What Went Wrong at Chelsea (Part 3)
Why did Chelsea football club go from runaway English Premier League champions to relegation candidates within 16 games in 2015?
It was an extraordinary collapse that no one foresaw. In 2014-15, Chelsea won the English championship by eight points having lost just 3 games over a 38-game season. But 16 games into the 2015-16 season Chelsea were only one point above the relegation zone, having already lost 9 games. Experienced commentators said they’d never seen anything like it before in professional football. So what happened? This three-part post explores the possible system story behind the club’s on-field collapse which led to Jose Mourinho’s sacking … and what leaders can learn from it.
On Monday I posted part 1, defining what I mean by a system and a system story. Yesterday, in part 2, I posted the Chelsea story. Today, in the final part we’ll analyse the story to see what leaders can learn from it.
Seeing the System Story’s Components
If we stand back from the story and classify its components under these headings – Jose Mourinho, Board and Backroom staff, Players and Context – we see the following picture:
Looking at the four-square matrix we can see the system story’s complexity. By my analysis it had 27 components, 9 of which were external context-driven (although one of them, their continued losses, was partly in Chelsea’s hands).
So What Can We Learn?
I’d suggest there are seven insights we can take from the story and this four-box analysis:
That Jose Mourinho wasn’t the problem … nor was is it the players or pre-season training alone. Or that everything stemmed from the Eva Carneiro episode (we know that’s not true because pre-season results were already poor before the blowup in the Swansea game). Instead, every part of the Chelsea set up – the manager, the board, backroom staff and the players – played an important role in this crisis. This was a multi-issue story. So in complex crises, although it’s tempting, it’s useless looking for scapegoats. Instead, everyone has to combine to solve the problem.
The story’s many parts combined to create what’s known as a reinforcing loop . A “reinforcing loop” is where an action causes results that drive more of the same or similar actions, resulting in either growth or improvement or progress or instead decline, deterioration or crisis. The decisions at Chelsea – and responses to those decisions – magnified and quickened the crisis in one direction until it passed the point of no return, delivering a result no one wanted at the beginning.
Just as important, the story had no balancing loops . “Balancing loops” try to restore the old state though certain actions. So, for example, the thermostat in your house has a balancing loop that stops the reinforcing loop taking the water temperature too high. Once the system passes the temperature you set, the balancing loop kicks in to reduce the room’s heat to where you want it. Thus, balancing loops steer a return to a previous state. But in the Chelsea story we saw no balancing loops to direct them away from crisis.
Jose Mourinho suffered from a problem that many successful leaders experience. To his surprise, he found that what had served him well before – detailed preparation and briefings, close control, siege mentality, directing aggression towards outsiders, blaming others – began to backfire because of the reinforcing loop patterns in the other three quadrants: Board & Backroom Staff, Players and Context. So what? It’s important that leaders learn to change their thinking and behaviour at will, especially under pressure. In this way they can choose their reactions to events rather than trap themselves in old unhelpful patterns. But that’s easier said than done when you’re feeling stressed. The solution? The practice of self-mastery, which I describe in detail in my book, The Three Levels of Leadership.
Those who stand behind the leader – like board members – must make sure they aren’t making the problem worse by their own complacency or failure to help the leader (whether that’s by providing resources or giving emotional support or setting unrealistic goals).
“Followers” must recognise that they share the leadership process for good or ill because “leadership” and “the leader” aren’t synonymous (as I explain in chapter 1 of The Three Levels of Leadership). This means occasional self and group reflection on what they’re doing and the results they’re getting will help. Why? Because they may realise they’re part of the problem instead of blaming others, especially the leader or the board, take responsibility and do something different.
Finally, every system story takes place within a context – you can’t avoid that – but the key for the actors in the story (leader, commissioners and followers) is to stand back at times and see the story as a whole rather than be blinded by its individual elements. In this way they’ll give themselves a chance of creating a helpful balancing loop of sufficient power to avoid the crisis. However, this intellectual truth will count for nothing if – when they are mired in the crisis and feeling the pressure – the actors don’t remember it and find a way of seeing the big picture. The key? Again it’s self-mastery. Only by practising self-mastery can we take control under pressure over how we interpret the context – the events we’re experiencing – and thus control our emotional reactions enough to give us the space to think and choose our behavioural responses. Only in this way can we keep a sense of humour and perspective and stay resilient, ingenious and wise … and avoid results no one wanted at the start.
The author is James Scouller, an executive coach. His book, The Three Levels of Leadership: How to Develop Your Leadership Presence, Knowhow and Skill, was published in May 2011. You can learn more about it at www.three-levels-of-leadership.com. If you want to see its reviews, click here: leadership book reviews. If you want to know where to buy it, click HERE. You can read more about his executive coaching services at The Scouller Partnership’s website.
