This is
the last piece in the series of blogs on sports management coming from Ishan
Institute of Management & Technology, one of the best MBA colleges in Delhi
NCR. It is too demanding to cover all aspects of sports management in blogs and
yet learning business lessons from cricket can pave the way for some serious
academic research on sports in business management. In this piece the academic
team tries to offer a concluding comment on the facets of business challenges
that are touched upon by cricket. We also look for possible solutions from
cricket.
Champion
managers and players, champion teams and corporate enterprises believe in
winning and have scant respect for the theory of the second best. This mindset
in its extremes can lead to exactly the worst thing-losing. Not talking of
losing and driving failure under the carpet leads to the typical sub-continent
mindset where cricketers and managers who fail are treated as social outcastes.
At airports, coffee shops, hotels and at events cricketers who have been
dropped are referred to as discards and the term can inflict a lot of damage to
the morale of the concerned person. Managers who are terminated on account of
failures also go through this. At the heart of the biggest challenge for
business and sport is to deal with the burden of winning and the fear of
failure.
The Burden of Winning
When
market leaders have a cake walk and get accustomed to winning in the market
with no or little effort, they stick to the formula that has got them there in
that position in the first place. This gets reflected in little or no product
and process innovation, carrying on with daddy’s brands even if they are not
fetching any returns, sticking to a set team that has got too used to thinking
and working in a stereotyped way. With little or no effort to paddle the cycle,
the cycle carries itself forward on momentum. Momentum is always short lived.
Great teams and corporations have failed because of the burden of winning.
Going
into competitive sport like cricket and also in business with the preconceived
notion that we just need to show up on the field with no preparation and walk
down any competition is a recipe for disaster. May great corporations do want
to change anything of the winning formula because they may not know the exact
element of the winning formula that is leading them to victory. Hence there is
this temptation to not tinker around with a set team, set product portfolio,
set templates for product development, set protocol for communication, set
procedures, set thumb rules for decision making, etc. The burden of winning
brings with itself an inertia that weighs down on the appetite to innovate,
inspire and change. There is a risk in changing when companies and teams do not
know what needs to be changed. The lesson is that every victory needs as much
analysis as does a defeat. When the revenue streams are flowing, then is the
time to analyze. When the going gets tough it is time to act, not sit back and
analyze.
Fear of Failure
The
fear of failure is not a mindset that comes with failure itself. It is an
imaginary situation that looms large in hindsight that forces teams and players
to look backwards when they should be only looking forward. A common example of
this in cricket is when a batsman attempts to but ultimately does not want to
play a ball bowled in the corridor of uncertainty. With the batsman in two
minds whether to leave the ball or play it, he goes with the middle path of
nudging at the ball. As the ball kisses the thick edge of the bat, it flies
into the hands of the fields standing in the slip cordon. In many such cases of
being “edged out”, a post mortem analysis of the video reveals that the batsman
has looked back immediately after he has edged the ball and even before the
catch has been taken.
When a
batsman is much concerned about slip fielders standing behind him, he focuses
on what lies behind him, not on what is ahead of him. The head leans towards
the off stump and being the heaviest part of the body, drags the back,
shoulders and feet away from the line of delivery and thus an edge is produced.
When managers are concerned about what is going on behind their back and how
colleagues and competitors may be plotting his downfall behind them, the
downfall inevitably happens as a self fulfilling prophecy.
In
1999, during a test match between India and Pakistan, Sachin Tendulkar had
played a gem of an innings with great back pain to take his team to a winning
position. With very few runs to be knocked off, Sachin after a long innings got
out. Pakistan went on to win the match. When asked later about how India had
managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, the captain of Pakistan
Wasim Akram had said that he knew that if Sachin had got out with even 3 runs
to win, India would lose the match in the dressing room itself! Point to be
noted your honour!
Learning While Losing
In
post match conferences it is common for captains to refer to every victory as
an achievement and every defeat as a lesson or a journey on the learning
curve. Every defeat brings a loss of
face and thus leaves the captain at a loss of words. Hence the reference to a
defeat being a part of the learning curve in most cases is a lip service paid
to the concept of learning while losing.
Corporations
and teams that learn from losses are those that stay safe. A conservative risk
appetite that is based on rationale must consider the value of learning while
losing. The climate that prevails in the dressing room, the mentoring from
senior players and the feedback of the coach matter a lot in bring a player or
a team back from the brink of a loss. The dressing room climate has to add
value and create confidence in the team and its players. Many great teams loss
matches in the dressing room itself.
Business
and cricket are both great levellers. Each victory is a milestone and a new
high. Each defeat teaches humility and humbles the greatest teams and
individuals. Top PGDM colleges in Delhi teach a lot of case studies and
corporate sector and cricket are never short of exemplary achievers who have
touched greatness. At Ishan Institute of Management &
Technology, one of the top PGDM colleges
in Delhi NCR, we would like to serve a unique footnote to this concluding
piece.
Of
all the animals that rule in the jungle the lion and the tiger are revered by
many. Yet both tigers and lions despite being one man armies of their
territories are on the verge of being extinct. The go alone approach does not
work in the jungle, corporate sector or in cricket. Wolves are probably the
most professionally groomed animals because they can hunt alone but choose to
hunt in packs: “TEAM: together everybody achieves more”. As the British author
Rudyard Kipling had once said:
“For
the strength of the Pack is the Wolf and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.”