Decision-making the elite way

Editor

With England's World Cup heroics fast becoming a distant memory, the knives are being sharpened once again, and our man Hildy Johnson reckons he knows exactly where the first cut needs to be made…

With England's World Cup heroics fast becoming a distant memory, the knives are being sharpened once again, and our man Hildy Johnson reckons he knows exactly where the first cut needs to be made…

The Sun newspaper recently featured the 50 worst decisions of all time. At number one was our old friend “honest Gerald Ratner”, a man who collapsed an entire retail empire with one decision and one comment.

Other equally imprudent initiatives were printed for our amusement – from Hoover's misguided Air Miles promotion that created a financial vacuum of £48m all the way down to the Royal Family displaying their dysfunctionality on It's a Royal Knockout.

These days, on the rugby pitch, we hear a lot about decision-making from 1 to 15 and the need take responsibility. Even the modest tighthead is regarded as a man to lead tactical optioning at scrum time (Bite an ear? Butt the hooker?) and performances are monitored and measured via every method available to the management.

Equally, modern business is now littered with buzzwords to measure success – KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), empowerment, decision cascades, objectivising and so on.

It would be obvious to even the most reasonable of men on the Clapham Omnibus that the greater the level of decision you are empowered to make then logically the greater your remuneration is.

An example: let's take the role of the RFU's Director of Elite Rugby, a post that offers a basic salary of £400,000 per annum. (Yes, you read correctly, £400,000- that's £1,785 per day. That's $800,000, over 12 times the average national wage, the cost of a five-bedroom house in Reading, almost double the average gate of a Guinness Premiership game and the cost of a second-hand Ferrari Enzo). Oh, and don't forget the substantial fringe benefits.

You would be forgiven for thinking that this role must come with some form of measurable job description. You would be forgiven for thinking that this role has some sort of KPI or answerability to the rugby-watching public. In point of fact, you would be forgiven for thinking that the incumbent actually did anything, because as of yet, Rob Andrew's positive contribution to his paymasters is so insignificant as to defy belief.

Let's examine the evidence. Faced with the option of renewing or firing Brian Ashton, Andrew spent his time meticulously interviewing every player involved with the RWC. He held more workshops than British Leyland and made more consultations than a junior doctor.

In the meantime he considered the options. Down in High Wycombe, players of the gravitas of Lawrence Dallaglio and Josh Lewsey went on record as saying that Shaun Edwards was the best defensive and tactical coach they'd ever worked with.

Over at Bristol, Richard Hill worked daily miracles with the barest minimum of talent and resource, and elsewhere, the two Deans, Ryan and Richards, were held in great esteem by players, coaches and fans alike.

In business, the route to 'closure' would have been simple and obvious. Shareholders and Executive Boards would not have thought twice about making a tough decision for the benefit of the wider agenda. The outcome would have been brutal, and Ford, Wells and Ashton would have been left to fire out their CVs whilst the business would have been placed in the hands of those most suited to bringing success.

What did Andrew do? He failed to make any form of meaningful decision. He failed to grasp the nettle and do what was needed to be done, leaving the management team on a rolling contract that effectively prevents them taking any formal tactical or selectorial risk for the fear of being fired.

In the meantime, he played the masterstroke of offering Edwards a role that so palpably held the hidden agenda of restraining him from coaching other international sides that the Wigan man felt insulted enough to set upon plotting England's immediate demise with Wales.

On the Sun's scale of Disastrous Decisions this ranks right up there. At least Ratner can claim he made his remark on the spur of the moment and Hoover can argue that they gained some marginal publicity for their £48m outlay.

England need the best. They have no excuse; they have the best structure, the most money and the greatest playing numbers in world rugby. When failure is not an option, masterly inactivity by its leaders will not deliver success. English rugby needs vision and foresight and quite frankly its Elite Director is refusing to use either his contact lenses or his glasses.

Let's be honest, Rob Andrew has made a career of doing nothing, saying the right thing and just about holding onto his job. He spins it well and that is it. When forced to deliver, his cupboard is normally pretty bare and his options ill-considered. At Newcastle, as the highest-paid Director of Rugby in the Premiership, he delivered one trophy in nine years. His side regularly dangled around the relegation zone yet still he personally talked a good enough game to hold onto his job.

In rugby terms he's talked a lot and delivered nothing, and if he were measured by normal board room standards he'd be out of a job.

In short, his appointment and continued employment is farcical and untenable. He is responsible, by definition, for making English rugby 'elite'. He has not done so nor has he shown himself man to have the right credentials and steely determination to be able to do so. His continued employment is an insult to every paying fan in the country and as long as he continues to abdicate the very job title bestowed upon him, England rugby will never be elite again.

Nice one, Rob. £400,000? That'll do me nicely, thank you, as long as I don't have to do anything.

Forever squeaky clean, continually the grey man.

Your thoughts on the matter, please!