Where was the ‘integrity unit’ when this wardrobe decision was made?
The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.
–Dwight Eisenhower
A full-time member of the integrity unit will be added this week, while two-part-time employees will become full-time.
–‘AFL announces boost to integrity unit’ afl.com.au 20 February 2013
PERHAPS THE KINDEST thing I can say about the AFL administration is that they are sincere in their delusions.
Integrity is not something you can in-source to a few desks away from the windows on the third floor1, it is something, as this article from the Washington Post points out, fundamental to leadership.
Now, the AFL establishing an integrity unit is not the worst crime in the world — they didn’t burn down an orphanage (the AFL, not the integrity unit — although to the best of my knowledge the integrity unit has not burnt down an orphanage either) — but it does speak to an organisation that may have more than one issue in terms of culture.
If you’re keeping score at home: Point One – if you need a separate department to ratify the integrity of a decision/policy, then chances are you don’t have an all-encompassing grasp on the term to begin with; Point Two — you would be within your rights to assume that anything in the job description for the employees within the integrity unit should already apply across the rest of the organisation; Point Three — it has taken nearly ten years for this administration to recognise the significance of integrity!?
Perhaps it was lost among the zeroes of the broadcast deal signed in 2011. Although I, through the agency of Forbes magazine, would remind Mr Demetriou (pictured above with Colonel Mustard) that success will come and go, but integrity is forever.
It is also worth pointing out, from no lesser source than the Harvard Business Review, mind you, that integrity is never easy — and I would suspect it’s a complex issue not solved by the AFL’s HR Department.
But Andrew Demetriou can draw comfort in that he is not the only sporting administrator to keep meeting the dog he kicked yesterday2.
First up horse racing — mentioned here because it long ago put integrity on the Weber and doused it in petrol (not unlike what they did in the UK, although it was the actual horse they put on the Weber… and they didn’t douse it with petrol as it was intended to be sold as ‘beef’). In this comment piece Fairfax’s Michael Lynch again implores “integrity is the key issue for the sport”. I’d like some odds on the message getting through this time — from Tom Waterhouse if possible3.
Two regular punters, both seemingly unaware of the integrity issues that plague the sport
And then there’s those little shitrags on Stillnox members of Australia’s 4x100m relay team, who last week were the poster boys for two less-than-flattering reviews of the culture of the Olympic swim team — one of which can be found here.
Australian head swim coach Leigh Nugent is one whose role has come under heavy questioning — although his honour was soon restored after he was vigorously defended by Nick D’Arcy. Wait… what?!
1.To be honest, I have no idea where the AFL’s integrity unit is housed and they may well have window views of the Docklands (sub note: It has only just occurred to me how emblematic a move it was for the AFL to up roots and move to the soulless Docklands)
2. I may have lost control of the metaphor here — the ‘dog’ is ‘integrity’; kicking it means treating it with little regard; meeting it means having to deal with it and, well… you get the idea.
3. That Tom Waterhouse pretentiously claims he has generations of racing in his blood and conveniently forget to mention that both his father and grandfather were booted off just about every racecourse in the country, suggests the sport may still have some way to go in taking integrity seriously. Actually, anything Tom Waterhouse puts his name to demands not being taken seriously.
About Craig Little
My heroes are all dead white males, mostly because that seems really attainable for me.
Colonel Mustard …@$%*^g funny
GM = A Grade flog.
Just on the issue of AFL integrity, to me there’s something amiss where creative accounting is ratified in a backroom pow wow, and a significant sum of money (to the level of which no other player is afforded outside the salary cap) all of a sudden becomes an ‘injury payment’. But then again I guess the said player’s feelings were hurt, and he was probably down to his last $20m.
Were they at the polo?
Disturbingly little use of the word ‘cock-donkey’ when seemingly appropriate in three instances. 1) the photo, 2) the integrity unit in general, and 3) the Australian men’s swimmers.
You should have passed this through your own integrity unit before publication.
Just cannot stop looking at that photo of “Gill”… forced pose,
scally cap a size too small, mustard-coloured outfit.
He will soon be in charge of the whole shooting match.
Gus
I’d like to think ‘cock-donkey’ was implied throughout the piece – that mustard jacket and cap just screams it.
I thought ‘shitrags’ was an able substitute in references to those idiots in the pool.
Vlad looks like Jubba The Hut
sorry “Hutt”
If Gill is heir to the throne, the empire is stuffed. He is so far removed from real footy people he could be in another country. He looks like an extra in ‘To the Manor Born’ or ‘Midsomer Murder’.
Litza,
Thought you might also bring our attention to Essendon’s integrity and the independent review – nothing like getting in yet another St Bernard’s boy to do a critical appraisal of the hombres.
Crio, I’ll be coming off the long run when that’s released, if for no other reason than I f*@#ing hate Essendon!
That aside, I suspect the a well-worn truism in politics that you don’t commission a report unless you know what it’s going to say is at play here.
Let me get this straight: the Bombers are paying some bloke to come into the club and tell them what not to do?
Some clubs have too much money. And too few people with brains.
Why do they need to pay someone to tell them what they’re doing wrong? Don’t they know by now?
Fair go you blokes. Criticise Batman and Robin for their actions (or inactions). But dress sense and physical appearance.
If they were a little worse dressed they would fit right in at an Almanackers function.
Crio
Is that the same St Bernard’s old boy who shared a board position at Spotless Group and Healthscope with the father of the Essendon Chairman?
It is certainly the same bloke who (fortunately) failed to sell nuclear energy to the Australian people. Ziggy Stardust was a dubious boss of Telstra who was made to look good by comparison with Sol “The Carpetbagger” Trujillo who replaced him. I suspect Ziggy’s brief at Essendon is to whitewash Evans and Hird.
Good work Sherlock Nadel!
Ziggy is a nuclear physicist by training (no joke). Seeing the Bombers get flat batteries running on high octane fuel, maybe he could get them onto nuclear power.
I’ll dig out my “No Nukes” banners from the 80′s.
They could be renamed the “Atomic Bombers” or the “Enola Gays”.
As an aside to the general thrust of your piece Mr People’s Elbow, I have been troubled for a long, long time about the term ‘integrity’ itself. The AFL use of it (as hamfisted as they are using it) just adds to my doubt about it’s value in today’s culturally pluralistic and interconnected global society. The phrase feels like it screams: I am a solid, inarguable descriptor of what is good and decent. It carries an unbearable weight of responsibility.
I first began to question it’s value and wonder whether it was more mythical than tangible when artist like Springsteen were given the tag and in doing so they were somehow excluded from deeper critical questioning. I’m a huge Springsteen fan and I believe he is a decent person doing some great work. By tagging him and his art as bearers of integrity limited the more intense critical examination of his work relative to the times that it requires.
And so to the AFL and its Integrity Unit. Well, if I have trouble with the simplistic labeling of Springsteen you can imagine how my skin crawls considering robber barrons of our times appropriating this vexed, term, expecting one and all to interpret it solely on a denotative level and in a leaden way. The term itself needs to be understood through post modern lens, not left to stand as a stature to some singular truth that never was.
The AFL ‘Integrity Office’ reminds me of George Costanza with the Penske file. Or somewhat like George Costanza, Assistant to the Travelling Secretary of the NY Yankees, getting a cabinet maker to do you up a bunk under your desk. Or half of Canberra.