Understanding the situation effectively

Hello Everyone,

First of all please excuse me for a lengthy composition that is to follow, my brakes fail easily when driven by my flow of thoughts.

I would first like to understand the situation and the repercussions of the incident with which Darrell Hair's letter is connected. It started with Hair ruling that the Pakistani team was involved in ball tampering during the test match with England on August 20, 2006. Eventually the Pakistani team did not take to the field in protest and Hair declared England the winner by forfeiture. Now this action was affirmed to be in accordance with the laws of cricket by ICC, ECB and PCB.

From Hair's perspective, we cannot really say whether the decisions he took on the field were biased by any reservations that he may have had but here is a person doing something which on the books are in accordance with the laws of his profession. Now, what makes things complicated is that this is International Cricket with thousands of people witnessing the game and then well known cricketing professionals and whole nations forming opinions about the events. So the pressure created on Hair is of a magnitude that very few of us will be able to understand properly. While there is scope that (may God forbid) we face such situations in our professional lives, chances are limited that we will be facing a situation of such magnitude. Individually such a situation may not even lead us to forwarding a "Non-negotiable offer" to forfeit a professional contract in the first place since we will definitely have the argument backing us that we have done "everything in accordance with the laws of the profession".
What took place between ICC and Darrell Hair within the walls of ICC is not clearly known but Hair had revealed this - "During an extended conversation with Mr Cowie, I was invited to make a written offer. The figure in the e-mail correspondence was in line with those canvassed with the ICC." So excuse me if I am wrong but it seems more out of external pressure rather than internal mechanisms that Darrell Hair or ICC had to get into such negotiations about forfeiting the umpiring contract in the first place.

Now what gives Darrell Hair the bargaining power that he is able to make such a non-negotiable offer to the ICC? First of all, its Darrell Hair, a high profile International Umpire whose name is not unknown to thousands of people who follow the game religiously and why so? The reason is that he is definitely one of the best in the world in his profession to have got a place in the ICC's Elite Panel of umpires. Secondly, he was an independent contractor with the ICC and had his contract till March 2008. Now the contract may have some clauses relating to his removal from duties but here he has not done anything that is against the books (which ICC itself has confirmed) to make those clauses applicable. So, if ICC is asking him to discontinue based on whatever grounds (I call it external pressure here) then by the laws of that should prevail in any fair country (with my limited legal understanding the contract comes under UK's jurisdiction) the ICC has to pay some kind of compensation to Darrell Hair if they are to forfeit a legal (I assume) and professional contract. Otherwise Darrell Hair I believe has the rights to sue ICC for asking him to discontinue before his tenure without compensating.

Having worked in the IT Industry for quite sometime, such pretty much "non-negotiable" offers are not uncommon to me. "Send me on-site or I am moving on" or "Give me a hike/promotion otherwise bye bye" is something that I have witnessed among colleagues who used to be backed by 2 major weapons -
1. A better opportunity knocking the doors (it need not necessarily be boom time, some people manage opportunities even in recessions while other hopeless ones are not lucky enought to break the shackles even when GDP is shooting through the roof)
2. A high amount of dependence i.e. often its only these people who hold the key to certain specific knowledge areas or are efficient at a particular part of the job which is extremely vital for the project or tasks that are being executed.
What's interesting in this case is that Darrell Hair had neither. He was already in the best that his job could offer and though very good, he is definitely not irreplaceable given the number of other high profile efficient umpires available with ICC.

As an employer (of sorts) ICC is in a hot soup no doubt. On one hand they have international media tearing them apart (while some are supporting them as well) and on the other they have a legal (again I assume) and professional contract with a person whose actions they themselves have publicly affirmed were in accordance with the profession. The only way out as I see it, if ICC does not like paying US$500,000 for nothing, is to send Darrell Hair for some sort of "training and development" based on some measures of performance that they may be able to argue that Hair has not been able to match up to. This could be done for a time until things cool down. ICC did something in these lines. The ICC said Hair would undergo a development programme over the next six months seemingly with the goal to place him back into top level matches. During these six month period continued to officiate in second tier ICC associate matches. The ICC restored Hair to the Elite Umpiring Panel on 12 March 2008 while Hair resigned on August 2008 in pursuance of a coaching career.

Again from the IT company's perspective (it being the one I am familiar with), its a golden rule for the management (both line and top) to make sure strong dependencies are not created on any single person and at least one more person knows how to take care of critical work. Now as long as both the person and the backup are not conspiring to quit at the same time (which may happen if you are too good at being a terrible employer like many IT companies), there is some room for flexibility. Companies anyway have great lawyers who make sure that whatever legal contracts they get into with anyone are pretty much water tight with little room for anyone to take advantage in most cases except a few (like this case with ICC). Thus when two such things are taken care of, the employer too has some power to negotiate for something that it can afford to offer without really going out of the way. The only point of concern at that time may be, if the employee actually decides to leave, the employer may be losing a high performer or one with rich experience to one of its competitors.

This is where I will apply the brakes, again please excuse me for the length of it and please provide comments highlighting flaws in the way I thought about it.

Thanks for reading


Reference for Events, Dates and Quotes-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darrell_Hair