The Sports Psychology Blog
This Sports Psychology blog comes as Gillingham boss Mark Stimson lifts the lid on the problems facing him as manager of Gillingham.
Football: Mark Stimson - Change!
''Three or four players are just bringing the tone down and holding the club back. I don't go to church, but I've started praying just to get to the summer and I'll have a massive clear-out." The words of Gillingham boss, Mark Stimson, as he reveals the problems facing him at The Priestfield. Stimson then went on to reveal that some players were failing to turn up for training.
Stimson is experiencing the kind of dilemma that proved the undoing of Ian Dowie at Charlton Athletic and Sammy Lee at Bolton Wanderers. Which is what happens when a new manager comes in and wants to make changes. Needs to make changes. But, changes that appear to alienate some of the senior players. The influencers.
Now, in a good team environment, where team-spirit and morale is positive, senior players will bring other players into line, if they step over the mark. If they threaten to bring the team-spirit down.
But what do you do as manager, when it's those very players, the ones who carry authority in the dressing-room, who break the rules? Who challenge your authority? The danger being that these senior players will have the ear of the majority of the squad.
It's not long before negativity runs through the squad like a virus. Usually, at this point, you will hear that the manager has lost the dressing-room.
The best solution, (Fast Change), is for the manager to empower the younger players. The ones who are still hungry to succeed. Whose arteries have not become hardened by cynicism. Empower them in such a way that they raise their game to new levels. Create momentum from below.
Then, hopefully, other players will pick up on their energy, enthusiasm and desire to succeed. Not all, but some. Maybe enough to make a difference. The manager has to then hope, that the recalcitrant senior players will become embarrassed at their indifference and change their attitude.
Mark Stimson is praying to get through to the summer, because he suspects that those players, who failed to turn up for training, won't change. They may even want to see him fail.
It is a classic dilemma for a new manager, buzzing with ideas. You come into a culture that needs to change, and you want to make a difference as quickly as possible. But, try to do too much to soon, and the players can turn against you. Change must be handled very carefully.
When a culture is in need of change, the safest way to do it, (Slow Change) is one small change at a time. Nothing that will rock the boat too much. But enough to start a shift in mood and emphasis. Keep the difficult players on your side for as long as possible.
Eventually, they will either join you in the cultural revolution or leave. But upset them, and they will try to make your life hell. As Mark Stimson has found out at Gillingham.
