Mate, seemingly we don't communicate well and you seem quite aggravated with me (the praise was legitimate, up to you how you want to take it), so maybe we just let it go.
I generally don't think I misunderstood you, it's more about how you apply principles
- But to be clear, your wife and your marriage are the same thing, one doesn't exist without the other, call it relationship goals, happiness, whatever one requires the other.
- There is no such link between Poch and Spurs, hence my call out, Poch goes tomorrow, Spurs remains ..
- And on top of that, you don't pay people in your life to participate, hence you owe them some empathy ..
but to separate the personal and use the professional example
- If I had a good boss who suddenly became poor, my response would depend on the impact he is having. If he was impacting my ability to make money, pay my bills, then yes I want him out (and I might still like him as a person)
- Poch is paid for results, he is not delivering and it's impacting the club, players and fans ..
You may choose to leave your life around less "goal oriented" objectives and if that works for you, well done. But fundamentally that is not how being the manager of a top 4 PL club with any level of ambition operates.
So again, no aggravation with you, no aggravation with Poch, just a very simple view that he is failing in a position that is measured by results and has no place for like/empathy/etc.
I would say there is another angle we can take to this which would allow us to think through the ‘he currently isn’t performing’ point in a bit more detail. Because that’s the lack of context I think is maddening. It suggests that once results turn, the Manager must be under performing, he should not be trusted to get it back, it never will turn back, and that’s the end of it. It suggests there is nothing else that could possibly effect results.
Since you like the business metaphors, I will say that I work in start up tech / venture capital. In these companies, the people that are right for the 0-100 person journey are not the same ones that are right for 100-500, 500-1500 etc. Sometimes you need to change the leadership team. Sometimes though the leadership team, particularly the founders, are super adaptable and able to go through all of the stages and continue to succeed. It is also worth saying that sometimes things may happen to companies as they try and get to the next stage - competitors come out with new products, a new regulation changes the game, they soon run out of runway and can’t figure the unit economics out quickly enough - that mean that it’s sometimes a bloody struggle to get to the next milestone. Sometimes the Founder is the right one but external circumstances have meant that the journey to getting where they need to was a bloody struggle, with lots of ups and downs. Sometimes you need to get the Founder out, no doubt, but actually given the amount of problems these companies face on the road to ultimate success, the proportion of time you trust in the guy to figure it out is probably much bigger than the proportion of time you cut him loose.
It feels like you are drawing on your experience from maybe big corporate land where things are more established, if things go wrong, it’s fine, because the company will continue and under performance can be punished. But I’d say if there is any club that resembles a start up, one that is ‘on a journey’ and changing itself from plucky underdog to established player, it is us. We are going to face external pressures. We are going to go through tough periods where things don’t go our way and we need to stay the course.
I will ask - if we were able to shift the players that Poch wanted to shift, when he wanted to shift them, do you think we would be better off right now? I think we absolutely would, but it doesn’t always go our way. Which means we will have down periods, where we have to fight through less than ideal circumstances to get on the good page again. I think we can do it, but that to me is the obvious reason for our failing. We are levelling our club up from one standing to another. We are doing it without a bottomless pit of money. We just built a stadium. To do all of that is bloody difficult. To do all of that, while refreshing the squad, and doing it all without any down periods while we get to where we need to be, I’d say is nigh on impossible.
This idea that we is ‘underperforming’ and that ‘this only ends one way’ I just don’t agree with. He goes if he loses the trust of the players that are currently being paid really well and will be here long term. As long as they are inside, and there are enough people at the club who believe, he stays. He has earned the opportunity to get us back on the good track. In start up land, you rely on loyalty to an extent to see you through the bad times and enjoy the good as a family. Because sometimes you have nothing else. But great things often happen, billion dollar companies are formed when you make it through the dark times.
