The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

Despite having the best season we had experienced in decades, I woke up to the news that our manager, Nuno – the best and most successful one we’d had in decades, was potentially going to leave the club after just one game.

One.

A game that we had won and that I’d written about here.

Add to this that Nuno had very recently signed a new contract and the whole thing made no sense.

Until it did.

Because while details were still murky at the time, it appeared that a new, senior executive had joined the club and in a period of just 2 months, they had caused huge rifts with his decisions, stubbornness and ego.

Now I am not denying that the way our manager raised this issue – via an interview – had a lot of room for improvement, however the real issue was that a club bursting with optimism had burst in a matter of weeks because of one, senior, leader.

In many ways, this is not a story of football, but of modern corporate behaviour.

Let’s be honest, we’ve all seen it …

Where someone comes in and thinks they know how to do the job of everyone else better than everyone else – regardless of the fact they’ve never done those jobs or being as successful as those in the job.

And rather than start by listening, learning, discussing and collaborating … they immediately turn it into a ‘big swinging dick contest’ and before you know it, they’ve destroyed everything that made things special before they came.

People.
Culture.
Process.
Standards.
Everything.

But if that wasn’t bad enough, they then blame it on the people they went out of their way to undermine which they’ll then justify using words such as “efficiency”, “consistency”, “modernisation”, “uniformity”, business demands” and/or “unlocking the power of our collective strength”.

I should point out at this stage, this is not always the case.

But I should also point out, it is often the case … as demonstrated by the fact that despite the owner of Nottingham Forest publicly stating he supported Nuno and would be holding ‘clear the air talks’ shortly, he ended up ‘clearing Nuno’s desk’ and firing him.

So why does this keep happening – both in football and in companies?

Is it because companies like hiring psychopaths?
Is it because companies only care about the cash?
Is it because employees are idiots when not controlled?

While it would be tempting to say yes, we all know that’s not the case.

However there is a reason why I think happens more and more – and to that, I point to this brilliant piece by the original manager of Guns n’ Roses – Alan Niven.

Put simply, he highlights how too many companies hire senior leaders from other industries – believing their ‘business knowledge’ will help them achieve greater success. And while that sounds all well and good, they forget that while business may have some steadfast principals … every industry works very differently from one another and if you fail to realise how a specific industry truly operates – or you try to make it work how your previous industry operated – you find many end up tearing things down, rather than building them up.

Pretty much nails it.

And while he writes about the music industry, we don’t have to look too far to see this happening all around us.

Where people who have never made the work, decide and dictate how the work should be made.

Placing more importance on scale, conformity and cost-saving than creativity.

Believing the only thing that motivates is money, rather than acknowledging the importance of standards, craft and respect.

Of course every industry can improve.

Every industry has things they can tighten-up and evolve.

But if you’re not from the industry, you often see the bits you don’t understand as the bits that need to be addressed and then before you know it, you’re killing the very thing that drove and defined your value.

And everyone suffers … except the people who instigated all the change.

Because the way their remuneration is structured, even when they lose, they win.

Experience matters.

Not just in terms of the roles you’ve had, but how you gained them.

Because while outside perspectives are powerful and beneficial, when there’s more people with that context than there those who have the knowledge and understanding of how everything actually works … then you find that many of their strategies end up driving a companies demise rather than their future.

Or as my mentor Lee Hill said:

“The greatest lesson I’ve learned is that when it comes to industry practice, logic is personal rarely universal”.