Many
orthodox academicians teaching at top PGDM colleges in Delhi
and elsewhere in India
Learning
thus has to be taught of thinking, analyzing and practicing things afresh.
A.K.Lahiri of Hindustan Unilever during the Project Millennium launched by then
CEO Keki Dadiaseth had been quoted by the late Sumantra Ghoshal. Lahiri
referred to the need for business enterprises to drop the baggage of history.
How often do we tend to forget the need to drop the baggage of history under
the pretext of empirical evidence, experience and time tested formulae to
success in business and sports? Former English cricketer and then coach, the
late Bob Woolmer very often used to quote Joan Rivers: “Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is mystery.” With so much technology integrated into the game, professional
teams, players and coaches watching each other and trying to match step for
step leaves no room to sit on old fat.
Those Were the Best of Times. Those Were the Worst of Times
Nobody
sledges legends and experience can never be substituted for. Yet given the
element of VUCA that has cropped up in business and sport, experience can no
longer be blindly relied on. Both in cricket and business disruptors emerge
from time to time and dislodge the dynamics of the industry. This phenomenon of
disruption can be very unsettling for established market leaders who may be yet
to come to terms with the business models of disruptors. South
Africa began a dramatic rise towards glory once they were back from
the ban and took everybody by surprise. Today Bangladesh
is looked forward to with a certain level of respect that they have earned
through good performance against established test playing nations. Nokia learnt
these tough lessons with D.Shivkumar at the helm of affairs. What happened to
Nokia in the Indian market with the advent of smart phones, sleek designs and
dual- sim card technology is known to all. It makes sense to emulate the
innovation and trend setting spirit of companies that we get to learn in books
and case studies. But to compare the “heritage era” of players and managers
with the modern rookies is more than unfair. It demeans the current generation
of managers and players. For teams in sports and business to succeed they need
to come out of the shadows of their predecessors often by going with the tide
of time, space and scale. Kumarmangalam Birla did it when he took over the
reins of the company on the untimely death of his father. Tim Cook is still
trying to do it at Apple. Sadly one must agree that Manchester United, the
beloved heartthrob of many across the world has not been able to do it.
If Looks Could Kill and Mean Business as Well
Recall
the swagger of Sir Viv Richards when he used to walk down the dressing room
into the ground to take guard. Sachin Tendulkar used to walk down any venue in
the globe in the backdrop of people chanting his name like devotees. Purely in
terms of sporting achievement, Shoaib Akhtar flying down the twenty two yards
at Eden Gardens
It may
not be the business end of business but cements the image of the company, the
brand and finally that of the individual. It is difficult to have the body
language of a heavy weight boxer like Sir Viv Richards and still focus on
business without getting preoccupied with the small battles within the bigger
battle. Champion managers and players sell aggression through the body language
they emanate, not through actions. The point is to have an aggressive body with
the calm and composed mind of a monk!
If Brains Could Win the War
To have
an aggressive body and the mind of a monk at the same time sounds very pleasing
to the ears but is very difficult to achieve. It starts with the player or the
manager setting goals for self and the team. Goal setting is a term that evokes
awe and fear in the same breath for both managers and cricketers. Being number
one for sure cannot be the goal for everybody. If a company has been fighting
to ward off the clouds of uncertainty all its life, then being in business can
be referred to as a job well done. The same applies to cricket. There are nations
that have less than one fourth of the population of a subcontinent heavyweight
like India and still manage to punch above their
weight. A fine example of this shall be New Zealand
in cricket and Marico Industries in FMCG. New Zealand
has a very small player base and yet has managed to do consistently well in all
three formats of the game even without lifting the world championship even
once. Faced with a giant like Hindustan Unilever, Marico has done well to focus
on two to three product lines like coconut hair oil, oats and edible oil. In
these product segments Marico comes close to being unbeatable.
Yet the
same cannot be said for a team like Australia
and India . Winning means everything and it
should. With the talent base and resources that these countries have, it is not
too much to ask for these teams to win and be number one. It shall be outright
demeaning for a company like Infosys to finish a close second. The theory of
the second best does not apply to them. Goal setting thus is not and should not
be about being number one. More over it is better to choose performance goals
over result goals. It is very close to what the Bhagwad Gita teaches. Result
goals are dependent on the ‘karma’. Performance goals are worth achieving,
because it is up to the managers and players to give their 100% in business and
sport.