Just listened to the Weston interview. Its nothing but old man yelling at cloud stuff. He’s basically running on the premise that “we need to put in more effort!”. The 2KM time trial comment was embarrassing, the players these days would run laps around what he would’ve been able to do at his peak.
No real substance and will actually offer nothing to the board. The only thing he can do is disrupt and cause instability. Sheedy embarrassed the club when he commented on the Brad Scott appointment and this is the same thing Weston will do.
Surely it was Barham embarrassing the club when he said the decision to appoint Scott was unanimous when it wasn’t. Sheedy merely corrected the record by telling the truth.
He could have been honest about it. “We voted 8-1 with Kevin Sheedy favouring Hird. However, in discussion following the vote, Kevin ultimately endorsed Brad Scott…etc”.
I guess that is on the minor side of things, though. I don’t think Brad Scott cared. I don’t think James Hird cared. Just Sheedy being Sheedy.
Boards are always going to disagree during various stages of a decision. But at the end, you all agree to go down a path. Good or bad. And you support it. That’s what good boards do.
There was no need to correct anything. Just swallow your pride and get on with the job.
If Barham came out and said it was a 8-2 voting split (or whatever it was), the discussion will be about the drama around board room splits. If that is done for every decision made, there’d be countless angst about the disagreements. Media would have hunted down the ones that disagreed and forced a comment on why they disagree. And Sheedy would have abliged.
I’m sure Paul and Catherine would have been involved in many robust discussions through board meetings and decisions. I’m sure there were many emotional discussions when Hird was sacked in 2015 during those particular board meetings. Many different metrics and opinions to assess. But at the end, as a group they came to a conclusion and moved on with the task at hand. Then review, re-assess and adjust planning later on once you have more data at hand.
How wrong you are… Its very common for boards to disagree on things and is actually healthy. However, once a vote and a decision has been made - they should present as being aligned.
Sheedy went rogue and went against everything that is expected of a board member. The only mistake Barham did was not getting Sheedy off the board that instant
The Paul Weston interview wasn’t too great.
I get what his gripes are and what he’s saying.
But I’m not sure how he changes that as a board member.
He wants 100% commitment from players.
We need to raise our standards and expectations.
We used to be feared and respected as a team.
He questions the improvements as he does not see them.
All good with that. All good to point out our issues. Finding the solution is tough. At least he looked back to previous teams and saw that removing people wasn’t always the best solution, instead providing more support around them.
He’s the ‘agent of change’ if you’re looking for one. I haven’t voted yet, but I won’t be voting for him. If he does make it, I think it could be good for the board to actually go through counterpoints of their plans and refine them even further to suit. It can help with decision making.
But it sounds like he’s more for an AFL football department change which has occurred. Almost every position in it has changed across the last two years. Maybe it does need some re-direction or re-focus.
There is surely no one actually going to vote for Westen based on that interview. Gee whiz, his leadership credentials included captaining SA over 40 yrs ago and sales manager for 100 staff in the corporate world. What would he know about motivating a cohort of 45 professional athletes in their early to mid 20s.