Before you build a premiership club, you need to know your club as it currently is.  So in this step, you need to understand the difference between your short, medium and long term goals and make sure you have the right people to fight for every aspect of each of them.

Call it a mission statement, a vision, a driving force… you need to identify it and you need people who are going to fight for it. While some clubs may have similar goals (for instance, every clubs goal is to win games, win premierships and make dolla dolla bills, y’all), the time restraints for these goals and how they will be accomplished for each.  For instance, the goal of ‘win a premiership’ might be a short term goal for Hawthorn, a medium term goal for North Melbourne and a long term goal for Melbourne.  It depends where you’re at in your life cycle.

So first thing: Set some goals. Make it a group thing. Get all the big guns in with you and fight out your priorities. It’s not going to be fun, but it has to happen.

So what do I mean by goals?  Here’s a few examples.

Notice the difference between the two clubs.  The difference in goals is due to where they are in their life cycle.  While clubs may have similar goals, each set is specific to the club.

What I tried to illustrate in this very elementary example is that while football performance is a priority for clubs, there are other aspects to consider, particularly those that set the club up for future success such as membership, ticket sales and community relations.  As clubs have many different departments, each one would have its own short, medium and long term goals.  (I did try to focus on the football aspect, but wanted to show how other things would have an impact – of course it’s not perfect, but hopefully you get the idea).

But alas, having these goals means nothing if clubs don’t have people to work for them.  Obviously, clubs have employees and these employees are going to help but here’s the thing: you need to structure them properly if they’re going to meet these goals.

If you were to make the coach the boss – the final word – nothing would get done because most coaches focus on the short term (that short term may be a bit longer, if the coach has a great contract, but you get my drift).  Same if you make the CFO the boss: all they want is a profit.  Organize the company so that people who have different time-restrictions on their goals are all on a level playing field.  Sure, if you must, give the football department a bit of an edge.  But make sure they hear the other departments.  You don’t want the boys to constantly be in training and never doing any community building.  You also don’t want your coaches so busy recruiting they forget about Saturday’s game. BALANCE. THAT’S THE KEY.

Make sure all department are structured so they can be heard and all goals can be taken care of/are given equal weight.  Then… we can move on to the fun part.  (Okay, admittedly there is a stressful part between this and the fun part but I figured I’d let you have some excitement for a bit!).