Hey Parra Fans, This week I am continuing on from the recent recruitment discussion and looking at: the correlation between organisational capability and premiership success through the lens of three well established organisational frameworks: Organisational Ambidexterity, Dynamic Capabilities, and The Theory of Constraints. Together, these concepts provide a valuable lens through which to assess the overall functionality of the Eels as an organisation, rather than simply as a football team.

Yes this is another part evidence based analysis, part subjective opinion piece that in theory holds significant relevance to the Parramatta Eels; while once again acknowledging that I neither know or understand the whole picture and have no experience running a football club. 

As always, I hope you find it insightful and engaging and I look forward to your views and perspectives in the comments, whether they are similar, dissimilar, or indifferent.

BEYOND THE TEAM LIST: BUILDING ORGANISATIONAL CAPABILITY FOR PREMIERSHIP SUCCESS

In any organisation, sustainable performance depends on alignment across several interdependent systems. Organisational performance reflects how effectively the entire system is functioning and failure at any level is rarely the result of one function alone. More often, it emerges from interconnected issues across the organisation: operational disconnects at the micro level, poor planning and execution at the meso level, and strategic or cultural resistance to change at the macro level.

TCTGP 28 June 2026 explored how for the most part, the ingredients for sustained success at the Parramatta Eels (The Eels) already exists. It argued that, from a recruitment and retention perspective, the club would benefit from leveraging its considerable resources and strengthening its employee value proposition to better develop, attract and retain marquee talent.

This TCTGP explores how some organisations continually adapt and evolve while others fail to reach the same heights, despite possessing talented people and significant resources. The question this raises for The Eels is not whether the ingredients exist, but whether the club can consistently bring them together in a way that delivers sustained success.

This is not about dwelling on the past or explicitly criticising the present. Rather, it is about applying evidence-based organisational theory to explore how the Eels can strategically adapt to achieve sustained performance over time, and to better understand the operational practices that underpin long-term organisational success.

Organisational Ambidexterity

Despite the intimidating name, the idea of organisational ambidexterity is quite simple. It refers to an organisation’s ability to exploit what it already does well; while simultaneously exploring new ways of doing things:

• Exploitation is about maximising today’s performance. It’s refining systems, improving consistency, developing existing talent and getting the most from the resources you already have.
• Exploration is about preparing for tomorrow. It’s investing in new ideas, challenging existing thinking, acquiring new capabilities and making strategic decisions that may not deliver immediate results but improve the organisation’s long-term position.

Originally popularised through the work of James G. March, organisational ambidexterity which argues that every organisation faces the same balancing act, recognising that long-term success depends on avoiding over-reliance on either approach. Organisations that focus only on exploitation risk stagnation and decline, while those that prioritise exploration without maintaining current performance can become unstable. High-performing organisations deliberately integrate both, ensuring they remain competitive today while continuously building the capabilities needed for tomorrow.

So, what does that look like at The Eels?

In some ways, The Eels have often appeared to oscillate between exploitation and exploration rather than balancing them. For example:

• Developing young players then undervaluing retention by either releasing junior talent before their development fully matures; or losing them to rival pathways programs due to poor succession planning.
• Relying heavily on their commercial strengths as the primary measure of value and success; without consistently prioritising translating that value into sustained on-field success.
• relying heavily on a small number of elite players to drive performance rather than lifting the capability of the broader squad.

Don’t get me wrong, the exploitation in these examples is bloody exceptional; but at what point does exploitation alone stop being a strategy and start becoming an excuse? Every organisation reaches a point where internal growth alone is no longer enough. Sometimes the missing capability has to be brought in from the outside, and that’s where March’s theory becomes particularly relevant.

Love him or hate him, the signing of Jarome Luai isn’t simply about recruiting a marquee player. It signals an acknowledgement that 2026 is about exploring, not merely exploiting. A team cannot genuinely rebuild while remaining dependent on one superstar to solve systemic issues, but equally, it cannot expect inexperienced players to shoulder the burden indefinitely. Daddy can’t fix everything, but there is an air of optimism for mine that he can become an important piece of a much larger build; while not losing site or respect for the exploitation components that help make it all possible.

As established within my recruitment and retention piece, the ingredients for success at The Eels already exists. The challenge is ensuring those ingredients are consistently aligned and mutually reinforced across the entire football club. Because recruitment is only one part of that equation, and premiership contenders aren’t built solely on key signings. They’re built by extracting maximum value from existing people, systems and resources while continuing to invest in the capabilities needed for tomorrow.

Perhaps the biggest challenge for The Eels isn’t trying to balance exploitation and exploration, development and recruitment, habitual strategy and positive disruption. As a starting point it might require critical reflection or simply recognising that sustainable success requires balance. The best organisations don’t choose one or the other, and the NRL clubs that consistently compete for titles aren’t those that are best at exploiting the present or exploring the future; they’re the ones disciplined enough to balance both.

Organisational Ambidexterity at The Eels – Source: Theory from March, J.G. (1991). Conceptualised by the author into Rugby League terms specific to the Parramatta Eels.

Dynamic Capabilities

If organisational ambidexterity is about balancing today’s performance with tomorrow’s opportunities, then dynamic capabilities are about developing the organisational ability to keep adapting as those opportunities and challenges emerge.

David Teece’s Dynamic Capabilities Framework argues that sustained success is not determined simply by the resources an organisation possesses, but by how effectively it can sense change, seize opportunities and transform itself when circumstances demand it. In other words, competitive advantage comes from continuously renewing capabilities rather than relying on yesterday’s strengths.

For The Eels, this shifts the conversation away from remaining reliant on their commercial success and bountiful resources; to how the club can consistently convert those resources into sustained on-field success. In essence: resources create potential and capabilities convert potential into performance.

Viewed through this lens, many of The Eels recurring challenges become capability questions:

1. How can we identify roster gaps before they become obvious to everyone else?
2. How can we replace departing leaders without losing its identity every time an experienced player leaves?
3. How can more juniors successfully transition into consistent NRL first graders rather than becoming “promising prospects” who move on to win premierships with other clubs?
4. How can recruitment strategy evolve as the competition changes without feeling like every few years the club is starting another rebuild?

These are micro level recruitment and retention issues that require macro level action and accountability. Strong dynamic capabilities allow clubs to continually scan the environment, evaluate emerging trends, learn from successes and failures, and adjust without abandoning everything that already works:

• Succession planning should start years before a captain retires.
• Development pathways should be designed to identify and nurture NRL-ready players for the clubs own future.
• Lessons from poor business decisions become organisational knowledge rather than repeating cycles.

This shifts the conversation away from resource reliance and places primary focus on proficient execution. The best organisations are rarely the ones with the most resources, they are the ones that repeatedly adapt faster than everyone else while maintaining a clear long-term direction.

For The Eels, improving dynamic capabilities will not require another complete reset. However, it will require significant reflection and a commitment to systematic change: building operational EQ and IQ, anticipating issues before they become crises, responding earlier, and embedding the lessons from both successes and failures into every football decision. Successful execution would not be measured by one strong recruitment period, or one successful generation of players, but by the club’s ability to continually regenerate itself, regardless of who comes or goes from the team list or the board room.

Dynamic Capabilities at The Eels – Source: Theory from Teece, D. (2007) Conceptualised by the author into Rugby League terms specific to the Parramatta Eels.

Theory of Constraints

Of course, even organisations with strong capabilities can still fail to achieve their objectives if one critical part of the system continually limits everything else. That raises another important question: what is the single biggest constraint preventing Parramatta from converting capability into consistent performance? That is where the Theory of Constraints provides another valuable perspective.

The Theory of Constraints (TOC), developed by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, contends that every organisation’s performance is limited by at least one critical constraint. Rather than trying to improve everything at once, TOC focuses on identifying the biggest obstacle to success and directing effort towards removing it. Once that constraint is addressed, another will emerge, creating a continuous cycle of improvement. Goldratt summarises this through five steps that broadly translates to: identify the constraint, make the most of it, align everything else around it, remove it, then repeat the process.

For a rugby league club, this is a powerful concept because sustained success rarely depends on improving every aspect of the organisation simultaneously. For the Eels, the obvious question becomes: what is the constraint? The Eels continue to struggle to convert its tangible resources into sustained on-field success. That raises the possibility that the club’s greatest challenge is not the visible problems themselves, but an underlying organisational constraint that continues to limit the effectiveness of everything else. Rather than focusing solely on the symptoms, should the club instead be asking what sits beneath them?

If organisational ambidexterity asks whether Parramatta is balancing today’s success with tomorrow’s development, and dynamic capabilities asks whether the club can continually adapt, then the Theory of Constraints asks an even simpler question:

What is one thing that could be improved to make everything else easier?

For mine, the likely constraint is the quality and authority matrix of decision-making. When the people making decisions fail to earn the confidence of those expected to execute them, buy-in diminishes, implementation suffers and performance becomes inconsistent. Whether that stems from gaps in organisational capability, entrenched cultural norms, or a disconnect between those holding the purse strings and those expected to deliver the outcomes is open for debate. But whatever the underlying cause, until that constraint is identified, acknowledged and addressed, any attempts to improve broader systems or business functions will not be successful.

Equally, if the real constraint is organisational alignment, then no amount of spending will solve it. Every football department; from recruitment and pathways to coaching, performance and leadership; must be working towards the same long-term strategy. The danger is treating every symptom as a separate problem. Replace the coach, change the roster. Recruit another marquee player, restructure the football department. While each may provide temporary improvement, none will create sustained success unless they address the underlying constraint.

For The Eels, the challenge may be openness to critical reflection, which will be required to appropriately identify constraints that are repeatedly limiting everything else. Because until the true constraints are addressed, every other improvement initiative risks becoming a marginal gain in a system still held back by its inability to change.

Theory of Constraints at The Eels – Source: Theory from Goldratt, E. M. (1984) Conceptualised by the author into Rugby League terms specific to the Parramatta Eels.

Bringing It All Together

Ultimately, these three theories complement one another. Organisational ambidexterity provides the balance between today’s performance and tomorrow’s success. Dynamic capabilities provide the ability to continually adapt, learn and renew. The Theory of Constraints provides the discipline to identify and improve the one issue limiting the performance of the entire system. Together, they offer a framework not just for rebuilding a football team, but for building an organisation capable of sustaining success long after any individual player, coach or administrator has moved on.

Organisational Ambidexterity:

• Are we balancing today and tomorrow?
• An ambidextrous organisation knows when to rebuild

Dynamic Capabilities:                    

• Can we continually adapt?
• Dynamic capabilities determine how effectively it rebuilds.

Theory of Constraints:

• What is the single issue currently limiting everything else?
• The Theory of Constraints identifies where effort should be focused first.

Viewed in unison, The Eels challenge may simply be that the club is trying to solve multiple complex problems simultaneously while one or two critical constraints continue limiting the effectiveness of everything else.

The Golden Point

The ingredients are visible, the commitment appears genuine, and the resources certainly exist. The question is no longer whether the Eels have enough pieces to complete the premiership puzzle, but whether they can consistently assemble those pieces into a system capable of sustaining success:

• In business, that is the difference between possessing resources and building organisational capability.
• In rugby league, it is often the difference between being competitive and becoming a genuine premiership contender.

For the Eels, the next premiership may depend less on finding the next superstar and more on becoming the kind of club where sustained success is no longer dependent on one manager, one player, one coach or one recruitment cycle. Because success should be proactively built into the way the club thinks, decides, learns and performs. That is how organisations develop capability; and how the dreams of an estimated half a million supporters globally become something more than a distant hope.

Roly-Poly

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