Not Everything Counts but Everything Matters

“I get what a dynasty is, but I don’t know the definition".

Ivan Cleary’s statement after winning his fourth NRL Premiership with Penrith highlights the elasticity & subjective nature of the ‘dynasty’ superlative.

However, the term cannot be described as “overused” as dynasties simply don’t happen often enough. Winning a Championship doesn’t equate to being a dynasty & winning back-to-back Championships is rare.

Ivan Cleary’s four-straight Premierships with Penrith Panthers, however, have established him as perhaps the greatest rugby league coach of all time.

As a sidenote, it’s an even more remarkable feat in the NRL where the salary cap has led to the Panthers losing star players between Premierships with success driving player’s value up.

What’s often forgotten however, is his sacking by the same club in 2015 & the 370 NRL games or 14 years it took him to win his first Premiership.

In total, he has a fairly modest 57% winning percentage across his time with the Warriors, Wests Tigers & two stints with Penrith.

Not Everything Counts But Everything Matters offers a valuable collection of anecdotes and lessons for head coaches. The book provides deep insights into resilience, building a winning culture, aligning an organization, and staying authentic, adaptable, and self-aware.

A few key themes stand out:

Authenticity

Cleary speaks openly about his battles with depression & the effect this had on his sacking in 2015. Panthers-then General Manager noting Cleary “looked tired” as a reason for his firing.

This serves as a reminder of the urgent shift required in the way we view head coaches & the support networks available to them. Performance sport is challenging in its very nature but too few teams, whilst going to great lengths to provide any support necessary for players, overlook the importance of providing the platform for coaches to succeed.

Perhaps as a result of his own struggles, Cleary’s leadership is grounded in honesty, integrity & creating an environment where his players can be themselves & are encouraged to ‘open-up’ about their own struggles.

Learning about each other as people is as important as what happens on the training field.

Cleary and Head of Performance Hayden Knowles worked intentionally to foster this sense of connection. Every training session began with a "connection meeting," where either a player or staff member would sit in front and be interviewed.

There was no agenda; the goal was simply to help the person feel safe and open up to the group. This approach is even more valuable when leading an organization with people of different cultures & backgrounds.

“As long as you follow the values of our club, you can be you. I want you to turn up and know that the only thing you will be judged on is your football.” 

Keeping it Simple

Cleary highlights a conversation with football’s Urban Meyer as a moment of awakening when he explained that “leaders create culture, culture drives behaviours, and behaviours produces results.”

For Cleary, this was translated in three ways:

Fit to Play-

“If you’re not in condition to be fit enough to be able to play the way we value, you won’t play for us,”

Organizational Alignment

Cleary ensured the team’s values were lived not just by the players, but by the entire organization- from the front office to the backroom staff.

Everyone was contributing to the team’s success.

After winning his fourth & most recent Premiership, Cleary highlighted the organization as active contributors: “there’s so many people involved, people who aren’t even at our club anymore, but had such an input into it.”

Consistency

Whilst head coaches sometimes get lost in the search for a magic bullet, Cleary was directed on continuous care and actively living the values out through daily actions.

Teams will lose games & have training sessions that vary in quality but success is born from ensuring the margins of performance are minimal.

Make it fun

The theme of enjoyment resonates through the book.

Perhaps this was shaped through the challenges & hardships he has faced in his career. Perhaps not.

Regardless, Cleary’s authentic leadership depicts a coach who understands the importance of enjoying the journey, instilling perspective across the organization & believing in your players.

“He’s always told us boys to always have fun and that’s the kind of humor he has as well to cheer the boys up. No matter the result, it’s always about having fun and process driven as well,”