I write this while sitting at the Mantra Surf Club in Mukli (Karnataka State) during the 6-day break between the Kitply Cup in Bangladesh and the Asia Cup in Pakistan. Residing in fairly rural India has afforded me the time and mental space to reflect on the previous tournament and to plan for the upcoming Asia cup.

My learning process is to ask “what did I do well in preparation for and during the Kitply Cup, and what learning there was that I can bring to the Asia Cup”. A similar process is asked of each player and member of the management team.

Our approach is to ask each person including ourselves to take responsibility for our contribution to the team’s performance, on and off the field. What works, what is not working and how are we doing in relation to the teams vision and goals.

What we aim to achieve through this approach is to fast-track learning on an individual and team basis. We challenge each person in the touring party to raise the bar on their performance, or to coin a phrase from the Executive Coaching profession, to become ‘self-organised learners’.

We know that a team of self-organised learners, or people who ‘think for themselves’, produces a rich environment for learning and performance, both on an individual and team basis.

We believe deeply that each person on the team has valuable contributions to make to the overall team processes. Each knows what inspires them or works best for them, naturally, because each is an expert in their own lives. This is not withstanding the fact that each of us can learn from the experience, expertise or feedback from others.

One problem that prevails in sport coaching worldwide is that the latter approach is used almost exclusively. The coach is presumed the expert, so players look to him/ her for the answers, for motivation. In this model the coach is the expert, or is empowered, and the players by inference are disempowered. The coach is required to do the thinking and the players to do the playing.

This approach works better at more junior levels. The problem is that as players get more experienced they have not had the experience of thinking for themselves. The result is that junior players become senior players who still have the tendency not to think for themselves, not to be able to self-correct their technique or mind in the heat of battle, but who rely on the coach to tell them what went wrong, and how to correct it.

This is likened to a parent who always decides what’s best for their child and always tells them what to do... and then expects when they leave home after some 18 years to be able to automatically make their own best decisions, having seldom or never done so before.
Or the boss who makes all the decisions in her company, and then one day when the business grows and one of her managers are promoted to be a manager the boss can’t understand why the new manager can’t think for themselves and make his own decisions.

At an earlier stage in both the parenting and boss example, it may have been more ideal for the child/ employee to be allowed and encouraged to think for themselves, to make their own decisions, and to be guided in this process. Guided, not controlled.

My research in cricket, which admittedly at this stage is limited with respect to India, suggests that globally players are overly reliant on being told what to do. In this way, their full potential and motivation is limited – for the simple reason that potential and motivation comes from within.

That said there are examples abound in sport/ business and life of the overbearing coach/ boss/ parent/ spouse with the accompanying players/ employees/ children/ partners who are disempowered and who do not learn to think for themselves. Certainly in sport this dictatorial approach may produce results in the short term, but is not sustainable and will not produce consistent success.

On the other side of the spectrum there are also examples of leadership/ parenting that does not provide sufficient input or guidance, and which leads to fragmentation within that system.

Despite all the ‘how to’ books available, there is no one right way. The approach Gary and I are employing at this stage is to balance what
we think is best with what the individuals in the team think is best.

That is to say that we rely on our experience and expertise, combined with the feedback from within the system to guide us as to the right approach at the right time. With careful enough attention we will know what is working and what is not – most of the time.

In concluding, you might be wondering about the opening sentence, Mantra Surf Club? In India? Well I guess surfing, by this I mean riding waves in the sea, might be another one of India’s well-kept secrets.

As India continues its quest as the next ‘world super-power’, the beach culture may well grow, and if so, inevitably so will surfing. A few days ago a few local Indian surfers from the East Coast arrived at the Manta Surf Club in Mulki to surf with some local West Coast surfers, along with the clubs resident Californians. This gathering of about eight was the sum total of local Indian surfers, for now.
Surfing the big monsoon swells, we all enjoyed two days of some of the best wave riding that I have had in my travels. As an avid surfer, I look forward to watching surfing in India grow.