by Unless you’re a sociopath, it should always be difficult to fire someone. It’s even harder if you enjoy working with those people and have had success with them. Companies go through constant evolution and the people you need in your business will and should change at every stage. A startup team is often different from the ones you need in a pivot or as you scale. They are all definitely different from large companies that optimize for efficiency instead of growth. This applies even more to the people who lead.
Since May 2021 we have been involved in a turnaround at Grimsby Town FC. Becoming custodians of the newly relegated club, we committed to a process of continuous improvement and identified that the club needed to stabilize through an improved playing team, a modernized culture and the updating of vital infrastructure. We gave ourselves three years and, until recently, we have stuck to the plan, winning promotion from the National League, reaching our highest League Two position for 17 years and reaching the quarter-finals of the FA Cup for the first time since 1939 .
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We are now in the process of drafting a new five-year plan. One of the cornerstones is “evidence-based thinking.” We consider it absolutely vital to be deliberate about where we are going rather than reacting to emotional overloads caused by individual games or events. In a sport based on opinions and emotions, evidence and a plan seem more important than ever.
What this does not mean is abstract, emotionless decision-making seen through the lens of a spreadsheet, deadpan robotic calculation devoid of intuition or feeling. It is a commitment to having as much objective input as possible, an attempt to balance long-term objectives with short-term realities. In any game of chance it is advisable to increase the probability of success with analysis and information. It is clear that football is both an art and a science.
Data and analysis can show when performance is not as bad as a league position suggests. In Chris Anderson and David Sally’s book, The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Soccer Is Wrong, they suggested that Jürgen Klopp’s final season at Borussia Dortmund was not as bad as it seemed. Although disappointing in terms of league position, further analysis suggested that the team’s performance was not as poor as it seemed. They were underperforming based on the quality of opportunities they were creating and conceding. This type of analysis would have been influential for a club like Liverpool in making the decision to sign Klopp, looking beyond the superficial results and considering the underlying performance data.
It can also work the other way around. The limitations of data and the search for evidence are most eloquently described in the Polanyi paradox, named after the Hungarian-British scholar Michael Polanyi, of whom the phrase: “We know more than we can say” is quoted. . This statement reflects the idea that much of our knowledge is tacit, meaning that it cannot always be explicitly communicated or easily transferred to others. Football is a good example: it is the combined effect of so many variables that means that every year there are highly improbable results that defy explanation, a version of Grimsby beating Premier League side Southampton in the FA Cup last year. Data only gets you so far in a game where the “better team” wins on average only 63% of the time.
In this dialogue between the head and the heart, it is sometimes necessary to act to try to change your own luck. Parting ways with our manager Paul Hurst and our assistant Chris Doig in October was a great moment. We had signed 12 players at the beginning of the summer, we had a good pre-season and, on paper, we had one of the most difficult starts to the league in terms of games, but we played well in those first four games. However, looking at the points per game (PPG) count over the next nine games, we were outside of where we thought we should have been and our form was mathematically the worst in the league.
We made the decision that in the next five games something had to change, both in the data and, more subjectively, in what we were experiencing watching the games. Unfortunately, we are still on the same straight path that led us to defeat at Doncaster on Saturday 28th October. We lost and we were ready to make the change. We had planned what we needed to do and say in case this game was lost. It was important that we acted in good faith and did not react to the first bad game, as some fans wrongly assumed, but rather stayed calm and executed against an agreed plan.
There can’t be many professions as strange as that of football coach. A kind of pantomime villain, loved and hated from one decision to the next. Your destiny is completely in the hands of 11 other people, and you know from the beginning of your employment that the most likely outcome is that you will one day be fired.
Most fans don’t show enough compassion or empathy when they yell at managers to lose their jobs. Most seem oblivious to the fact that what is at stake is someone’s livelihood and vocation, that someone has to come home to tell their children that they have lost their job the same day it happens. Managers have to think carefully and for as long as possible to make the situation work, looking for evidence of a change. Ultimately, their obligation is to the long-term success of a club and sometimes that means change.
As we deliberated, there were numerous moments in that month when events could have unfolded very differently. Driving to the game against Doncaster was a surreal experience knowing that there were three possible outcomes and futures that would have repercussions and change people’s lives and the history of the club. Only three people knew that was the case. Driving home afterwards felt even stranger, like a breakup with a loved one but with my phone already ringing, as potential new dates heard the news and suggested themselves or their clients for the newly open position.
Jason Stockwood He is the president of Grimsby Town.
