10 ways to ensure a successful start to a new Sporting / Technical Director role
In a previous Football Management article, I listed ways in which you can establish yourself in the sports industry and become attractive to potential employers. Assuming that your job search is now complete and you have successfully navigated the recruitment process, what should you do first in your new role?
Whilst this question is not unique to new sporting roles, given the often transient nature of the industry, being intentional and paying extra special attention to the onboarding and initiation process of your new football club could be the difference between a short and sweet tenure, or one with genuine long-term impact.
To help Technical Directors, Sporting Directors, Directors of Coaching, or anyone else interested in laying a solid foundation for success in a new role, please see my ‘10 ways to ensure a successful start in a new Sporting / Technical Director role’.
(Note: These are in no particular order of impact or importance and should all be addressed in relation to each other.)
- Introduce yourself to everyone in the organisation and get to know those outside of your immediate circle, including board members and the other decision-makers within the club. While you may primarily work with the coaching staff, many others will also exist in your realm of responsibility. This may include administrators, support services, medical, analysis, and so on. First impressions count, so this is a critical step to get your team onside from day one.
- Understand all policies and processes within the club. Pay attention at the induction! This will avoid confusion later and help to ensure that you navigate processes professionally when dealing with staff and resources at your disposal.
- Listen and understand company cultures, rituals and traditions. Avoid the temptation to change everything on day one and take the time to first listen and learn. Take the composition of the coaching staff for example, or the Coaching Methodology or Teaching Philosophy. Rarely is it a smart tactic in a football club to overhaul a club's foundations immediately. Respect the club and its team enough to first understand how and why it came to be so in the first place. There are in-depth resources on Organisation Culture such as the following from Sport New Zealand. https://sportnz.org.nz/resources/organisational-culture/
- Be Curious. Ask questions. This will demonstrate your genuine interest in the club's people and the organisation as a whole. It will also create dialogue and open up conversations that enable you to uncover information, opinions or perspectives relevant to your role.
- Set out a clear plan of action. First establish your philosophical perspective, followed by your strategic approach, and then look at operational opportunities. Any good club should have most of this already in place, however, in the likely event that they don’t, it will be up to the Technical Director to craft and apply these pillars so that they may be used as a continual reference for review and reflection. This will set out clear goals and the steps needed from you and the staff to achieve them. There are many resources available to help you do determine these for your club, including from Geoff Wilson via Football Business Inside: https://footballbusinessinside.com/building-your-strategic-plan
An excellent example of a club-wide Football Strategy, which the Sporting / Technical Director would be part of creating as well as implementing, was published in 2021 by Lewes Football Club, led by Chief Executive Officer Maggie Murphy.
6. Be active. Ensure you are seen. I don’t want to indicate that you have to do 80-hour weeks in order to gain respect and visibility, but it is important to be seen in the places that matter most. Commit to meetings, to seeing coaches in their environment, to going to as many games as possible. Whilst I don’t believe that this will be an indicator of your competency, it may help you to develop relationships with wider stakeholders and build your credibility.
7. Establish communication channels for your managers and staff. People generally don’t like ambiguity and want clear expectations on how best to communicate. Define reporting lines and an effective update process and provide this to your team early on so that their expectations are set and nothing gets lost in the chain. When things move quickly as they always do in football, simple miscommunications can have significant consequences. It is well-known that communication is the key to success, with Athlete Assessments reviewing this important topic in more detail: https://www.athleteassessments.com/importance-of-communication-in-sports/
8. Relationships matter — build alliances. Quickly develop and maintain working relationships with key people around the club. This will help establish your credibility, inform your decision making and help to build trusted advocacy for you and your work. These relationships should reach across departments, at various levels of seniority, and engage a variety of different people so that you can solicit a diverse range of opinions and support.
9. Keep a running list of observations and pay attention to your surroundings. It is good practice to maintain a log of key observations, which could be related to processes, people and new ideas. This will allow you to track and monitor your progress and develop any improvements that you can propose to the club.
10. Strike a balance between observation and taking action. While you have been hired to deliver results, it is equally important to observe and reflect on what is happening around you, particularly in the early days. You should aim to make progress while ensuring that you have enough evidence to support your decisions. Remember that you have a period of grace to settle into the role, but ultimately you will be judged on your ability to make an impact. Therefore, it is essential to work on implementing new project ideas that are justified, informed and endorsed by your team leaders and key advocates around the club.
“Effective leaders strike the right balance between doing (making things happen) and being (observing and reflecting)”. Michael D. Watkins in “The First 90 Days”
Establishing yourself in a new role in sport is crucial for not only your personal success but also for the success of the team and the overall growth of the club. All of the above should be taken into consideration when starting and whilst these can be very challenging, they will help you settle into the new role, become familiar with your environment and achieve success on and off the field with colleagues. Good luck!
For another linked article on the roles and responsibilities of a Technical Director, in the short, medium and long term, check it out here https://medium.com/@stevenleedillon/10-key-responsibilities-of-a-club-technical-director-91e199b59e88
For many other Football Management articles, follow me on Twitter @stevendillon
