On Dec. 14th, Dr. Ben Shields, Senior Lecturer in Managerial Communication at the MIT Sloan School of Management, delivered a three-hour online lecture “Digital Transformation in Sports, Media, and Entertainment” for Fudan IMBA students. After the lecture, Dr. Shields shared his keen observation on lessons to be taken from the practice of innovation and management in face of this crisis.
Management in an era of human-machine cooperation
When talking about the challenges posed for management while introducing new technologies into business, Dr. Shields brought our attention to the bigger paradox of human-machine relationship through analyzing problems in the sports industry.
“We see that the fan experience and player expectations have been trying to walk the line between maintaining the integrity of the game while also introducing new technologies. Yet sometimes maintaining that line is difficult. For instance, VAR in football (the video assistant referee) has brought many controversies on the global football stage. It gets at the complicated relationship between such a complicated human activity as playing sports and what technology can and can't do on the playing field.”
He believes we can learn a lot about the management of technology from the practice and experience in the sports industry. “The sports industry is a fascinating Petri dish to understand the possibilities and complexities of human-machine relationships. For me, what I think is really interesting about studying this Petri dish is asking the question: what decisions should humans make versus AI? To what extent can the algorithm be communicated to users, so that they can understand why an algorithm makes a certain decision and why it doesn't? Another interesting question to explore is how humans can be trained more effectively in using machines and artificial intelligence to support their work. These are important and relevant management questions that all organizations are going to have to focus on for the foreseeable future.”
Lessons to learn from managers in the sports industry
Dr. Shields also pointed out that there are some key principles that MBA students and future managers can learn from what leaders in the sports industry have done in coping with this pandemic:
1.In a time of crisis, prioritizing your employees should be your first step. Most sports leagues, if not all, have tried to ensure that the health and safety of their players and athletes are protected. Managers who are not running sports leagues or teams should also put the health and safety of employees first and foremost.
2.To innovate in the customer experience. Sports industry leaders have been faced with a very real challenge: fans can't come to games. So they had to come up with creative solutions to that challenge, whether it be fans attending games via telepresence and video conferencing, or allowing fans to post social media messages that are then shown in the arena. Those are innovations that come from a commitment to innovate in the customer experience.
3.To operate with agility. The pandemic has led to so much uncertainty and we've seen leaders change the ways in which they work, and the ways in which their organizations work, in order to be as agile and responsive as necessary. That's an important lesson that MBA students can learn as well.
