point
Menu
Magazines
Browse by year:
August - 1999 - issue > Sam Pitroda Column
The Cricket Connection
Sunday, August 1, 1999



For 38 days, with over 42 games, the cricket World Cup held recently in the UK galvanized the entire cricket-playing world. In India, for example, during the matches played by the Indian team, little work got done – people were hooked to their TVs, and there were few issues larger than the outcome of those matches. In London, hundreds of India supporters watched with high hopes and dreams for India to win the title, all with high expectations, brandishing paraphernalia like drums and flags to outpour their emotions for their home team.

Play Ball

I had a rare free day during the World Cup, which gave me a chance to watch and "think through" a full game of cricket between India and Zimbabwe. It was incredible to see how new television broadcast technologies were integrated into the game of cricket – charts, graphs, and strategically-placed cameras that generated breathtaking replays. Given the strengths of other teams such as Australia, Pakistan, and South Africa, it was clear that India faced a tough challenge to rise to the top. At the same time, I did expect them to win the game against Zimbabwe. But to my great chagrin, they lost, and I took away from it several observations that I would like to share. These observations may not be very relevant or critical, but I think they convey the connection between the way people in India play cricket, and the way people in India approach work projects.

India has some very talented cricketers, like Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid. The way these two players were hitting the ball was of the first order – the precision and the timing was almost like that of a machine. But the few great performances by exceptional players were incomparable to the overall performance of the team. When you look at the Indian team, comprised of 11 individuals, you realize that somehow, the sum does not seem to add up to 11. Very high peaks, and very low averages – that’s the problem I saw with the Indian cricket team, and that’s the problem I see with India as a whole. Individually we may be great – but collectively our performance is poor. Averages take a lot of time and training to build up, but high averages, not peak performances, result in consistent victories.


Killer Instinct

Do you need killer instinct to play cricket? Many will argue that you don’t. But I think it’s important, and connects directly with our very own ‘chalta hai’ culture, where there is a tendency to say "We’ll see," or "Well, it will get done, sometime" with every job, big or small. It is the root cause of the lack of quality of work in India. The Indian cricket team had not made up its mind on the field that it was going to do its best to win the game against Zimbabwe. The message communicated by the players’ body language was, "If we win then that’s great; if we don’t, then that’s okay too." The high-voltage energy and killer instinct you would expect to see in a team that really wanted to win was missing.

The Hierarchy of Sport

I also saw a great deal of difference in what I call the "Sudra" play and the "Brahminian" play. By Sudra play I mean throwing yourself into the fielding and doing anything you can to save a run. Brahminian play means standing around lethargically, considering fielding an unworthy cause, or thinking that the glory of the game lies only in batting and hitting fours and sixes. In reality, it is the extra efforts, made on a collective basis, that result in wins. But as far as the Indian team was concerned, this was a lost cause.

During the game, players on the Indian team did not make much of an effort in their fielding – to dive for the ball and save it from crossing the boundary. This has clear parallels with life and society in India, where traditionally, only office jobs carry respect. Most other work is considered worthless. Even in cricket there is a hierarchical mindset that is reflected in the way the team plays the game. The players need to go beyond their individual agendas – "I will make 100 runs," or "I will take 5 wickets." The goal is for the team to win, and that should remain the focus.

Time Out

During the game, I noticed that there was very little review on the field. This is very different from American football, or the American style of management for that matter, where "time out" is the signal to rethink, realign, reposition, and restrategize based on what’s happening on the field at one particular time. I didn’t ever see the Indian cricket team getting together on the field to do that. This again reflects our way of conducting business. Indians tend to do very little to review and realign when working on an assignment. That’s not part of our culture. Instead we rely on "karma" – the idea that fate is already decided. Self-evaluation is important, for both cricket players and for managers.

Rising to the Occasion

One of the responsibilities of a leader, whether in cricket or in management, is to set expectations for the team, and to generate the enthusiasm that will motivate the team to win, to accomplish its goals. During the World Cup, it seemed that the Indian cricket team had no idea what people were expecting of them. Perhaps they were unaware that a nation of 900 million people was counting on them, was backing them, and that it was the team’s responsibility to take the energy of those people and win that game. Maybe they did not understand the costs of losing the game – in lost time, and lost productivity due to ensuing national depression. This is what happens in management of an organization as well. If the leadership is not there to motivate the team and set the stakes for the players, the team loses momentum and does not get the job done.

I have discussed these issues in this column before -- teamwork, leadership, vision, goal-setting, ability to review, killer instinct, and desire to get it done. In watching the cricket game I realized that these are challenges of management, not skill. The skills are there, but we fail time and time again in organizing our skills, managing our resources, reviewing our agenda, and putting in the energy that is needed. I have seen this many times in India where there may be very well-laid plans for projects but the plans are not implemented because the right kind of management is not backing them up.

Organizational success or failure can almost always be traced to management. Cricket is no exception. The eleven players, chosen for a national team out of a huge cricket loving country must be managed by someone who can psyche them up and ignite killer instinct. When managers develop a business strategy, they too need to feel the energy of those 900 million people and then go into the game to win. That is the challenge.

It’s possible that I read too much into that cricket game. Maybe it’s no big deal -- lose today, win tomorrow. But I didn’t see it that way. I saw it as a reflection of what India is all about. There are vast differences in the physical sizes of India and Zimbabwe and their populations. But the differences melted on the field that day. If the Indian team lacked velocity by itself, the mass of the huge nation backing it up could have been expected to help generate greater momentum. It did not happen. We need to focus on improving management, motivating team players, generating energy. We need to go into each day saying, "How do we win? How do we change the attitude? How do we reposition ourselves?" Teams in India, whether in cricket or in business, have to do these things if they want to go out there and win.

Sam Pitroda is chairman & CEO of WorldTel. Following a successful career in the US in the design and manufacturing of digital switching technology, Mr. Pitroda served as the first chairman of India’s Telecom Commission. He holds over 50 worldwide patents, and is founder of several companies in Europe and North America.

To have an active exchange of ideas with Sam Pitroda, write to: pitroda@siliconindia.com
This article is based on a telephone conversation with Sam Pitroda.

Twitter
Share on LinkedIn
facebook