From football to aged care; how to create a high performance culture
You would think leading a football club or aged care organisation doesn’t have a lot in common.
CEO of Collingwood Football Club Gary Pert at the Aged Care Leaders Symposium in Melbourne last week.
Gary Pert, CEO of Collingwood Football Club, drew some interesting parallels between the two at the Aged Care Leaders Symposium in Melbourne last week.
According to Mr Pert, achieving high performance through competition and collaboration applies not just to football clubs but to all kinds of different organisations including aged care. It all comes down to leadership and vision he says.
Mr Pert shared some of the strategies used to turn Collingwood Football Club into the most supported club in the AFL.
He says that you have to be committed to create a new high performance culture and to the outcome you’ve envisioned.
“Being a good or average organisation is the opposite of being a high performance organisation. You can’t become a high performance organisation by doing slightly better,” Mr Pert says. “You have to revise your thinking.”
When Gary Pert joined Collingwood as CEO the club was in decline and membership numbers were down. By implementing vision, purpose, mission and values, Mr Pert has led the club through a period of considerable prosperity on and off the field, including two premierships and a record number of 80,000 members, more than any other AFL club.
At the Aged Care Leaders Symposium Mr Pert spoke about the importance of being connected with your ‘members’, and knowing who your stakeholders are. Those that you build your organisational goals and strategic priorities around, in an effort to meet their needs. Know your partners and opposition and set unrealistic unachievable goals as a target.
“Average organisations and average leaders set achievable goals. Set unachievable goals to force innovation and become a high performance culture. Be ambitious.”
He says leaders shouldn’t be afraid to make hard decisions. “In average organisations, staff are not a stakeholder. You never let anyone go, everyone is comfortable,” he says.
“High performance organisations don’t continue the journey with people that don’t fit and don’t step up,” Mr Pert continues.
“A high performance culture is about leadership; not product, price, competition or luck,” he says. “Change and adapt to get where you want to be.”
