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It took time for Grigson to realize he was not totally prepared for the general manager role. One night, late in his tenure, his wife, Cynthia, tried to distill his foremost challenge.

“What’s your title?” Cynthia asked.

“General manager,” he responded.

“Manager,” Cynthia said. “You manage people.”

Evaluating players? Filling out a roster? Making impactful trades? He was familiar with these facets of the job.

But managing media obligations? Creating the right kind of culture? Fielding insight from different departments to make collaborative decisions? These were some of the facets that he believes led to his ouster after five seasons and a 49-31 record.

“I didn’t help myself,” he said. “I was deep into my job. I could’ve been more open, more engaging. I was intimidated. Experience is the best teacher. I lacked patience. I could not press pause. I was a bad listener. As a leader of an organization, you cannot be on 10 all the time. Not to mention, your opinion is not the only opinion. I know this now. But at the time, you feel like you just let down your family name.”

Time allowed him to reflect and grow. To ponder the ways in which he could change.

In 2020, after Berry brought Grigson back to Cleveland, Grigson relayed his insights to a newly hired vice president of football operations named Kwesi Adofo-Mensah. In Berry’s eyes, the two men could not have been more different. Adofo-Mensah entered football through the financial space and interacted, to use Berry’s words, with a “laid-back Cali vibe.” Grigson, on the other hand, was a football executive who has risen the ranks the traditional route. Thinking they could learn from each other’s areas of expertise, Berry set up a weekly meeting between the two at 4:30 p.m. on Thursdays. Some days, they’d play music together. Other times, Adofo-Mensah would pepper Grigson with football-focused questions.

“It was the highlight of both of our weeks,” Adofo-Mensah said. “The thing I will always remember is how self-reflective he was. He’s one of the most reflective people I’ve ever met. He kind of downloaded his experience for me.”

One recent Saturday afternoon, Grigson sat on his perch at the TCO Performance Center overlooking the Vikings’ practice fields. Instead of a goatee, Grigson now sports a full-on salt-and-pepper beard.

He was reflecting on his first season with the Vikings. And to understand his perspective on the 13-4 season that ended with a wild-card loss to the Giants, you have to understand Grigson’s role within Adofo-Mensah’s front office.

Like Berry did in Cleveland, Adofo-Mensah has essentially developed a cabinet of personnel staffers with different backgrounds. Some of them see the game through an analytics lens. Others approach it from a scouting perspective.

“You need people who cover each other’s blind spots,” Adofo-Mensah said. “You need different perspectives. And it’s OK if people don’t agree. As a decision-maker, your job is to find that middle ground.”

So often in player personnel, Adofo-Mensah said, it’s easy to assess what players cannot do.

“Ryan has been trained by some great ones — Andy Reid, Howie Roseman, that Eagles staff — and has been taught how to be optimistic,” Adofo-Mensah said. “That was something I felt like I needed.”

That and a person with experience navigating everything it takes to be the general manager — ownership expectations, media obligations, locker-room dynamics and more.

“He’s a mentor,” Adofo-Mensah said. “He’s a friend. He’s everything to me. I’m just fortunate to have him here.”

Grigson, meanwhile, said he is fortunate to have a boss who has helped him get up to speed on data-driven analysis. In conversation about players, Grigson cites yards after contact metrics and pressure rates.

“Statistics that are paramount at certain positions to being impactful,” Grigson said. “That’s been a process where I feel like I can say it’s part of who I am now and I believe in it.”