Griff said:
To me, ruthless means getting what you want regardless of the cost to other people.
In my opinion, that kind of method will not produce a winning culture at a footy club, where people have to work for the team and each other. I agree with both claw (gasp) and Phantom on this; there is good management.
Well I certainly disagree with a few of this then. To talk about their only being good management and bad management is simplistic and splitting hairs. Of course, ultimately when a club is being judged you can only say it is being badly ran or ran well (good). That's a no-brainer.
I can wear Phantom's comment a bit easier because at least he differentiated a little further by mentioning it is the goals you set, rather than the hard decisions that get made when you don't meet them. However in my opinion, I feel this is a negative minded view of ruthless management.
This comment I find hard to comprehend. What you are using as a example is anarchy by inferring I am suggesting the players do anything but work for each other and the club. I am talking about the overall management/direction of the club. I am not saying Newman should be ruthless and go out onto the field with a chainsaw, I'm not saying Miller should pass brown paper bags under the table in trade week.
The best franchises, in both sports and business get where they got to by being ruthless. By not accepting second best. By creating a US against THEM attitude (like Northy did not so long ago at Punt Rd, and I am sure Laidley did this year). It is ridiculous Griff to make out what I was saying as some moralistic battleground where I would be condoning it's survival of the fittest, amongst our own club especially. There is nothing in what I have posted that suggest I am saying that, and I really struggle to understand the relevance of that quote from you.
And yes, I defer from Phantom's view also.
Being ruthless is about putting logic above emotion and making the right business/performance decisions. As I said at the start of the post, if you want to strip things down to basics of course there is only good or bad management. I deliberately used the term Ruthless because effective management is as much about how you broadcast/sell/communicate/publicly relay..etc your business plan...goals..objectives etc as is the decisions you make behind a closed boardroom door.
Let's face facts. Our name is mud. We are a laughing stock on and off the field. We are one of the big four by history and nothing more now in the general publics eyes. You can make all the "good management" decisions you like...but that does not make men on the battlefield walk taller.
I hate to use Hawthorn as a example, but I can't help but begrudgingly respect the way they have gone about things...
Hawthorn have gone out and "drawn a line in the sand". They have refused to take a backward step on the field a couple of years ago and now RUTHLESSLY pursued personnel and players that will aggressively represent the club.
When they were looking for their current coach at the same time we were looking for ours they put their balls on the train track and waited until quite a few trains passed by, all the while persisting in the self belief their destined train to success would arrive. Some would say we took the "sexy" , "safe" option....some would say our process was little more genuine than St Kilda's that selected Grant Thomas. The Bulldogs also "swooped" on Eade while Hawthorn refused to hurry their process despite the much reported great interest in Eade by the Bulldogs. Look at where Bulldogs, Richmond and then Hawthorn are today. Look at the current stocks of Wallace, Eade and Clarkson.
Hawthorn went through a genuine, open minded process to find the best coach in the land for their club. I don't see any evidence that we or the Bulldogs did the same thing.
The jury is out on Richmond's off field football department still, but they certainly haven't proven themselves yet. Bulldogs have had a massive off field exodus and come forth and in my eyes, substantiated my views when they basically say...we gave Eade to much power, we were almost dysfunctional in the football department. Already Clarkson has impressed many, without glamour and glitz, both inside and outside football clubs. Media, supporters, etc. After 3 years, look at Hawthorn on the field and you see a clear style they want to play and recruitment that ruthlessly pursues that vision. The same cannot be said of Richmond or The Bulldogs. PRE alone is full of people screaming out about this.
The only people who get to make quiet, so called feel good management decisions are the well established businesses and clubs. Yet once you do that, you will eventually sow the seeds for complacency and corrupting agendas. As Collingwood have learnt in the past and Essendon are learning now.
You have to constantly stay sharp, keep your killer instinct, capture the imaginations/attentions of your consumers/supporters. Good management is not enough, it takes more than that. It takes a ruthless aura that snarls out to competitors your doing that little bit extra than what they are doing to get over the top of them. That no matter what they throw at you, you will throw a little more back. That same aura will take kids like our No 2 draft pick and inspire in them to push themselves to another level in order to be worthy of pulling on the jumper that saw fit to name them the best available talent in the land.
Football is far more than a "gentleman's contest" ,"ticking boxes" ,"going through a process" ,"human chess", "player management" ,"off field success" etc. It's passionate, it's emotional.
Look at a few recent Premiership sides....Geelong (pain of failure and some "ruthless" reviews that even the coach named sh!t, despite adopting suggested changes and subsequently saying this has been his most enjoyable year in football long before winning the premiership), Sydney (The Bloods) Port Adelaide (Sheer arrogance and ruthless pursuit of excellence from a club that is the pure epitome of having a ruthless aura of success), West Coast (similar to Port to a lesser extent with the killer instinct of Worsfold thrown in) Brisbane ("Lethal" driven, pure intimidation inspired from the Hawthorn of old).
Yes, all these clubs had "good management". That's a no-brainer. Yet what these clubs also did is capture the imaginations of their supporters with a clear, ruthlessly directed plan and ran roughshod over anyone who dared to get in their way.
As Rosy well pointed out, we are getting some disconcerting contradictory signals at times from the different parts of the club which in themself are unforgivable on a repeated basis, let alone far more insidious in what they hint as their source. Basically a lack of a RUTHLESS, shared vision and goal.
Many businesses have "good management" in place when a new owner or management comes in that has a hunger to drive the business even further and as a result takes over and RUTHLESSLY turfs old management out in part or whole, ploughs the dirt for the hidden roughies and throws out the excess waste before it vigourously pursues the best people to fill the perceived weakness in the organisation so as to move on stronger and more united.
Of course this can be done badly, of course it can be done without class. I'm not suggesting for one minute a revolution or to sack everyone before Christmas and damn their families or any such nonsense. I'm merely saying ruthless is actually a necessary aura for success...not a management style in itself per se but it must be believed to be so.
We are such a sleeping dragon with the potential to really shake up the league if we can just spread our wings and burst out from within the mountain of mediocrity, rather than slither and slide like some non-venomous garden snake hoping to strike it lucky on weak prey.
