THE challenge for AFL clubs has never been more complex. Performance is demanded on the field, but it's off the field that is determining future success.

The modern era means a heavy focus on such things as leadership groups and empowerment, strategic plans and key performance indicators, accountability and responsibility, brand and image, direction, sustainability and key stakeholders.

It's the business of sport, and it has little to do with whether to zone or not, whether to play on from a mark, and not kicking short to a contest.

Instead, it's about symbols that demonstrate "how things are done around here" and behaviour that is necessary to sustain one key driver — culture.

At the end of a week in which the Collingwood culture has been examined from every possible angle, it is interesting to pose the question: exactly what is this buzzword of the AFL?

Culture influences greatly many facets of daily productivity and improvement. The way people interact, their attitudes, their relationships and management. It has a big say in the way change is introduced, embraced and tackled.

It is an all-embracing thing that contributes enormously to your club's health and can only be seen, heard, measured or observed by one fundamental — action.

If it is to be positive, it must be built around peer pressure. On individual responsibility and one-on-one accountability. On trust and respect. It is bigger than one individual, yet builds on the back of those key leaders.

When I think about a football club culture, I think of Glenn Archer and North Melbourne, and of the Shinboner spirit. It's something I didn't fully understand before attending Archer's 300th game last year and the subsequent post-game tribute to the Shinboner of the Century.

It is real. And mighty powerful. It is what drove North to an improbable top-four finish last year and might just do the same thing again this year after the Roos' very existence was questioned over the summer. Watching North celebrate the career of one of their favourite sons was spine-tingling.

Not that North hasn't had its issues. It has. There's no escaping them these days. But it's about how the club deals with them and keeps coming back.

In a new and good culture, there will be defining moments — such as at Geelong.

The Cats of today have a culture in which players take responsibility for their actions and are accountable to each other.

It is demonstrated by actions rather than words. And it is measured by the fact that as a group they are willing to accept less than "market value" to stay together and pursue more success.

Sure, it's easier to do this sort of thing when you are in the middle of a successful phase because it is real. But at Geelong, the players are genuinely committed to each other and the collective goal.

If there was a defining moment in the establishment of this culture, it was the Steve Johnson incident of Christmas 2006, when the leadership group suspended the talented but sometimes wayward forward.

It wasn't just a couple of matches — it was from the holiday period to round six of the premiership season. It was a statement of culture.

And the reward for the Cats has been the emergence of a player who now ranks No. 2 at the club in importance behind Gary Ablett jnr.

There have been calls this week for the AFL rather than clubs to sit in judgement on off-field misdemeanours because clubs won't always look beyond short-term goals and issues.

I can't accept that. It would not have any real or lasting impact.

Discipline is useless without accountability. They must be intertwined. And to have any worthwhile accountability, you need a full understanding of the club and its values. And of the behaviours that the leaders of the club live by.

Collingwood should be judged not on what happens tomorrow night against St Kilda or even for the rest of this season, but on what it wants to stand for in the future and the longer, more meaningful impact all this has on the club.