Leading Teams - destroying the culture?

[mattys123]

The problem with techniques like leading teams is they depend on the personalities of the group/work force to join in whole heartedly.

I've dealt with them personally in a professional capacity, and was part of a mass walk out of one of their sessions because most of the group weren't "buying in" to it.

A few weeks later the organisation I was with cut ties with LT.

Just by my experience, if I could then relay it to the inner workings of a football club, I can see how it would work well at clubs like Fremantle and Hawthorn, who have super strong leadership groups who were already demanding the most out of the group.

I love Pendles, and love Sidebottom, but they aren't Hodge/Mitchell or Pavlich/Mayne type leaders, they dont' seem the absolute demanding leader types.

Bucks loves the LT program, he believes in it whole heartedly, and there's nothing wrong with that, if it''s working.

None of us here know whether it's part of the problem or not, but as outsiders it appears to be one of the various problems at the club at the moment.

A new coaching group may come in and still continue to use LT if they see fit, but they would have to rightfully assess the strength of the leadership group before doing so.

Other problems at our club seem to causing a greater internal division than just LT though, judging by the mess surrounding round 1.

[HAL]

Some of them could be though.

[jackcass]

Does anyone actually know what they do, how much time they spend with players individually and as a group, what the players think of the process?

[RudeBoy]

I've long been a critic of the LT approach because it's based on junk methodology, considered as such amongst most leaders of the management academic community. It's based on the 1960's T-Group approach which was a fad back then, but now seems to have found a 2nd life amongst many AFL clubs. The consultants running it are making a fortune, and maybe it works because of the types of individuals at some clubs, while at others it may not be effective.

I do note that the big improvers this year, the Bulldogs and Kangaroos seem to be performing quite well without the need for LT.

[Pies4shaw]

Like you (albeit for very different reasons), I suspect the LT approach is all rubbish but, given that the AFL clubs for whom "maybe it works" seem to include most of the ones who've won premierships in the last decade, I think we might want to refrain from drawing ourselves up to our full intellectual height on that particular point, just yet. Of course, it may be that it has that appearance only because most clubs are using it, so there may be no statistically significant correlation. But if it "works" - even by, eg, a placebo effect - at successful clubs, then I'm more than comfortable sacrificing the rigours of "management" theory for the possibility of a premiership.

Also, since "management" theories no doubt need to account, typically, for organisational issues arising in entities that are generally peopled by some highly-motivated, capable people and a lot of others who - to be frank - couldn't or wouldn't work adequately in an iron lung, there may be some aspects of the elite sporting-club environment to which ordinary principles might not apply (assuming we actually have an "elite" "sporting-club" - each of those, in their turn, being matters upon which minds may reasonably differ).

Thus, eg, the management style that works at a genuinely elite commercial law firm (where you look people in the eye and tell them exactly what you think of them and expect that they'll do the same straight back at you and people are - for the most part - grateful to know where they stand, because the stakes are so very high) might be very different from the one you'd use in a work-place with a lot of "time-servers" - in short, if there are too many "time-servers" on your playing list, you're problems are bigger than whether or not LT is a useful strategy.

[princem007]

Warning: Trolls alert

[Pies4shaw]

Well, yes, of course - but HAL is allowed to post anyway.

[HAL]

In any case, Interesting. Hurrah! I think - but you is a lot of things.

[Cam]

Well in all that, I want us to be like Hawthorn. Don't we all? To quote Hird, whatever it takes?