Life's Lessons - Part 2 : Lessons from World Cup T20 in West Indies

The age of criticism and cynicism has dawned upon India - as our demigods let a billion people down, thanks to the spectacular defeats in the super 8s. It is time for the journalists and cricket enthusiasts to come together to discuss what we could have done better from the cozy comfort of their drawing rooms sipping some hot tea. This is the easiest part. The slightly more difficult part of the puzzle is to with BCCI making sense of this defeat and taking purposeful action - hopefully.

This is not the purpose of this blog.

I would like to spend a few minutes thinking about the lessons we can learn from looking at the performance of the teams at the World Cup. This a tad difficult and even a bit esoteric. But I suppose we lose nothing by giving this thought experiment an honest chance of survival and success.

1. Team Composition: Track record and experience is a good indicator for team selection. Often times, HR interviews do a good job of focusing on this vector. The aspect that we overlook - at least I have been guilty of this several times, is to do a good job of judging if there is hunger to contribute. Tiger teams that we put together to create an exceptional product or service, requires a clear commitment to the goal and alignment with the vision, combined with the energy to make a difference. This fizz is extremely crucial. Its hard to judge in an interview. But that's no excuse for doing a shoddy job of this. Teams with rich resumes hardly perform as well as team with rich resumes and great energy. Moderately glamorous resumes with rich energy and hunger to succeed - typically outperforms a team of  "retired" stalwarts.

2. Seniority in an job or skill is not a good reason for not getting a kick in the butt when you under perform. Often times, seniors do get away with less than optimum performance. They get into the role of mentoring juniors - essentially taking a laid back approach to their own assignment and letting the project suffer. Seniors must spearhead the "attack" and must help the team a) understand the big picture b)  make in road in face of stiff product targets c) enable the team members to play to their strengths.

3. Accountability: When you screw-up; learn to stand up and say -"We are sorry, we screwed up". Period. Keep it short.

4. Like all the products and services we purchase with our hard earned money - where price is always tad lower than value - so must our total compensation be. Earning more and earning more very quickly results in erosion of our values and the way we look at rewards. It suddenly becomes an issue of entitlement as opposed something that must be earned - requiring hard work as an essential input.

5. No matter what your mother, wife and sister tell you, please remember that there are scores of folks who are brilliant, a better bundle of talent and energy and more affordable than you. This constant reminder will ensure that your feet always stick to the ground beneath.

6. Chetan Bhagat once said, I quote, "Life is one of those races in nursery school where you have to run with a marble in a spoon kept in your mouth. If the marble falls, there is no point coming first. Same is with life where health and relationships are the marble. Your striving is only worth it if there is harmony in your life. Else, you may achieve the success, but this spark, this feeling of being excited and alive, will start to die. One thing about nurturing the spark - don't take life seriously. Life is not meant to be taken seriously, as we are really temporary here. We are like a pre-paid card with limited validity. If we are lucky, we may last another 50 years. And 50 years is just 2,500 weekends. Do we really need to get so worked up?." This is one thought that keep ringing in my ears. It has made life much more enjoyable and purposeful. The pre-paid card analogy works well for just about everything - about our lives, jobs and everything in between.

7. In other words, it is OK to lose some battles, just as it is OK to win some.

8. Never assume that all projects have fairy tale ending just because you organization and family cheers you every step of the way. The key question to ask is "Did we deserve to win?". The simple answer sometimes is "no". There is no shame in losing to someone who is significantly and consistently better than you.

9. I am reminded of something that I read sometime ago. It is a good summary of what I set out to say. Bill Gates gave a speech at a High School. The summary of which can be captured as a few rules.

         1. Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!
         2. Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.
         3. Rule 3: You will not make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
         4. Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
         5. Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
         6. Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
         7. Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
         8. Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.
         9. Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.
        10. Rule 10: Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
        11. Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

10. I am not sure if Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Co / BCCI  care to learn lessons or not, this World Cup T20 failure does throw up a few bitter lessons for all of us in our corporate cricket fields - if we drew a parallel between a few critical projects at our workplaces with a World Cup. Poignant. Stark. Humbling. Wholesome.