Celtic should heed a valuable lesson; smart people like hearing when they’re wrong.

As everyone who reads this blog regularly knows, I am a big fan of the Roman Empire. Not just the Empire, but the Republic before it. Obviously, there are certain standout figures throughout history who I enjoy talking about, reading about and writing about. For Celtic, there are a lot of lessons to be learned in those lives.

Not just from Cincinnatus, but from other great figures of Rome, like Cicero, Caesar and, above all, Augustus, Caesar’s nephew, whom he named as his heir in his will, and who at the time was called Octavian.

Octavian was one of the most ruthless political operators in history. He was shrewd and intuitive to an almost supernatural degree. He inherited Caesar’s name, property and political legacy when he was still a boy, and he was not physically imposing in the way Caesar, Antony and others were.

He was slight. Sickly. Not a warrior in the classic sense. His weapon was his mind. He was a formidable intellect, with a natural gift for plots and schemes.

Here’s the thing: in growing into the role and then assuming control of the Caesarean party, it was clear that he knew the most important thing any really intelligent person can know.

He knew that he did not know everything.

So, Octavian surrounded himself with people who were just as smart as he was, albeit in different ways. People who filled the holes in his knowledge and experience. People who could do things he himself was unable to do.

What’s more, he listened to those people. He deferred to them in matters where they were better suited to solving the problem.

Think of the ice-cold arrogance, the complete lack of scruple and the iron will it takes to rise to the top of that bloodthirsty arena while still a kid. Think how sure of himself and his own destiny Octavian must have been.

Yet he did not even try to rule as one man.

He did not try to impose his will on everyone around him in every matter.

He knew when to listen.

He knew when to trust someone else’s wisdom above his own.

Thus, two individuals in particular, Maecenas and Agrippa, became rich, powerful and central to his life. They were among his most senior counsellors all through his rise and reign. Those two could tell him when he was wrong. Those two could tell him when he had to change course.

For God’s sake, if the most self-assured person quite possibly in the history of the world knew enough to do that, why doesn’t our own board of directors?

Why doesn’t Desmond?

Why don’t these people listen to outside counsel? Why don’t they bring in those who are smarter than they are, those with better ideas, and use those people to make our club better and their own lives easier?

See, I never understood what these people were about. I still don’t.

They are egotists. That much is absolutely clear. They are convinced they are correct and the rest of us are wrong. That is also clear.

But as I’ve said before, these guys could have spent the rest of their lives sitting in those offices, lounging in those leather executive seats, lapping up the atmosphere and the applause as masters of the universe, if they had not decided to run this club in the slapdash fashion in which it is presently operated.

If they had been smart enough to bring in the best people and give those people autonomy over their own departments, they would never have had a fan revolt. They would never have had boycotts, banners and posters with their names on them.

They could have cruised. That is what smart leaders do.

Here’s the rub, though. Smart leaders open themselves to contradiction. To do that is to admit you are not the smartest kid in the class. To do that is to admit that perhaps you do not know everything.

I have always thought, in that respect, that Desmond has to be one of the dumbest allegedly smart people there has ever been.

Because if you are a single individual running things your way, trusting only your own judgement, refusing outside counsel, disliking contradiction and bristling when you are told you are wrong, then you are a fool.

As your ideas start to calcify, as you become set in your ways and more presumptuous, you start to lash out against people who don’t kiss your arse.

That way lies the graveyard of whatever it is you are trying to preserve.

Eventually, that is all it becomes.

Preservation.

There is no growth any longer. No expansion. No modernisation. No drive forward.

Only holding on to things that are slipping away bit by bit.

Here’s what I think.

If Desmond really does rule the Celtic boardroom with an iron hand, if he really does fill it with sycophants and yes-men, then he is going to damage this club badly. Worse, so are they and in pretending to know more than they do they already have.

If they are following their own judgement that’s worrying, because the lack of it is what characterises our whole club at the moment. If they are doing what he wants that is somehow even worse, because it means just replacing them might not be enough if Desmond continues to arrogantly assume he knows it all.

The people doing his bidding are the ones who are going to catch the flak, as has already proved to be the case. Those people are taking the bullets for him every day, and they will continue to take them every day they remain in office. When they make mistakes based on his demands and decisions, that will hang around their necks.

They will never be free of it. I suspect that some of them resent that. I know some of them cannot like it. The only way out is to walk.

Augustus is famously associated with the boast that he found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble. Whether literal, poetic or somewhere in between, it endures because it speaks to legacy. It speaks to what is left behind.

But Augustus could not have done that without his advisers. Without Agrippa. Without Maecenas. Without people who could organise, build, manage, shape opinion and execute plans better than he could alone.

That is the lesson. When you play the game properly, when you are smart enough to know what you do not know, you can build the shining city.

When you don’t, you get the court of the Mad King.

You get people struggling to maintain order while the man at the centre walks around setting fires to things. That was us, all the way through last season.

This summer, Celtic have a choice to make. I wrote earlier in the week about how there are good and talented people out there who are within reach of this club should we want to hire them for the sporting director role. They would fill that job and prove to be big personalities, and they might not always agree with what Desmond and others want.

Good. That would be the best reason for bringing them in because we either tell the arsonist-in-chief that it is time for new blood, new thinking, outside expertise and proper football people, or the campaign against this board reaches a new height and a new intensity. This club cannot go on being run like a third rate bowling club.

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