Sustained success is along term thing. It doesn't mean that we will play finals every year or something like that. It can't mean that that we will play finals every year or something like that. Football isn't like that. Life in general isn't like that. Some people have found it suits their emotional requirements to assume it means something like that but this plainly unrealistic.
If you are running a an organisation or a business - or even just yourself - there are things you need to have in place to succeed. If you run a one man delivery business and your truck keeps breaking down, the simple answer is you need a new truck. This won't guarantee profits but it is an underlying requirement that you have a reliable service so the orders keep coming in. That's ok for a one man show. If you run a big trucking business, you don't just buy new trucks at random times, you need systems that ensure that all aspects of your fleet are handled. You have purchasing objectives, your maintenance guys are properly trained, your maintenance facility is big enough and has the required tools up to the job, there's backup plans for when things go awry, etc, etc, etc, and that therre is a stucture in place that ensures the whole process get regularly reviewed and problems get fixed by more than band-aids. That's the idea of managing for sustained success. It won't guarantee that trucks never break down, drivers don't get sick, or every day goes perfectly. It means you can deliver a service and handle the ups and downs without needing to go into emotional turmoil.
"Sustained success" wasn't a personal guarantee to anyone that the club will play finals every year, never lose games by big margins, or whatever you personally wish for. It isn't about wishing. It about getting multiple structures and processes in place that will allow the the club to succeed, not every game, not every year, but to improve the long term record. Obviously, this was going to upset a few people. New ways break traditions and grate on existing culture.
Fremantle was run on the "buy a new truck" method for the first 20 years and while I can tell you it was fun for me personally it didn't achieve a lot of success. The current board and management have vision and plans to change that, even if it hurts. Will they succeed? We don't know yet, ask me in 20 years if the second two decades went better than the first two. (Seriously, it won't be that hard.) The board and management have some good credentials for managing and developing organisations and businesses but maybe they're just a bunch of incompetent jerks and we were better of chugging along the bottom of the table happily with occasional flourishes to keep our spirits up. We don't know. It's a long term goal.
What you can be absolutely sure of is that the sustained success vision of the board and management is not what some people around here imagine it to be.
