As ESPN’s president, Jimmy Pitaro oversees more than 4,000 employees, almost all of whom are working from home right now. During last week’s World Congress Comes To You event, I asked Pitaro how he has had to change his management strategy during the coronavirus outbreak.
“The speed at which our leadership team implemented work from home procedures was amazing,” Pitaro said. “We really did not miss a beat.”
Communication is even more critical with everyone working from home, Pitaro said.
“We’re giving regular updates,” he said. “We’re checking in with our teams. The dialogue is 100% two ways. It’s vibrant right now. We’re really listening. We’re responding to what we’re hearing from our people. We’re doing it in real time.”
I asked Pitaro what his advice would be for the rest of the sports business.
“We’re going to get through this,” he said. “It’s important that we stay calm — that we try to be realistic, but at the same time be optimistic. It’s not an easy task right now, but it’s critical. Let’s take care of our families. Let’s take care of our colleagues and know that at some point we’ll all be helping millions of sports fans out of our current circumstance to a much happier place.”
