Being a big cricket fan, and English, has been a painful experience of late, given the recent Ashes whitewash. There has certainly been no shortage of post-mortem from all quarters.
Today's Jobs Supplement in The Daily Telegraph provides one of the most insightful yet. David Bolchover is the co-author of “The 90-Minute Manager - Lessons from the Sharp End of Management”. In “Management stumped? Think cricket”, Bolchover argues that companies would do well to remember the
His argument begins with whether appointing a fast bowling all-rounder as captain (i.e. Andrew Flintoff) can ever be the sensible choice as leader, except as a last resort (he cites authority from former England captain Mike Brearley's “The Art of Captaincy”). Bolchover points out that the top 10 players with most matches as Test Match captain are all batsmen.
He says that when businesses promote excellent all-rounders to management positions, and such managers combine their newly acquired responsibilities with their previous workload, something has to give, usually the time needed to organise, develop and cajole others.
He then moves through issues of selection, motivation, self-motivation, competition for places, sustaining a high level of performance over time and proving doubters wrong.
The article ends with the example of the last day of the second Ashes Test in Adelaide, when Australia forced a victory from a seemingly impossible position at the start of play through sheer energy, belief and a fierce focus on ambitious short-term targets, namely to apply intense pressure to force early wickets and to unsettle England to such an extent that they capitulated, which is what happened.
Bolchover concludes by quoting former Australian captain, Ian Chappell:
“They [
He ends simply by saying:
“In the business world characterised by ever-intensifying competition, there can be no more important lesson from sport that that.”