, and that’s how Ford tends to do things.

There is every reason to think Lewand and Mayhew will deliver more of the same, and that nothing will change for the pathetic Lions. But my gut – the one that wrenches purple blood – leads me to a contrary view.

As a kid, I lived on 12 Mile Road in Royal Oak, Michigan. On the other side of the back fence lived a kid we knew back then as Tommy Lewand – so labeled in order to distinguish him from his then-better-known father, Tom Lewand Sr., the mayor of our city. I knew his name, and I imagine he knew mine, and that was about it. We weren’t friends. But I knew he was familiar with the glare of public pressure.

I also knew he had the best view of the hole in our pool the day after it blew out, and for the year it took us to finally take the thing down. That pool was a little like the Lions. It was hopelessly nonfunctional, but it sat there nonetheless. Maybe Tommy was taking notes: “Don’t leave problems sitting around unfixed like the boneheads across the fence.” Maybe if he’d had permission, he’d have come across the fence and taken the eyesore down. Maybe if he’d had the power during the Matt Millen era, he’d have made better decisions. Maybe he will now.

During the press conference in which his and Mayhew’s promotions were announced, Lewand sounded confident and said the right words. But many people say the right words and don’t, or can’t, do the right things. How can he possibly fix the problem when he has been part of the problem?

I think he can, because I think I can do the same thing.

From 2002 through 2006, I ran a business. It was unsuccessful and lost a pile of money. Two years ago, thoroughly disgusted with my own failures as a leader, I demoted myself from the position of CEO, although I continued to own the completely restructured and reconstituted company. During those two years, the bleeding has stopped, a new, better mission has been embraced, and hope has returned. But I don’t think the company has done as well as it should. I think it can and should be more profitable, and after a two-year crisis of confidence in my own leadership, I think I can lead it to success. And I want to.

So I’ve re-taken the position of CEO of this radically changed company. I understand everything that was done wrong in the past – because I’m the one who did it – and I am confident I know the right things to do now.

I could fail again. Tom Lewand could fail as president of the Lions, just like all his predecessors have done. But I have a feeling neither of us will do so. In spite of the taint of his past associations, the guy I saw at that press conference seemed to get it – to understand that nothing in the past guarantees the future.

I hope, and believe, that is right – for both our sakes. No matter which side of the fence you came from, the failures of the past do not require you to fail in the future. Happy New Year.

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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