Executives Spotlight stories appeared on this website starting in 2001. Some of the executive's professional experience may have changed since they were published.

Executive Spotlight - September 12, 2001

Tim Connolly

Former, Executive Vice President & General Manager; Minnesota Vikings Football Club

A recent "USA Today" headline read, "Learning to forgive can benefit the forgiver." As the story goes, "...forgiving doesn't mean condoning or deciding to forget offenses, or even necessarily reconciling with offenders, says Stanford University psychologist Carl Thorensen. It means giving up the right to be aggravated and angry, and the desire to strike back." Doesn't this also cover forgiving ourselves?

Tim Connolly wanted to win. He was driven. His fuse was always lit. Smart, aggressive, strategic, the classic type "A" personality businesses and sports teams applaud. These high pressure, highly successful people are our "heroes." Like a torpedo, Tim ascended the ranks of IBM and within 10 years was recognized as the "Sales Manager of the Year" driving his sales force unit from 43rd to 1st within six months. He was a drill sergeant. No surprise, he rose to President/CEO of Bell Atlantic's cellular subsidiary before he was forty years old.

In 1989, he landed a dream job, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Kansas City Chiefs. Here was a team that, "Sporting News" had dubbed the worst franchise in professional football. It ranked 26th of 28 teams in paid attendance. And by his own admission Tim's biography reads, "With an aggressive, results-oriented focus, Mr. Connolly led a team of executives on a four-year plan to turn the front office into a model for the rest of the league. He designed an infrastructure of people and systems to support explosive growth." And to his word by 1993, the club moved from 26th to 1st in attendance.

"You learn in the National Football League that Sundays are about winning. I lived my life around winning and hated losing," Tim confessed not long ago. "I just wished I had learned 'the art of triangulation' a little earlier in my career.

"What I mean," he went on, "I used to think in any business situation I had a position, my opponent had a position and one of us was going to win and the other was going to lose. I viewed everything as a head-on collision. It was turf-war. It was classic football. What I've learned is that there is a third position. You have one position, your opponent has another and the two of you must find yet a third position that's suits both of you - 'the art of triangulation,' is what I call it. I wish it hadn't taken me quite as long to understand."

The young sports executives he has mentored - Jamey Rootes, now Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing with the Houston Texans, and Phil Youtsey, Director of Sales & Operations with the Carolina Panthers have enjoyed this more reflective side to this hard-charging man. In their conversations, Tim's shared his life's lessons and encouraged them to read such books as, "Seasons of a Man's Life," so that they could better understand how men feel about themselves in various stages of their lives and career.

"I was politically insensitive," he said in a reflective mood. "I didn't understand how straight ahead winning and losing could be hurtful to myself and other people. I wish I had learned 'the art of triangulation' earlier. And now, I can't tell you the joy and satisfaction I feel mentoring the next group of hard-chargers. I've learned from them, too. I enjoy their successes as much as I have enjoyed mine in my career. I feel like I've grown through in this mentoring role. And I continue to see myself mentoring men and women and the sports industry in any way I can."

- Buffy Filippell