Why Stuart Webber should stay... for now.

[canarybubbles 1,946]

"Strategic Plan - Our infinite purpose: To make our football club and community better today than it was yesterday. While we focus on winning on the pitch we must remember that this only represents a moment in time and that every game we play is finite. We must consider our infinite purpose - this reflects a club that has been part of our community to be a part of our community in all the years to come."

Don J Demorr: 'Well, cb, it is either a glorious spoof by Shef (who we know is clever enough) or the Far Sighted Management thinks that making a shopping list is actually the same as going to Waitrose and filling a whole bunch of trollies.'

 

Is it a spoof, Shef? And how about those capital letters on the key words in a later section - are those your highlights, or from the original? If the original, this is like reading The Sun, where they put important words in bold capitals because they assume that otherwise their readers are too stupid to understand them.

Also, I bristle at that final sentence. It is so grammatically poor that you need to read it three times in order to understand what it is trying to say (and even then you're not quite sure). I know I'm being a pedant, but sloppy use of language nearly always goes together with sloppy thinking.

 

[Don J Demorr 162]

A pedant who reads the "Sun" you say? One of the depressing features of the aging process is the increasing incapacity to internalise an alien concept. I fear there is no hope for me here.

[shefcanary 2,465]

Just to clarify. Everything I included in my post was as presented in the latest Annual Report and Financial Statements, including the capitals. I am not particularly creative, so please trust me, my post was not a spoof.

As Dom says, total psychobabble, a non-executive with some degree of authority would have kicked that into touch a long time before it got to print. But in print it is, so the Executive now have to be held accountable to it, however difficult. The men in the white coats surely must be hovering.

Happy Xmas Canary brethren!

Edited December 25, 2022 by shefcanary

[Don J Demorr 162]

 

 

I previously wrote that I would deconstruct the Club’s Strategy document. In retrospect that document I so universally derided that it would be a waste of my time and yours. Instead as a former consultant in the field of Corporate Management maybe I should explain where I see things now. I have looked at the problems facing NCFC from an organisational viewpoint.

The basic problem is what is to be done about an observedly dysfunctional organisation.

We start by looking at where we are. In doing so we look for hard evidence based on clear observations rather than hearsay or unsupported assertions.

 Pull up your Lycra undershorts, folks, this is going to be a long and winding road: -

 

• ·        A growing number of customers see a lackadaisical and disorganised performance on the pitch. This is bad.
• ·        Some customers disapprove of the body language of the on-field manager. This is bad.
• ·        The Head Coach has now been dismissed. This is bad (or good, as the case may be).
• ·        The customers disapprove of many alleged actions of the Director of Football. This is bad.
• ·        Some customers are suspicious about the commitment and actions of senior members of the Company Executive body. This is bad.
• ·        Many customers have lost faith in the owners of the club. This is bad.
• ·        The club has been promoted twice in the last few years, but the outcome has been disastrous. This is bad.

On the other hand: -

• ·        The club is relatively sound financially. This is good
• ·        The club is within reach of a further promotion. This is good. (Or not, as may be).

However, the burning question is not whether the situation is bad, it is what is to be done about it and by whom. Other folk on here have made some suggestions – demands even. These include: -

• ·        Dismissing the Head Coach [this is now done, reported after writing this analysis]
• ·        Dismissing the Director of Football and certain senior fellow Directors
• ·        Changing the Owners.

Pontification alarm!: - Faced with a disaster, every human being has any instinctive and instant reaction to identify and explain the “One True Cause”. You can see this every single day in the news programmes. This attack is as often as not both wrong and unjust. The dismissal of Daniel Farke arguably fell into this category. Whatever, nothing good happened as a result except that things got worse, if anything. [Repeated now with DS dismissal]

We need clear heads and calm voices.

Pontification alarm! My opinion FWIW, is that any or all of the three further dismissals demanded above would be of the same knee-jerking kind and would have the same zero positive effect and instead would be very disruptive. This opinion was arrived at by looking at some other factors. They all relate to the governance and management structure of the NCFC organisation, which I have looked at.

According to Companies House records, the Directors of NCFC Ltd are: -

HALL, Samuel Fergus

Role Active

Secretary

ATTANASIO, Mark

Role Active

Director

FOULGER, Michael Martin

Role Active

Director

SMITH, Delia Ann

Role Active

Director

SMITH, Thomas Owen Bartlett

Role Active

Director

WEBBER, Zoe Joanne

Role Active

Director

WYNN-JONES, Edward Michael Spencer

Role Active

Director

 

 

***************

Rather confusingly, from the NCFC website we have: -

Stuart Webber joined Norwich City to take the newly-created post of Sporting Director in April 2017 as part of a restructuring process at the Club. …..

…..He leads all aspects of the Club's recruitment strategy, working with the Head Coach to identify players with the commitment and hunger to improve performances on the pitch.

For Zoe Webber, the Club website reveals that “along with managing various areas of the Club’s business, one of her key areas of focus is to ensure that everyone across the Club is working towards the same vision and strategy”. Ooops!

The NCFC website includes a description of “First Team staff and Key People”. You may not believe it but the list does not include either the title or the identity of the Head Coach.

What we see from these official sources is that: -

• ·        There is no Chairman
• ·        There is a Board of Directors but no Managing Director
• ·        There is a Director of Football who is not a Director at all.
• ·        There is probably a Head Coach, or somebody.

Pontification alarm: -. The absence of both a Chairman and an MD is organisationally unsound and is at least part of the problem, if not most of it. They have essential and differing roles. The Chairman reports to the owners. He does not necessarily have a detailed knowledge of the business but does need to know about how a successful business should operate. His main operational task is to make sure that the MD spends his time on improving the efficiency with which the company pursues its purpose, rather than on easier and more career developing Boardroom machinations. Essentially, the Chairman’s role is a matter of checks and balances to guard against daft actions by the executive, including the MD. In turn the MD’s function is to guide and assist the performance of the Board members. Again, it is not essential for the MD to know how the widgets are designed and made but it is absolutely necessary that he understands how a good corporation functions and how to bring this about. At the next level down are the functional Directors, each of whom has a separate specific area of responsibility. They are where a knowledge of the inner workings is crucial. Acting as a team they actually manage the business.

At a Board Meeting many inadequate MDs think they are a boss, and demand agreement with their ideas. They think of themselves as a Manager who Directs, rather than as a Director who Manages. In a more effective Board, the MD seeks opinion from everybody and then finds agreement, preferably by Consensus. Consensus is not a majority vote or a contrived unanimity but it  is when everybody present can say “Maybe it is not exactly what I wanted but I understand it, I can live with it and I will support it”. Unlike in a majority vote or a bossy diktat, in a Consensus there are no winners and no losers. I hope you can see how much more powerful this is than bullying or manoeuvring good people into silence and grudging acceptance. It is harder work, though.

Experience suggests that these two roles and responsibilities are essential to the workings of a successful organisation. The NCFC management structure is totally devoid of these two functions. Whatever else, that needs to be fixed.

It might show a limitation of my experience but I have never come across a Boardroom where the owners are present with officially the same authority as their employees. I would love to see a Sociogram of such meeting to see if I can figure out how it might work. I think they should not be there. Set the policy, appoint a Chairman and stay at home, please.

Despite what I accept might be a delusion of competence, I have no knowledge at all of what a Director of Football is, what he does or how he fits in to the control system. Nor is it clear how the Head Coach fits in, supposing the post exists at all. An organigram would be a great help.

In this situation firing the Coach is the equivalent of kicking the cat. It might make you feel better for a while but the only lasting effect will be on the cat. Nobody wins. [We shall see]

Despite all this the NCFC has worked somehow but for the life of me I don’t know how it can continue.

There are two other big red warning flags for the student of Corporate affairs.

• 1)     Of these, the defining event for me was Shef’s revelation of the Club’s Strategy/Plan/Vision/Whatever. I have printed this out and I still can’t take it seriously. I have to keep referring back to it to make sure I’m not hallucinating (again). For you supporters and for the Club itself the only positive result is that it lifts the manhole lid on the shocking certainty that the people responsible for your Club have literally no idea about where to take the organisation and what to do about getting there. This is simply awful. [expletives deleted].
• 2)   However much time that took was I doubt if that deliberation would surpass the people-hours spent in polishing theutterly irrelevant minutiae of Club – specific and unique font design, alternative logos, kit changes, stationery redesign and so on.

What this reveals is the famous “Bicycle shed syndrome” in which a bemused or complacent  leadership spends inordinate time fog-knitting like this whilst evading  important existential problems.

It is axiomatic that it is extremely unlikely that any serious change will emerge from the existing setup. This is not due to any doubt about the ability or commitment of the officers, it is another organisational no-no.  Can you please hitch up your Lycras again while I quote a longish passage from the much-misunderstood genius and progenitor of Management Change Consulting that was Niccolò Machiavelli: -

“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. For the innovator has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries … and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it.”

In the words of my grandad “if things don’t alter, they’ll stop as they are”. Indeed so, and it is as plain as the nose on your face that change must happen, or else. Things must change at NCFC, so who is the officially appointed agent of such essential changes? Why, it’s one of the Board! Is that really going to work? Yeah, right. See Machiavelli for details.

So what is to be done?

Pontification alarm! Well, for a start here’s what not to do: -

• ·        There is no point whatsoever in removing Dean Smith. He is not the architect of this mess and it would make a bad job worse. [Too late, they did it]
• ·        There is no point in removing Mr & Mrs Webber. They would have to be replaced in short order by somebody better. I don’t detect that there is in fact anybody better than they are, or that there has been anybody appointed to do the dirty work.
• ·        You are not going to remove Delia or Michael. Forget it, they own the place.

So here are my recommendations, for what they are worth nowadays.

• ·        Without organisational change the club is inevitably doomed to further decline.
•        For  very good reasons the best organisations operate with a Chairman and Managing Director.
• ·       There is no existing process by which the change will arise organically. It must be provoked from outside.
• ·        To do that there must be a group who are powerful advocates of non-destructive change.
• ·        Such a group must be organised.
•       The intended target of the Heroes of the Revolution must be the structure, not the people involved. Nowhere herein have I criticised any individual. Some people are uncomfortable in an unstructured environment, some take the opportunity to run amok, but if they do they are not the One True Cause; their environment is. They did not create it. (Or did they?)
• ·        Any approach must be made to the Owners. They are almost inevitably aware that there is a serious problem and don’t know what to do about it. Maybe your advice would be welcome.

·        There are people posting here who are quite capable of forming such a group.  You all seem to know each other despite the pseudonyms. Maybe one of you will take an initiative. It must be done.

Another and final piece of personally acquired knowledge that might apply here.  One of the worst things that can happen to an organisation is a period of conspicuous success, which allows scope for sloppy decision making,  poor appointments, missed opportunities and lax discipline. It is a time to be particularly attentive not to rest easy on the oars.

 

Could be that “On the ball, City” should be heard in the Boardroom as well as on the pitch – or even more so.

Yours ever.

Don 

My card: -

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Edited December 27, 2022 by Don J Demorr

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,243]

14 minutes ago, Don J Demorr said:

much-misunderstood genius and progenitor of Management Change Consulting that was Niccolò Machiavelli: -

 

“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. For the innovator has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries … and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it.”

Bravissimo Capo. My father made me read Il Principe when I was 15*

The are not many questions in the world whose answers are not in it. 

Parma 
 

*I have read it a thousand times since

Edited December 27, 2022 by Parma Ham's gone mouldy

[shefcanary 2,465]

@Don J Demorr Thanks for setting out your thoughts they concur with mine. I've been banging on about the lack of a defined Chair and MD / CEO for a good two years. The club's response to any mutterings along this line is probably covered by the "we've had conspicuous success under the current set-up so why change?". As we now understand from your analysis, when things are not as successful you need a stronger corporate governance. 

Where our thoughts diverge is over what happens next. I think there is only one story (aside from the soap opera developing of the search for a new head coach). Mark Attanasio is effectively a takeover from Smith & Jones in waiting. There is no formal confirmation of when, or what will happen, when this is completed. However the way Mark shared the limelight recently with his son Mike, leads me to believe Mark will be Chair, Mike potentially CEO. This will be imperfect from a corporate sense, but is something we have seen in other American sporting takeovers. 

As for pressurising an early settlement of the takeover, this is dependent not only on Attanasio, but more importantly, Smith & Jones. One wonders if the current situation has taken the last of their corporate energies, hastening their sell off? I don't have contacts in Norfolk who could potentially persuade them now is a good time.

Edited December 27, 2022 by shefcanary

[GodlyOtsemobor 2,407]

Don't shoot the messenger, just see it on another page. 

Edited December 27, 2022 by GodlyOtsemobor

[Mello Yello 2,303]

1 minute ago, GodlyOtsemobor said:

Interesting.....

[Branston Pickle 3,690]

4 minutes ago, GodlyOtsemobor said:

Don't shoot the messenger, just see it on another page. 

I don’t suppose it’ll bother Wyett, but journos are well aware of the ‘rules’ around confidentiality.

[Don J Demorr 162]

Hi, Shef.

Thanks for your thoughts. In fact we don't differ at all. I could have filled several more pages with alternative scenarios but for the sake of brevity I came to the conclusion that whether or not the Attenasios came to town the requirements are the same. First, they may not come, next if they do it would be good to have such a group as I suggest. I spent two decades working with and for American corporations and am certain that they will apply US management philosophies, which will be as you describe. They will also bring Continouous Improvement and Business Process Re-engineering. Could be a culture shock for the archaic world of Uk football.

Don't knock the octogenarians though! Some of us still have working neurons.

Don

[Robert N. LiM 4,501]

pretty sure that* was a joke.

*edit: I meant the Charlie Wyett tweet

Edited December 27, 2022 by Robert N. LiM

[The Great Mass Debater 1,092]

*

Edited December 27, 2022 by The Great Mass Debater

[Don J Demorr 162]

15 minutes ago, Robert N. LiM said:

pretty sure that was a joke.

Sorry, Robert. Misunderstood your reference.

Edited December 27, 2022 by Don J Demorr
Misunderstood the reference

[PurpleCanary 5,585]

5 hours ago, Don J Demorr said:

 

Point One 

• ·        A growing number of customers see a lackadaisical and disorganised performance on the pitch. This is bad.
• ·        Some customers disapprove of the body language of the on-field manager. This is bad.
• ·        The Head Coach has now been dismissed. This is bad (or good, as the case may be).
• ·        The customers disapprove of many alleged actions of the Director of Football. This is bad.
• ·        Some customers are suspicious about the commitment and actions of senior members of the Company Executive body. This is bad.
• ·        Many customers have lost faith in the owners of the club. This is bad.
• ·        The club has been promoted twice in the last few years, but the outcome has been disastrous. This is bad.

On the other hand: -

• ·        The club is relatively sound financially. This is good
• ·        The club is within reach of a further promotion. This is good. (Or not, as may be).

 

 

 Point Two

Faced with a disaster, every human being has any instinctive and instant reaction to identify and explain the “One True Cause”.

 

 

Point Three

What we see from these official sources is that: -

• ·        There is no Chairman
• ·        There is a Board of Directors but no Managing Director
• ·        There is a Director of Football who is not a Director at all.
• ·        There is probably a Head Coach, or somebody.

 

Point Four

It might show a limitation of my experience but I have never come across a Boardroom where the owners are present with officially the same authority as their employees.

Point Five

In this situation firing the Coach is the equivalent of kicking the cat. It might make you feel better for a while but the only lasting effect will be on the cat. Nobody wins. [We shall see]

It is axiomatic that it is extremely unlikely that any serious change will emerge from the existing setup. This is not due to any doubt about the ability or commitment of the officers, it is another organisational no-no

 

• ·        There is no point whatsoever in removing Dean Smith. He is not the architect of this mess and it would make a bad job worse. [Too late, they did it]
• ·        There is no point in removing Mr & Mrs Webber. They would have to be replaced in short order by somebody better. I don’t detect that there is in fact anybody better than they are, or that there has been anybody appointed to do the dirty work.
• ·        You are not going to remove Delia or Michael. Forget it, they own the place.

So here are my recommendations, for what they are worth nowadays.

Point Six 

·        Without organisational change the club is inevitably doomed to further decline.

•        For  very good reasons the best organisations operate with a Chairman and Managing Director.
• ·       There is no existing process by which the change will arise organically. It must be provoked from outside.
• ·        To do that there must be a group who are powerful advocates of non-destructive change.
• ·        Such a group must be organised.
•       The intended target of the Heroes of the Revolution must be the structure, not the people involved. Nowhere herein have I criticised any individual. Some people are uncomfortable in an unstructured environment, some take the opportunity to run amok, but if they do they are not the One True Cause; their environment is. They did not create it. (Or did they?)
• ·        Any approach must be made to the Owners. They are almost inevitably aware that there is a serious problem and don’t know what to do about it. Maybe your advice would be welcome.

·        There are people posting here who are quite capable of forming such a group.  You all seem to know each other despite the pseudonyms. Maybe one of you will take an initiative. It must be done.

 

As thought-provoking and bracingly stringent as ever, Don. I go along with most of it. However a few observations!

Point One. This is football. Some fans are never satisfied and always angry, and not always in the majority or even a significant minority. That not at all to say the current unrest is unjustified. Only that unrest is a fact of footballing life and sometimes is valid and sometimes needs to be ignored.

Point Two. Absolutely. Things are rarely so simple as to be correctly applied to one factor.

Point Three. Arguably Zoe Ward is the equivalent of a managing director or CEO. We used to have such. Someone trained in business who either had or acquired by working some basic knowledge of football. But not someone who had been a professional player or coach. The football side was covered by the team manager.

But we switched to the continental system by splitting the team manager's role into two, with a sporting director with professional football experience and below him a head coach. And another executive (Ward in our case) taking up the non-football parts of the old CEO's remit.

I understand this may well not fit happily with best managerial practice for non-footballing companies, but football, for good or ill, is different in many crucial ways (there is, for example, no boom and bust automatic promotion and relegation between the Footsie 100 and the Footsie 250, with resultingly huge changes in revenues). As you've seen posters here disagree on most subjects, but I think you would find a consensus in favour of this new system. I certainly can't remember anyone suggesting we should revert.

Point Four. Not sure this is true. At the moment there is only one employee in the boardroom, and that is Zoe Webber. And in terms of boardroom votes the owners can probably count on support for their views, apart from in exceptional circumstances. And ultimately they still have a controlling majority of shares.

Point Five. With respect I think you are falling for the "One True Cause" fallacy! Even if you are right about the underlying problems that certainly doesn't mean sacking the head coach cannot bring about an improvement in on-field results. M&S will justifiably sack a head buyer who gets the fashions wrong for the forthcoming season even if the company has more fundamental failings.

Point Six. I love the idea of posters as Heroes of the Revolution. However, romantically appealing as that is, if the change you argue for is going to come it will more probably result from an Attanasio takeover, or even just a significant extension of his involvement, with the addition of US executives and directors and business practices.

Or perhaps as Machiavelli said: "If a football club is to live long it must often be brought back to its beginnings, because all the beginnings of football clubs must possess some goodness by means of which they gain their first reputation and their first promotion."

Edited December 27, 2022 by PurpleCanary

[City Stand Ultra 41]

On 21/12/2022 at 11:34, Feedthewolf said:

 

 

 

We live in a world of brand creation, promotion and narrative. Unfortunately your well intentioned piece imho reflects a degree of gullibility on your part.  The interview was a vehicle for Webber to promote brand Webber and demonstrate what an amazing chap he is.  Imagine getting up at 5am to do all your training!! - what a decent chap he must be to do this and not have ANY impact on NCFC.  Funny how that hadn't been mentioned before lol

Mick Dennis is a club shill and would never do anything except promote the (Delia) Smith clan and Webber.

Webber has achieved a decent degree of success but his sell by date is now passed and the rift and disconnect he has ultimately helped to generate, fuelled by his arrogance, will long outlast any positive memories of him.

The club needs to jettison Dean Smith (tick),  jettison Webber (to do) and ultimately remove the (Delia) Smith clan to get its heart and soul back

 

[Mella Yella 40]

Weber the man who bought 60 million pounds of players who were not good enough, then sacked his friend because the players he bought weren't good enough, then didn't even have a replacement lined up & gave the job to the first man who became available, who wasn't good enough, the malaise started at this club because Weber is not good enough. Except at covering his own back.

Edited December 28, 2022 by Mella Yella

[Badger 2,412]

16 hours ago, Don J Demorr said:

Instead as a former consultant in the field of Corporate Management maybe I should explain where I see things now.

Thanks OP + Don for interesting posts.

Don, a couple of points:

1. "Relatively sound financially" probably means that we have assets to cover debts but it is a strange thing to say for a company that rarely turns in big profits and lost over £40 million last year when its revenues were greatly increased. A more moderate transfer strategy could have seen it turn in record profits: we could easily have had a profit in the region of £40 to 50 million.

2. TBH, though, I don't think that many of us would have been satisfied with such an approach, which is really my point. It is where the analogy with business starts to weaken - whilst football clubs have to remain solvent they are not generally judged by the bottom line in the same way as most other businesses and therefore it is not totally clear to me that they should be judged in quite the same way. In some respects they are closer to "businesses*" that operate within the public sector - the bottom line is less important than other factors. NNUH might generate a financial surplus if it refused to treat patients over 60, who are very expensive (insurance companies as we know charge far more to people who are older and "iller"). Similarly schools spend a disproportionate amount of their funding on students with special needs and could be much more financially viable if they excluded these from their schools (as private schools often do). Of course it is not something that we would want - which is really my point - we judge schools and hospitals in different ways and the same applies to football clubs, and this is reflected in their governance structures.

3. I find the issue of accountability to be a weak point in some of the arguments that I have read: I cannot think of many senior managers and directors of business with revenues iro £100 million that are more accountable than those at a football club?

* I know that some might balk at the term and rightly so, because they are a "quasi businesses" - they have to carry out all the same business functions and operate within financial limits.

 

 

 

[Feedthewolf 4,894]

14 hours ago, City Stand Ultra said:

We live in a world of brand creation, promotion and narrative. Unfortunately your well intentioned piece imho reflects a degree of gullibility on your part.  The interview was a vehicle for Webber to promote brand Webber and demonstrate what an amazing chap he is.  Imagine getting up at 5am to do all your training!! - what a decent chap he must be to do this and not have ANY impact on NCFC.  Funny how that hadn't been mentioned before lol

Mick Dennis is a club shill and would never do anything except promote the (Delia) Smith clan and Webber.

Webber has achieved a decent degree of success but his sell by date is now passed and the rift and disconnect he has ultimately helped to generate, fuelled by his arrogance, will long outlast any positive memories of him.

The club needs to jettison Dean Smith (tick),  jettison Webber (to do) and ultimately remove the (Delia) Smith clan to get its heart and soul back

I work in marketing and branding, I know the drill. Where you say "a vehicle to promote brand Webber", listening without cynicism that could be an opportunity to hear his side of the story against an ever-growing wall of negative noise. Sure, he's brought a lot of that upon himself by his refusal to engage in the press, and I feel my OP was relatively balanced. Perhaps the counter-argument would be that there's a degree of gullibility in believing that the man is completely self-interested and doesn't care about the club? As with everything, the truth is generally in the middle ground – and that's what I was trying to find. The middle ground between "brand Webber" and "brand Webber Out".

I know Dennis is a club stooge, but that doesn't mean there aren't elements of truth in what he says. It's just that he's fundamentally biased in favour of one side of the argument, which greatly reduces his credibility. I tend to have a read, have a listen, and juxtapose against the other end of the dichotomy.

As for the paragraph in bold, I think that's something that could be in danger of happening, but no way are we there yet. Under his tenure we've wiped a load of debt, massively improved our training facilities, appointed possibly the most loved manager in the club's recent history, won two Championship titles playing stellar football, and thus had two years in the Premier League. The negatives are obviously the woeful lack of competitiveness in the Premier League, a much less successful transfer strategy in the past two years than in the first three, the corresponding accumulation of debt by borrowing against parachute payments, and a growing off-field disconnect between the club and the fans.

The next six to twelve months are pivotal in how his legacy is remembered. If he makes a good managerial appointment that gets us playing an exciting brand of football and winning matches, the disconnect will be much more easily reparable than under the toxicity of the 'dead man walking' days of Deanoball. If he stays to oversee a full takeover of the club by the Attanasios, that will also be a positive legacy.

I have no doubt that the other lingering questions around accountability and corporate governance will be addressed once the new ownership is in place.

[shefcanary 2,465]

I'll make it clear that I have nothing against the Webber's personally.  They are doing a job they have been appointed to deliver, I just feel they are both not properly qualified to deliver what they have been asked to do and worse have been failed by the current owners. 

Zoe is a change consultant / project manager by profession, not someone who leads an organisation across all disciplines. She focusses on detail not big picture stuff. Her marketing, commercial and media skills seem lacking, if what others ITK are sharing her personnel skills are similarly lacking - all a pre-requisite for a good CEO / Leader. She has also been hampered by being married to the person responsible for the core product of the club, thus restricting her ability to be the "true" leader of the executive team. 

Stuart is similar in that regard, in his clumsy interaction with the media professes a big picture vision but then fails to deliver. Someone in his position I feel needs to be more qualified to deal with the media, taking the heat off the Head Coach to deliver on the training ground and pitch.  Smith maybe could have got a song out of the squad, but every time you have to defend yourself in public, it eats away at your self-confidence etc. Webber should have done more if he truly was a SD with leadership skills. I think he has hidden behind his wife in this regard and has "copped out".

Both could have delivered better if there had been real leadership within the Board Room. A proper Chair would have been able to mentor, make suggestions and improvements in how the executive's were delivering the strategy. The lack of such support, as I have said many times, is criminal.  

The countdown to Attanasio taking over has really started now. I'm sure the sacking of Smith will be another blow to the leadership energies of the majority shareholders - they really ought to face up to the new reality and the difficulties the club are now in and accede to a full takeover.

If Webber is to stay, I hope he starts having proper grown up conversations with Attanasio and faces up to his full responsibilities as Sporting Director. Zoe can move sideways and concentrate on the Carrow Road expansion project.

[BurwellCanary 216]

Thanks everyone on this post for constructung an intelligent, informative and considered article. It is such a nice change from some of the childish and vitriolic cr*p on this forum (not that I dont enjoy some of that also)

 

[canarybubbles 1,946]

4 hours ago, BurwellCanary said:

Thanks everyone on this post for constructung an intelligent, informative and considered article. It is such a nice change from some of the childish and vitriolic cr*p on this forum (not that I dont enjoy some of that also)

 

Yes, I felt a lot of it went over my head, but I agree entirely with your comment.

[Sheva 124]

Stuart Webber can stay for now but needs to realise he’s not bigger than the club, needs to reach out to the fans and really want to be in this great County.

He isn’t delivering, only he knows if he really wants to live and work in Norfolk and not treat it as some stepping stone club/ job. ATM he’s seriously heading downwards and needs to deliver in the next appointment, the last was a complete misfit, except that this is an unique part of the world, which he has never seemed come to terms with and ultimately might also not be a good fit.

 

 

[yellowrider120 790]

On 28/12/2022 at 19:26, Sheva said:

Stuart Webber can stay for now but needs to realise he’s not bigger than the club, needs to reach out to the fans and really want to be in this great County.

He isn’t delivering, only he knows if he really wants to live and work in Norfolk and not treat it as some stepping stone club/ job. ATM he’s seriously heading downwards and needs to deliver in the next appointment, the last was a complete misfit, except that this is an unique part of the world, which he has never seemed come to terms with and ultimately might also not be a good fit.

 

 

Good points. A very good albeit withering article on the Webber 'problem' namely his abject recruitment can be read here. Not sure about the comparison of our ability to score goals v those mentioned by Luton, Boro and Huddersfield but the rest is without argument surely? 

https://norwichcity.myfootballwriter.com/2022/12/30/smith-may-be-the-first-domino-to-fall-but-there-is-an-even-bigger-problem/

[yellowrider120 790]

Just watched those three goals again and I disagree with Mike Taylor's assertion that.............'they are beyond the technical ability of any NCFC player'. 

I'll give him the Huddersfield one - a fine individual effort. The Luton winner was typical Norwich limp defending which has been a feature of our play for years. Yes a decent finish but the guy should never have been allowed to get anywhere near shooting. The Boro equaliser was actually (if you watch it from behind the goal) a hopeful almost toe poked lob not helped by Gunn wandering way too far off his line! Perhaps the author didn't go to Hull to witness that sublime free kick from 'Nacho'? 

[Don J Demorr 162]

Thank you all for a stimulating and civilised discussion, which I have enjoyed no end. If you will forgive me I will develop some ideas.

The conversation has been spread over several threads but mostly this one, I think, so I’m taking it a bit further here rather than where they originated. The situation is now so scattered and the WP on here is pretty poor, so I hope you will allow me just to take some of the points that have interested me without the courtesy of attribution. I take them in no particular order.

       1) I’m told by you that football management is different so ordinary management tenets don’t apply. No it isn’t and yes they do. The principles I was taught to follow are:-

a.      The Owners set the purpose

b.     The Chairman sees to it that the purpose is always to the fore

c.      The MD sees to it that the Directors adhere to a coherent process of decision making so working as a team to achieve the corporate purpose

d.     The Directors each control a cohort of line managers or technical wizards to follow those decisions.

          2)This can only work effectively if:-

a.      Everybody knows clearly what the corporate purpose is

b.     Everybody knows how the structure works

c.      Everybody has a clearly defined responsibility

d.     Everybody has a clearly defined authority

e.     Everybody has adequate information

f.       Everybody has adequate resources

g.      Everybody understands the role of the others in the team

Boiled down to the bones that is really all I am advocating at this level. I doubt that you would succeed in convincing anybody in my field that this regime need not apply to any and all seriously established cooperative businesses.

From what I have read in this Forum and from the Club website NCFC does not operate in this way and that’s OK because foorball is different.

With respect to all, I know that exactly the same Corporate Management principles apply in any mature business. I entirely respect your freedom to disagree – but you would be wrong.

I think that if the Club is to achieve what you all want there must be change of some kind in the Management of the enterprise. The question therefore is what is to be done and by whom.

Either the people are changed or the system is, or both. Whatever change there is can only come from inside or outside the club. At risk of terminal tedium I will plough on. Please feel free to invoke any defence mechanism of your choice. Concurrence is not compulsory.

The first change was the demise of Dean Smith. Notwithstanding that, there are those who would also throw Stuart Webber overboard as well.

This is a bit like: -

“ Our ship is in deep trouble. To save her we’ll throw the useless bosun overboard. Wahey, lads! We won that one, now we storm the bridge and shoot the skipper, navigator and helmsman. That’ll fix everything”.

      This familiar situation is encapsulated in two stock phrases from the workbook:

      1) "The rush to action”

           2) Ready! …..Fire!............... Aim!

Experience  shows that there few employees are stupid, malign or negligent. More often than not, good people are banjaxed by a duff system of working. Chucking people out without changing the system usually means you’ll get the same problem but worse and sooner. I have sympathy for Stuart Webber because I have been under pressure in a poor system just as I think he might be. In response to the OP question, I don’t think he should resign.

I do think the management system needs to change, not necessarily only the people. The Attenasios will be well aware of this and will know what to do. Following the familiar Machiavellian insight there is little chance that change will naturally come from an initiative by the incumbent Directors.

If the Attanasios are a “No-show” I think the ship will probably drift nearer to shoals and sandbanks regardless of crew changes.

If and when they do appear, I’m pretty sure they will already have figured out what the best options are.

For the sake of all connected with NCFC I hope 2023 bring an early resolution to your problems, one way or another..

Best to all

Don

Edited December 31, 2022 by Don J Demorr
Font size changed by the WP software

[shefcanary 2,465]

Agree with all that @Don J Demorr. Let's see what the Attanasio's do about it. HNY to all.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,597]

On 31/12/2022 at 21:11, Don J Demorr said:

Thank you all for a stimulating and civilised discussion, which I have enjoyed no end. If you will forgive me I will develop some ideas.

The conversation has been spread over several threads but mostly this one, I think, so I’m taking it a bit further here rather than where they originated. The situation is now so scattered and the WP on here is pretty poor, so I hope you will allow me just to take some of the points that have interested me without the courtesy of attribution. I take them in no particular order.

       1) I’m told by you that football management is different so ordinary management tenets don’t apply. No it isn’t and yes they do. The principles I was taught to follow are:-

a.      The Owners set the purpose

b.     The Chairman sees to it that the purpose is always to the fore

c.      The MD sees to it that the Directors adhere to a coherent process of decision making so working as a team to achieve the corporate purpose

d.     The Directors each control a cohort of line managers or technical wizards to follow those decisions.

          2)This can only work effectively if:-

a.      Everybody knows clearly what the corporate purpose is

b.     Everybody knows how the structure works

c.      Everybody has a clearly defined responsibility

d.     Everybody has a clearly defined authority

e.     Everybody has adequate information

f.       Everybody has adequate resources

g.      Everybody understands the role of the others in the team

Boiled down to the bones that is really all I am advocating at this level. I doubt that you would succeed in convincing anybody in my field that this regime need not apply to any and all seriously established cooperative businesses.

From what I have read in this Forum and from the Club website NCFC does not operate in this way and that’s OK because foorball is different.

With respect to all, I know that exactly the same Corporate Management principles apply in any mature business. I entirely respect your freedom to disagree – but you would be wrong.

I think that if the Club is to achieve what you all want there must be change of some kind in the Management of the enterprise. The question therefore is what is to be done and by whom.

Either the people are changed or the system is, or both. Whatever change there is can only come from inside or outside the club. At risk of terminal tedium I will plough on. Please feel free to invoke any defence mechanism of your choice. Concurrence is not compulsory.

The first change was the demise of Dean Smith. Notwithstanding that, there are those who would also throw Stuart Webber overboard as well.

This is a bit like: -

“ Our ship is in deep trouble. To save her we’ll throw the useless bosun overboard. Wahey, lads! We won that one, now we storm the bridge and shoot the skipper, navigator and helmsman. That’ll fix everything”.

      This familiar situation is encapsulated in two stock phrases from the workbook:

      1) "The rush to action”

           2) Ready! …..Fire!............... Aim!

Experience  shows that there few employees are stupid, malign or negligent. More often than not, good people are banjaxed by a duff system of working. Chucking people out without changing the system usually means you’ll get the same problem but worse and sooner. I have sympathy for Stuart Webber because I have been under pressure in a poor system just as I think he might be. In response to the OP question, I don’t think he should resign.

I do think the management system needs to change, not necessarily only the people. The Attenasios will be well aware of this and will know what to do. Following the familiar Machiavellian insight there is little chance that change will naturally come from an initiative by the incumbent Directors.

If the Attanasios are a “No-show” I think the ship will probably drift nearer to shoals and sandbanks regardless of crew changes.

If and when they do appear, I’m pretty sure they will already have figured out what the best options are.

For the sake of all connected with NCFC I hope 2023 bring an early resolution to your problems, one way or another..

Best to all

Don

This is an absolutely cracking post. As it does draw from many threads, it might be worth reposting as an OP for discussion of all the thoughts in there in its own right.

[Don J Demorr 162]

2 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

This is an absolutely cracking post. As it does draw from many threads, it might be worth reposting as an OP for discussion of all the thoughts in there in its own right.

        "Thank you for your support - I shall always wear it."

                                         (Terence Alan Milligan, KBE)

....and thanks also lyb for the opportunity to quote the great man.

Edited January 2, 2023 by Don J Demorr

[PurpleCanary 5,585]

1 hour ago, Don J Demorr said:

        "Thank you for your support - I shall always wear it."

                                         (Terence Alan Milligan, KBE)

....and thanks also lyb for the opportunity to quote the great man.

Don, internet troubles so I cannot do long posts, but just to make one point clear, in case it isn’t. Football is definitely different, but I certainly don’t believe that means clubs cannot obey the kind of general business practices you are talking about. Even if the differences can make them harder to follow.

[Captain Holt 522]

First time we've heard clear Webber out chants. I think there's a cat in hell's chance he's here next season and that probably suits both parties.