The Brett Stewart affair, by any measure, was a disaster for a heck of a lot of people. It was almost as big a crisis as you could imagine for a sports team.
A key, high profile, well regarded player charged with sexual assault. Bad enough, you might think. But that was only the beginning.
The point about crises is that, ugly as they may appear at first, if not managed effectively they quickly get worse: creating more damage; wrecking reputations; costing lots of money; and taking a long time to get over.
Why? Because there are many volatile issues that, if they are not properly and quickly resolved, or not resolved at all, will continue to take great chunks out of the organisation's credibility and the repute of everyone associated with it.
In the Stewart Affair, the casus belli, guilt or innocence aside, was that international rugby league player Brett Stewart of the Manly Sea Eagles did something dumb.
But that was only the beginning.
What emerged was bigger and uglier; a dagger aimed straight to the heart of the governance, management and reputation of the Manly club.
Here's an issues management analysis of the situation facing the Sea Eagles �13; and advice on how they might have extricated themselves from the morass.
There were six major action areas in which urgent action was required to stabilise the environment of public controversy in which the club was operating: issues management; decision-making; stakeholder communication; leadership; club discipline and the rather imprecise notion of the circuit breaker.
These measures are, to a large extent, mutually interdependent, but each needed to be worked on in its own right.
ISSUES
There were a lot of them - we counted fifteen discrete issues flowing from the one incident - and they all needed to be brought under control. The club needed to identify and understand the dynamics of each key issues and the subsidiary issues nesting within them. To the extent they could be, the main issues needed to be separated and disentangled. Then a process of risk analysis would enable the best pathway for each to be planned and each issue managed accordingly.
We would want to avoid cross contamination between issues wherever practicable, e.g., the Stewart incident became linked to the issue of club governance and embroiled the board in a matter that would have been better contained at management level.
DECISION MAKING
It seemed to us that key decisions made by the club�19;s board were aligned with its immediate aspirations rather than a realistic appraisal of where the decision might lead, and, once made, decisions were almost invariably and rapidly overwhelmed by events.
This was a clear indication that decisions made did not take sufficiently into account all their possible impacts, as differentiated from desired outcomes that seemed best for the club in the immediate term. To achieve a condition in which decisions will stick, all stakeholders must be in view and their motives and objectives clearly understood before decisions affecting them are made. (Most decisions will affect stakeholders, sometimes critically.)
Decisions that take into account environmental factors (especially impacts on key stakeholders) are always better decisions. There are some stakeholders who exercise just as much influence on the future of the club as its board. The interests of these stakeholders must always be a matter of serious consideration and taken into account in decision-making.
Some of the key stakeholders in this case included players, fans, sponsors, NRL, media, the alleged victim and her family, police, Federal and State politicians (who were being asked to provide funding for the club's facilities), the local community (especially Warringah Council), and supporters' groups.
COMMUNICATION
Club communication was irregular, inconsistent and emanated from many sources. During periods of crisis for organisations, communication must be regular, consistent, candid, complete and desirably come from one senior authoritative person. Furthermore, stakeholders need to be communicated with constantly.
LEADERSHIP
Like a continuing flow of reliable reassuring communication, at times of crisis or uncertainty leadership must be constantly visible. The club needed a strong voice - a high profile person to interpret, explain and reassure; a person who is persistent and persuasive.
DISCIPLINE
Disunity and a failure to put the club above personal enmities and interests mixed with leaks and rumour mongering haas been highly damaging to the club. This was primarily a management issue, but the relentless repetition of the messages that the club must come first and disunity is death would have helped, especially from the club leadership and its past heroes.
Leaks sanctioned at high level in the club, which can be controlled, needed to stop. Leaks and selective briefings may secure some immediate impact in a fraught situation, but will have the longer term effect of contaminating and even demolishing reputations on all sides of the argument.
THE CIRCUIT BREAKER
Crises tend to resolve themselves destructively, that's why they need to be managed and brought quickly under control. Experience shows that a circuit breaker is a useful means of providing the platform for resolving a crisis provided it is proportionate to the scale of the crisis.
Often a circuit breaker is a fresh face at or near the top of the organisation. It is arguable that this is what the Sea Eagles required - an act so dramatic to provide an opportunity to make the nearest thing to a fresh start.