CEO's Playbook Table of contents James Curtis Interview
Each CEO has bonus content available to ASPA members that is not found in the book. The philosophies below are sourced directly from the interview, however each interview contained so much great content we had to put together an excerpt. Note that the content of the interview differs than the philosophies below.-
Interview with James Curtis
Alex Mednis & Cass Simonetti, Australian Sports Professional Association
James Curtis, Football West
Growing up in Geraldton and with a passion for sport, Football West CEO James Curtis always wanted to work in something complex. Working as a CEO in Australian sport seemed like a great opportunity.
What drew you into Australian sport?
I always loved sport growing up. I played a lot of sport and my family was strong in sport. Not at an elite level though, my brother did that, not me - I was always team-based sport, and that was really enjoyable. I think I can comfortably say that at no stage did I ever think I would work in sport. I wanted to be an architect, I wanted to be an investment banker, zoologist or a chef, you know. Always interested in something that's a complex problem or something needing a solution.
When I was studying social science and commerce the major was international relations, politics and international business. A thought I had at the time was that I'd like to be a diplomat or, a trade commissioner or something that was a mix of people, mix of commerce and mix of cultures and a pretty fluid space.
How did those roles outside of sport influence your current role as the CEO of Football West?
When you look at the ingredients that are on the table from the various roles I've worked in across the private sector and Government - they're transferable to pretty much any sector. Effectively every role was all about understanding complex systems - which sport certainly is.
Compared to your last role in Government, sport certainly has fewer resources. How do you find working in that?
For me, the philosophy we try to enshrine here is that the CEO is almost like a small business owner. You certainly get a similar set of frustrations with respect to capacity, resourcing, and only so many hours in the day - but I reckon you get better thrills as well. It's turning up in the morning and turning the light on. We're all in this together and it's everyone's role to ensure the smooth running of the office and business. You might have to fix the office vacuum cleaner and work through some of the "small business" issues that many smaller sports face - but there's something about that that brings the people together you know?
Absolutely.
We've really worked our team into a best practice of when there is a problem or solve or something to fix, the traditional hierarchy can flatten out. We become flexible and just get it done without the resource levels being commensurate with that.
How have you fostered that kind of culture? Hierarchy comes naturally to many organisations, so 'flattening out' needs cultivation, right?
So quite funnily, we talk about trauma quite a bit.
Which is ironic that Football West is now temporarily housed in the old Princess Margaret hospital site right. We're actually sitting in the triage unit right now.
That's terrible! (laughing)
You know this sport, particularly in Western Australia, and across Australia has got a pretty rich history. We don't have enough resources compared to the AFL, or other sports in a similar category to ours. So when people come to the sport, expecting massive budgets and unlimited resources, we have to address some of that trauma. It really comes to down getting the team to be willing to fail, which in many organisations can be a daily battle - especially when you're compared to other sports with more resources.
There's a lot of management quotes on this - but really, our failure was if we didn't try. It's as simple as that. You flatten out the culture, you get the job done, and we try and all give it a go together. We build out the scar tissue of working with fewer resources and being compared against larger organisations, and make sure staff have different reference points of how we're tracking as an organisation, and ultimately as individuals as professionals in the industry.
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