Earning the respect of your teammates is the thing AFL players crave the most. Recent premiership-winning sides Geelong, Hawthorn and the Sydney Swans have embraced ‘360-degree feedback’ as the cornerstone of their leadership programs and their culture at the club.
The notion of 360-degree feedback was embraced by the business world long before it became popular in the AFL. The clear hierarchy in football clubs was a difficult barrier to break through, and the old system had been established over a long period of time. The president is the boss of the coach. The coach tells the players what to do. The captain has a little more input, and first- and second-year players shut up until they earn some respect. Last week, Jason Akermanis expressed his desire for it all to return to the way it once was.
“I thought administrators administer, coaches coach and players play,” said Aker.
In 1997, the Western Bulldogs side I played in missed out on the grand final by the narrowest of margins. Our coach, Terry Wallace, had to a certain extent revolutionised the way the game was played.
We trained earlier and harder than anyone, and we had a core group of a dozen natural leaders and competitors who genuinely felt we could beat anyone. This players’ group, which included such quality footballers as Scott Wynd, Chris Grant, Brad Johnson, Leon Cameron and Tony Liberatore, got together before the pre-season the following year.
We believed that the coach focused too heavily on the individual rewards the game offers, such as best and fairest awards and All-Australian honours; the coach had also floated the idea, in the week of the preliminary final, that players and coaching staff should get premiership rings in the tradition of NBA basketball. Many of us thought we were getting ahead of ourselves by being rewarded before we’d even made the grand final.
We felt that if we gave the coach feedback and created a strong, player-driven culture at the Bulldogs, then we could resolve the small issues we had and deliver the club’s second flag.
Unfortunately, Terry Wallace wasn’t the right character to handle this feedback; he believed that players meeting among themselves would lead to discontent.
It is my absolute belief that the Bulldogs would have won a premiership in the late ’90s had the coach felt secure enough in himself to accept input from the playing group.
When you create an environment that doesn’t allow people below you in a team to challenge your ideas, it makes it hard for them to develop and improve.
Not surprisingly, the Richmond players shared a similar experience following Terry’s five-year stint at Tigerland.
Wayne Carey was the best player and the most influential individual I have known in football. He was so good and became so big within the North Melbourne Football Club that he was beyond feedback. People would point to the two premierships he delivered as evidence that it didn’t matter. But it could be argued that had North Melbourne dealt with Wayne Carey’s indiscretions in the same vein as Steve Johnson and Alan Didak, then the Kangaroos could potentially have won five flags and ‘The Duck’ would have sorted his life out before it went off the rails.
Ray McLean’s business, Leading Teams, is the choice provider of 360-degree feedback-style leadership programs at AFL clubs. The success stories of Geelong, Hawthorn and the Sydney Swans cannot be mere coincidence.
In his book, McLean emphasises the need for whoever is at the centre of influence within the group to be totally committed to the process. In North Melbourne’s environment it would have been Wayne Carey; for most sides it is the senior coach. If they don’t buy in, the process will fail.
Port Adelaide coach Mark Williams asked a clever question of McLean when he was considering using Leading Teams: 'where is the competitive advantage for my team if everyone else is doing it?' The answer was equally smart and good for business! The advantage lies with the teams that embrace the open and honest culture of feedback the most.
Jason Akermanis last week likened his experience with Leading Teams to workplace bullying. He felt that receiving feedback from his peers was like having a vendetta against him.
It was interesting to hear his former captain Michael Voss express his thoughts on Akermanis’ departure from the Bulldogs: “I hope he walks away and sits down and thinks, what role have I played in this?”
Receiving feedback from one’s peers is confronting; accepting it the right way can be life-changing. Hopefully one day it will be for Aker.
The views in this story are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.
