Chris Heck - President of Business Operations

[allani]

7 minutes ago, DakotaVilla said:

Ok for all the doubters let me ask you this question in another way…

Considering we’ve had so many crap owners and so many crap execs in the last 50 years have you ever, ever seen this amount of “noise” about the behavior and integrity (not competence) of any one of them? 

I don't see the relevance of that.  In fact it could almost work the other way.  If people are used to working with crap execs then you get used to working in a particular way.  If someone comes in and changes that then it will almost certainly make you (and others) uncomfortable, possibly feeling victimised because you are being asked to work in a different way to before.  It is entirely possible that a really good exec who instigates really positive changes will cause a lot of friction and upset people at the start.

[Woody1000]

2 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

I'm going to say this again as I feel it got lost earlier.

Ben Hatton is the ACTUAL Chief OPERATIONS Officer, meaning he will be the one hands on, and actually implementing things, and reporting to Heck.

Why is he not being equally scrutinised? Wouldn't he be the one more closely in contact with staff, delegation and " in the field " decisions etc?

So he’s the one calling people C*** Suckers?

[Woody1000]

I think to be fair to some posters on here, there is a difference between siding with the club and waiting for some more ‘concrete’ evidence to appear.

[Teale's 'tache]

1 minute ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

I'm going to say this again as I feel it got lost earlier.

Ben Hatton is the ACTUAL Chief OPERATIONS Officer, meaning he will be the one hands on, and actually implementing things, and reporting to Heck.

Why is he not being equally scrutinised? Wouldn't he be the one more closely in contact with staff, delegation and " in the field " decisions etc?

It's a very good point, and I'm sure if it all turns out to be true he'll be on his bike along with Heck.

People already have an axe to grind with Mr Heck over other things though, so it's not surprising he's the one being singled out, ultimately he's the senior guy, and most public-facing, so he was always going to be the one taking the brunt of the blame.

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

8 minutes ago, Woody1000 said:

So he’s the one calling people C*** Suckers?

To be fair I wouldn't know.

However if we think that people at higher levels don't use the same abrasive and shit language we do, we are in for a rude awakening.

Maybe he calls them rocket polishers or word removed s lol.

I do feel some level of privacy and discretion should be exercised within companies.

For example, some of the stuff we do, say, and post on here, we wouldn't necessarily want getting out to people in different areas of our lives .

It's definitely possible that they are all clearings in the woods.

Another thought I had is is, whilst it's a positive to have multiculturism at the club, I wonder if the different groups are forming " cliques " and they have different work and world cultures creating rifts.

" The Americans are xxx " " The Spanish lads are pricks " " Oh the British are so xxx ".

Dunno but it's obvious that people aren't aligned, on the same page or seeing eye to eye on certain levels.

Edited February 16 by JAMAICAN-VILLAN

[DakotaVilla]

6 minutes ago, allani said:

I don't see the relevance of that.  In fact it could almost work the other way.  If people are used to working with crap execs then you get used to working in a particular way.  If someone comes in and changes that then it will almost certainly make you (and others) uncomfortable, possibly feeling victimised because you are being asked to work in a different way to before.  It is entirely possible that a really good exec who instigates really positive changes will cause a lot of friction and upset people at the start.

People are fine with hard messages. That’s standard when competent execs come in because they know it’s all about managing the change. People are not fine with incompetent aggressive arseholes that lie and that do not convey any positive characteristic trait of leadership. 
 

 

[CVByrne]

Thanks for those who pointed me to the letter.

I feel it's mostly disgruntled employee's who dislike the changes taking place at the club. Page one is talking about people being let go or "fired on the spot" or whatever. I personally wouldn't believe that people are being denied their legal pay and redundancy if they are let go. I do however expect and am glad to see people being moved on from the Club as we have not performed in commerical areas off the pitch so existing people to be let go and new people brought in. This is what I expected from Hecks appointment, under performance isn't tolerated, get in good people to take us forward. We don't tolerate under performance on the pitch or in the dugout.

If the concerns we legitimate they would be taken down a legal route. As it's a letter to the FAB I would say it's people unhappy by the changes happening at the club. 

[Woody1000]

1 minute ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

To be fair I wouldn't know.

However if we think that people at higher levels don't use the same abrasive and shit language we do, we are in for a rude awakening.

Maybe he calls them rocket polishers or word removed s lol.

I do feel some level of privacy and discretion exercised within companies.

For example, some of the stuff we do, say, and post on here, we wouldn't necessarily want getting out to people in different areas of our lives .

It's definitely.piasible that they are all clearings in the woods.

Another thought is, whilst it's a positive to have multiculturism at the club, I wonder if the different groups are forming " cliques " and they have different work and world cultures crearibf rifts.

" The Americans are xxx " " The Spanish lads are pricks " " Oh the British are so xxx ".

Dunno but it's obvious that people aren't aligned, on the same page or seeing eye to eye.

Sorry mate, it was meant in a light hearted way.

In response to what you’ve posted, I have to say it’s fair about the pigeonholing of people and their nationality - I have come across plenty of people in my time with a dislike for “Yanks” in particular.

The main issue of all this for me is that no member of our staff being treated unlawfully. Redundancy happens, but there are processes that have to be followed, and you would hope this kind of thing would be done with a touch of class.

[Dale]

3 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

If the concerns we legitimate they would be taken down a legal route

You have no idea whether this is also happening... For info, there is a two year backlog for employment tribunals in England and Wales

[DakotaVilla]

Well at least when everything comes out and Heck and Hatton are fired at least we’ll know who all the bootlickers are. 

[CVByrne]

2 minutes ago, Dale said:

You have no idea whether this is also happening... For info, there is a two year backlog for employment tribunals in England and Wales

I personally think it's unlikely as it wouldn't make much sense for a public company with sponsors to be caught up in not paying employee's owed money. People are also within their right to take an unlawful termination case against the club too if they want. We have courts for this. 

My point is, Heck was brought in to restructure the clubs commercial and business operations and take an under performing business (in respect to commercial) and make us compete with the top clubs in the League and world football. To do that he will let lots of people go, bring in experienced people he's worked with before and plenty of people will end up unhappy. The can go find jobs at West Brom or something if they want it easy. 

[Jas10]

[allani]

1 minute ago, Woody1000 said:

I think to be fair to some posters on here, there is a difference between siding with the club and waiting for some more ‘concrete’ evidence to appear.

Exactly this.  I am also sceptical that some of the things being used to "back up" some of the very serious allegations are actually issues at all:

1) Emery and Monchi have also replaced senior people in their "team" with people that they have worked with extensively.  It is not unusual for this to happen.

2) There have to be massive questions about how our revenues are so far behind other clubs of a similar stature (even accounting for our recent league positions) - so there have to be some questions about how performant we have been in certain areas (not just commercially).

3) Awarding contracts to companies that you know / have worked with in the past is nothing unusual.  It doesn't automatically mean that something dodgy is happening.

4) Bringing the badge and NS redevelopment issues into it - muddies the water for me.  I actually think that it was right to pull back from the round badge as I don't believe that it meets it's brief irrespective of how nice you think it is - or don't (but I've discussed my views on that at length in other threads).  Similarly the NS redevelopment is disappointing but could very well be the right decision to make at the moment.  I'm not saying that either issue has been handled particularly well (in fact far from it) but that doesn't mean that they were the wrong decisions.

5) As I have said I don't know enough people who work at Villa to know how valid the concerns about morale are.  But I have worked in organisations undergoing huge change where morale among some staff has been poor and among other has been really good.  At the end of the day in one case the changes ended up proving to be **** and almost everyone left / in the other the change was superb and most people ended up feeling much better about everything.

6) The most worrying element for me is the allegations of breaching / ignoring employment law and unfairly dismissing staff.  Yet the UK / EU have some of the best employment laws in the world and so if the rules have been breached why are there no quoted examples of ongoing legal disputes?

Like I say I'm still very much on the fence here and am waiting to see what happens next.  Yes there seems a lot of "smoke" but it is also possible that a lot of "smoke" could be down to people not liking specific decisions (which might / might not be good decisions for the club).  I know a few people have said that they have more information than is out in the public domain so far - so just to re-iterate my post here isn't about who is right / who is wrong.  I'm just trying to provide something to explain why I'm not yet convinced (either way).  I also think that the manner of raising this is very poor - there are all kinds of routes that these issues could have been raised through (legal, journalists, anonymous letters to the board / owners, etc).  An anonymous post on Twitter just seems such a low bar.  But I do also appreciate that maybe there is a very good reason why the author(s) felt that that was their best option.

[MikeMcKenna]

This all stinks to high heaven. Based on the way, the round crest was dismissed and the Terrace View and Lower Grounds debacles, we know that Heck (and Hatton) don’t give a flying F… about the fans, so it very believable that they think even less of many of the staff. 

Edited February 16 by MikeMcKenna

[allani]

1 hour ago, DakotaVilla said:

People are fine with hard messages. That’s standard when competent execs come in because they know it’s all about managing the change. People are not fine with incompetent aggressive arseholes that lie and that do not convey any positive characteristic trait of leadership. 
 

 

My point is that I have been through two massive restructures in my career.  In both cases those that liked what was being proposed would see things as being "hard messages" and those that didn't would describe the events as "incompetent, aggressive arseholes.....".  In my experience it turned out that in one case the people driving the change were ****, everyone left and the company went backwards rapidly.  In the other case the exact opposite happened.  But both times the proportion of people in either camp were almost identical. 

Just to complete the story - the first time I was definitely in the "this change is going to be great camp" and then was hugely disappointed that it turned into a complete **** show run by people who apparently talked a good game but didn't have a ****ing clue.  I left that company pretty quickly afterwards and found one that actually did do all the things that they said that could / would.  The second time I was much more sceptical (once bitten, twice shy) and the guy leading the show was an American guy who I ****ing loathed.  Turns out the change was brilliant and the guy ended up being one of the best people I have ever worked with in my career.

Edited February 16 by allani

[Captain_Townsend]

I cannot find the post but someone pointed to politics/identification as being a clue as to how a poster might react to the letter.

I think it is more simple than that and comes down to forum dynamics. I am very much a glass half full person when it comes to Emery, the squad and the rest of this season yet I have been critical of Heck.

I find it interesting that one or two who have been defending Heck over the past few months have been quite negative about the football and our prospects for the rest of the season so the issue actually cuts across one's personality/politics etc and seems to be more of a spin out of the dynamic within the threads themselves!

Edited February 16 by Captain_Townsend

[PieFacE]

2 hours ago, omariqy said:

 

For those that hadn't noticed. There's more detail in the thread of this tweet from the original poster. I didn't know it was there until I clicked on it. 

Edited February 16 by PieFacE

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

18 minutes ago, PieFacE said:

For those that hadn't noticed. There's more detail in the thread of this tweet from the original poster. I didn't know it was there until I clicked on it. 

Some of the " detail " seems like opinion from this person, unless he is an executive with insight into these things lol.

 

Example, I don't get how adding/securing a 10 million bonus for selling more shirts, based on projected increase on sales is " butchering the deal " unless we were offered more up front, and decided to take that option instead, which wouldn't make any sense?

We sold 120 k with Castore, with Adidas you would expect to sell more, especially since they drop special releases all the time, as well as the obvious commercial benefits and added exposure and availability which come with the deal.

And what if Karen Brady didn't like him ? Would he be wrong to say that? By " crush her " I assume he meant from a business perspective? Do you think business people don;t have to have ruthless streaks?

On Castore, are people fans of Castore now? Didn't everyone want us out of the deal, and expect that we would most likely have to pay our way out? Shouldn't he be right in trying to see if there was a way we could get out of the deal for free?

I'm confused as to how these are "smoking guns "

Edited February 16 by JAMAICAN-VILLAN

[allani]

10 minutes ago, Captain_Townsend said:

I cannot find the post but someone pointed to politics/identification as being a clue as to how a poster might react to the letter.

I think it is more simple than that and comes down to forum dynamics. I am very much a glass half full person when it comes to Emery, the squad and the rest of this season yet I have been critical of Heck.

I find it interesting that one or two who have been defending Heck over the past few months have been quite negative about the football and our prospects for the rest of the season so the issue actually cuts across one's personality/politics etc and seems to be more of a spin out of the dynamic within the threads themselves!

On the flip side it also goes to show that you can disagree entirely with someone on one issue (say the badge or the NS redevelopment ) and yet be completely aligned on others.  I find it really positive that there are people who I can hold diametrically opposite views with on one point (but have mainly civil discussions with them anyway!) and yet be fully united on a point on a different thread 2 minutes later.  I can only think of a couple of people who I actually just find annoying on everything (but haven't blocked them yet because I still live for the day that they post something positive or that I can agree with!).  I also like the fact that there are very few people who I agree with on everything.  Too much of the virtual world is an echo chamber where you only hear what will reinforce what you believe to be true.  Overall this forum gets the balance and tone of discussions about right - except maybe in the match day thread but hey that's football!

[MikeMcKenna]

Deja Vu?

When Chris Heck was at Red Bulls he had a similar reception and was gone after about a year. I don’t care what he did at Philadelphia, he has form in pissing off fans and I think he is bad for Villa:

 

https://www.onceametro.com/2012/3/19/2848227/chris-heck-onomics

 

Chris Heck-onomics

By Matt Coyne  Mar 19, 2012, 3:00pm EDT

Generally, in business you don't want to alienate a large swath of your customers -- especially the most loyal ones -- right off the bat. And you certainly you don't want to do it so you end up the face of that alienation. In the case of President of Business Operations Chris Heck, he ended up doing just that after Heck raised season ticket prices across Red Bull arena everywhere but in the South Ward, while dividing up many of the sections, leaving a rather convoluted seating chart for 2012.

Suffice it to say Heck and Red Bulls fans didn't quite start off on the right foot.

The most earnest Heck haters will tell you what he's doing is absolutely economically illiterate. When you average roughly 20,000 in a stadium that seats more than 25,000 why would you, potentially, price out fans? The supply clearly outweighs the demand. That means prices should drop, not go up. Economics 101. What's worse is the customer service aspect of it, they'll tell you. For a long suffering fan base of a team low on the New York sports totem pole, why would you seemingly go out of your way to raise ticket prices on the guys who are willing to buy said tickets? You know, the guys who are there because they want to be there?

Bring him up in certain sub-circles of Red Bulls fans and he's practically persona non grata. Some fans boycotted season tickets, opting for partial season plans or single game tickets. "Heck no" has become something of a rallying cry among these fans.

To his credit, Heck has gone on a bit of a PR tour, knowing full well the fans' opinion of him. In December he talked to Goal.com. He had January and February mailbags where he fielded questions -- even letting some negative ones slip through -- from fans and in January he appeared on the Seeing Red! podcast. During his February mailbag he had one answer in particular that stood out.

Q: Several times this year there have been games that were announced as being "sold out". Yet due to the large number of no shows the stadium looks substantially less than full. This seems to be a constant thread when it comes to the sideline seats that get the most time on the TV cameras. Has there ever been any thought given about filling those seats? Perhaps moving the supporters sections to those seats, similar to what DC United has done may be the answer. Ed Kanitra – Hightstown

A: I agree that that the no-show rate was a big challenge for us last season and we have been working on finding a solution. In the meantime, there are a couple of variables to consider that will have a direct impact in this area: a) many of the seats you point out are owned by new season ticket holders, b) with the higher value of the ticket, we expect a better attendance rate and c) a large amount of those seats were sold to ticket brokers in the past, which is not the case in 2012.

Emphasis (in the answer) mine.

 

It's true that no-shows were a big deal last season. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to look around Red Bull Arena during any of the declared sell outs and see that the stadium still had more than a few empty seats.

 

But Heck seems like he's got something up his sleeves here. Making the ticket something of value and forcing people who buy not to skip out by, essentially, forcing them to throw good money away is one of those sounds-so-crazy-it-just-might-work scenarios, like something out of Freakonomics. It's as if we're all part of some kind of behavioral economics case study. Will people value a product differently based on how it's priced?

Funny story, there's research to suggest it can (surely there's more, but my time reading economics papers is mostly over).

Anyway, even if Heck isn't reading scholarly journals in his spare time and feels the team is giving away tickets below value, at least he's considering the supporters groups feedback on how the South Ward is run. So things could be worse.