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Tough Corporate Lessons in a Tough Sport

By Leanne Faraday Brash

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 19Oct2009 Word count: 679 Viewed: 90 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

As the Australian winter is over for another year, the locals are celebrating this week in the wake of the rugby union team Melbourne Storm's victory over its interstate rival. Most would agree that to appear in four consecutive grand finals and win two as the Storm has now done is an indication of sustained excellence in anyone's language. It's worth asking how an organisation sustains exceptional performance in a demanding context. Theirs was a 'greenfield' culture 11 years ago when they began and everything they created was built from the ground up. This was not the case for the team administered by their CEO before he came to the Storm. Three years ago he was running the St Kilda Football Club; a club marred in the past by controversy, with a reputation as a disco culture in the 80's and early 90's and quite lucky according to its former coach, Grant Thomas, to exist after more than a century of dismal finals results. Theirs was a team that had notched up only one premiership in around one hundred years.

Not every organisation has the luxury of building their culture from scratch. If we take both St Kilda and the Western Bulldogs as examples, one valuable and reassuring lesson for us is that even organisations with long standing underperforming (even torrid) legacy cultures can change. That is heartening if we think about how many companies around the globe are trying to do that as we speak.

How do we drive a winning culture?

1. Organisations must have a clear vision. Their people need to 'get it'. For football clubs this might be paraphrased as "winning premierships on a sustained basis" and perhaps also "making our players into better people by the time they leave our Club". Whilst these visions may also be accompanied by tribal passion, big dollars, high player profile, their formula is compelling as a blueprint for any successful organisation.

2. Organisations must remember to inspire their people about why the business exists and successfully attach a social or moral cause to strategic goals. People have to connect emotionally with why they do what they do. That is, they need to be 'moved by it'. Too often leaders dwell on what has to happen i.e. business results and forget to keep spruiking the "why" it matters.

3. We are seeing more evidence that high performing and professional sporting teams ruthlessly guard good culture and continue to demonstrate they will not tolerate below the line behaviour. Whatever the organisation's code, their people need to 'live by it'. Whereas in the past few years, international attention surrounded Cricket's legendary spinner, Shane Warne, there has been a lot of publicity in the past two weeks about famous football player scandals and improprieties. It appears that one Victorian football team, Carlton, has made good on its promise to trade Brendan Fevola, a decision more remarkable when one considers he has been their leading goal scorer for several consecutive years.

How is that relevant to us? Every organisation has their rainmaker, their number one sales person, their talented high profile stars but what price if the organisation continues to tolerate or tacitly condone sexual harassment, bullying, expense rorts or any other form of counterproductive workplace behaviour. What message does it send to clients, suppliers and "players", when the ends justify any means? What do vastly different but successful enterprises have in common? Yes, a football club in any code enjoys important differences to other enterprises. Government agencies and public companies are not trying to 'win flags' nor can they easily 'delist' players but they are most certainly trying to kick goals, need a diverse team to do that and teamwork, discipline and focus to get there. They also need to manage their brand, attract sponsorship dollars and talent. They need to create the optimal environment for success; enabling critical success factors and removing impediments to that success.

Being clear, intentional and consistent about the vision and the expected behaviours to go with it are hallmarks of enlightened organisations serious about sustained success and "premier" reputation.

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