Management Lessons to learn from Cricket

Cricket – The Gentleman’s Game teaches many management lessons.

India is a country where cricket is a religion where a family unites and cheers every match as a festival. There is no child in India who haven’t played cricket once in his lifetime. In India every household is a cricketing critique and every match is watched religiously.

As the match is over, we get back to our mundane tasks that we always critically analyze the final over. From the sweat on the playground, it’s back to the daily grind. But it would be good to pause and ponder over the lessons that we can learn from this most loved game of the nation.

There are some lessons we can learn from cricket. 

1.Lead from the front, take calculated risks: What differentiates a great leader from a good leader is the “Ability to lead from the front” and the courage to take “calculated risks”. Every risk has a probability of failure but if you don’t take risks, you don’t achieve anything.

During the three matches played at Christ Institute of Management, Delhi NCR led by the two enthusiastic leaders Nihar Sankla and Akshay Bhatt. There had been a tough competition between both the teams. Both the captains took calculated risks and took the complete responsibility of the decisions they took. They took brave and risky moves. This is what great leaders are made of. At Christ Institute of Management  we give birth to your leadership qualities.

2. Work with your strengths, be a “Change Agent”: In today’s competitive world, we are so much interested in addressing our “areas of improvement” that very often we forget to build on our strengths. Knowing our strengths and using them to our advantage are important as working on our areas of improvements. Do what you are good at, you need not succumb to “herd mentality”. This is the only way you can develop “Center for Competence” in different technologies and domains.

It is also important that each of us behaves like a “Change Agent”.  Having an attitude of “we always do it this way” can be the biggest deterrent for improvements and enhancements.
All the three matches when critically analyzed showcased different strategies that made the ten over matches more exciting and challenging. The strategies used were different from the

“conventional wisdom”.

3. Loyalty versus Productivity: A good leader should realize that though loyalty from team members is good, it should not be at the cost of productivity. He should be able to “separate the grain from chaff”. Learn to distinguish between “wanted” and “unwanted” attrition. Misplaced loyalty can result in loss of productivity.

The move of using Divyansh in the overs even though his success in taking 2 wickets giving 40 runs was the one of the reasons that Akshay’s team was not able to win the match. Compare this with Libin’s 36 runs in 10 balls in the same match and you know who won the match.

Bottom Line:

At the time of retirement, the Company would reward their 25 years of loyalty with a Two Hundred Rupee HMT watch that they would proudly display on their wrinkled wrist. In any field, whether its sports or management, it’s important to continue in the “same field” to acquire good functional and domain competency. A best example of “continuation” comes from none other than Sachin Tendulkar, the God of Indian cricket. In his 21 years of Indian cricket, he has conquered most of the World records, more than what the rest have achieved put together. However, just for a moment, pause and think how little Sachin would have achieved if he had been changing his sport every 2 years!

Whether it is a game of cricket or professional work, the core values, ethics and principles remain unchanged!