Diego Bucchieri and Switching Teams

No, I’m not talking about those teams. I’m talking about the article in the December 2006 issue of Skateboarder about Diego where he tells his story about leaving Think to ride for Toy Machine. And this post isn’t about Diego really, so if you’re looking for info on him go elsewhere. This is about this trend of riders moving from one team to another and the team managers being angry about it.

I’ve never been a skateboard company owner or a team manager or anything like that in the skateboard industry, but I do own a company and I have employees, and I’ve had to let some employees go, and I’ve had employee quit and move on. What I often tell my employees when they come to talk to me is this “Look, I’m not happy that you’re leaving, because we need you and we like working with you. But you do what you feel is right for you, what’s best for you and your family, and we’ll do what we have to in order to get along.”

The fact of the matter is that when someone comes in and talks about leaving, chances are they’re already gone. And in most cases they’ve already been thinking about it for months, and they finally just made their decision. Do I really want to even try to talk them out of leaving? If they stayed around would they be a good employee or would they work half as hard because they’d be bummed they didn’t have the guts to tell me they were out of here? I figure if they feel they’re making the right decision then let’s get on with it and part on good terms.

But I’m afraid in the skateboarding industry people take things a bit too personally. When someone leaves it’s like they’re turning their back on their family. But it doesn’t need to be that way, and if it’s not I guarantee everyone will be happier about things in general and it would go towards reducing some of the tension I think exists in the industry between certain riders and companies.

Here’s my advice to team managers, owners, and such. When you put somebody on a team, be up front and honest with them. Tell them that if the time comes that they feel they need to move on that you’re not going to be angry with them, but you’ll support them in whatever decision they feel is right for them. But also tell them that if things aren’t working out from the other direction, you’ll work with them, you’ll let them know that they have to step up or change or whatever is necessary, but if they don’t then you’ll have to let them go for the good of the company because you can’t put an entire company at risk for one rider.

If everyone would take this attitude then it would go a long ways toward preventing bad feelings that aren’t good for anyone and I wouldn’t be surprised if riders stuck around longer at companies where the managers/owners took this attitude. This advice goes for small, regional companies and shops with teams as well.

Of course this doesn’t make it easy. Nobody likes to have a good rider quit their team, and nobody likes having to tell a rider they’re off a team. It’s not fun, but some simple steps can help soften the blow and prevent years of unproductive bitterness.

And sometimes surprises happen. I’ve had employees who quit on me who then came back to work for me years later and were valuable members of my team. I don’t think they would have come back had I made a big deal about them leaving in the first place.