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Paddy's Column
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Three questions we ask ourselves |
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Tuesday, 10 June 2008 00:00 |
There are a few things that I will become very familiar with over the next 22 months touring with Team India. One is eating vegetarian curry, dal and roti, and another is having conversations with Gary Kirsten.
And there are many more things that will become familiar as we go about the business of preparing the team for 25 more ODI’s and nine Test matches before the end of 2008. The intention is that winning games will be one of them – actually, we intend to make winning a habit.
But winning games doesn’t seem to take up much of our dinner conversations, which might sound strange, particularly as our employers expect winning to be the very essence of our job. The subject which tends to dominate much of our conversations concerns what we need to do in order to set up an ‘environment’ that will allow winning to happen.
There are no ‘secrets’ about the best way to do this. Forest loads of books have been written on the subject of creating a winning team, scientists have probed, injected, tested, x-rayed, measured and analysed every part of our bodies in the pursuit of performance enhancement, and scores of athletes and coaches have shared their ‘secrets’ of success in various forms of media.
For anyone with a computer and internet connection (which naturally we have), there is more information already out there than a slowish reader (like me) could read in a lifetime. So it’s all out there, and it’s obviously not ‘secret’.
So, our big ‘non-secret’ to success is ‘fundamentals’. In order to achieve our team goals, and this applies to any team and their goals, there need to be a series of fundamentals in place.
First, we needed clear goals or vision, otherwise we would end up striving hard towards nowhere in particular: “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there”.
Next, we need the right people with the right skills. India has a wonderful depth of cricketers with the right skill. As far as right people is concerned, this team has decided that the right player is one who is professional in his approach and who puts the team first, ahead of himself. So, we’ve got the goal, the people and the skill.
Now, we need the support, structure and strategy that will assist the players deliver on their goals. This is the subject of much of our dinner conversations. How can we best support each player to perform at their best, to be comfortable in their role and to enjoy what they do? Where can we improve as the management team? How do we ensure that the wisdom within each player is brought to the team, that every player has their voice heard? What is working at the moment, and how can we do more of it? What is not working well enough and how to make it work better? What needs to stop? Are we sure we know what the best in the world is doing? How can we innovate beyond them? The game is ever evolving and we should expect new innovations all the time - what will they be, how can we be the first to introduce them?
Being in management/ leadership positions means we know these are necessary and even obvious questions to be asking. We are also aware that it is the quality of the thinking which goes into answering these questions that will determine the quality of the answers. Are the questions being asked to everyone involved in the team/ business, or just amongst the leadership? And when people answer, what is the quality of the listening to the answer? How safe do people feel, particularly more junior members, to give their real answer? We ask these questions of ourselves, too.
For now there are probably more questions than answers, which feels appropriate for this moment in our Indian career. A number of answers have already emerged and solutions implemented, while others are awaiting the right time for their introduction. We will keep you up to date as they do.
So these are just some of the questions that are probed over dinner and between spoons of veg curry. Gary finished his meal long before I did. Was he hungry, or did I just talk a lot? |
Gary Kirsten's autobiography was first published in 2004.