From the barber to the CEO, everyone in India loves to hold court on what ails Indian cricket. The latest news is that Anil Kumble, the coach & Virat Kohli, the captain do not see eye to eye. To make the two reconcile is not my task. That said, this is a great opportunity to ask – Are we as a society and a people also blind to how things are? How often do we believe that choices made by our heroes will always be right? In the case of the Tata Group, it was Ratan Tata himself who had a role in appointing Cryus Mistry as the chairman in the first place. Anybody disputes that? We all know how that turned out. In the case of the Indian cricket coach, it was the famed trio of Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly & VVS laxman who chose Anil Kumble. And things have apparently not turned out well on the internal harmony front. Now, who is going to challenge the cricketing pedigree of these legends ? Not me. And yet, going by…
Leadership This Month : Missed Opportunities
Institutional Leaders with a historical legacy are faltering in the present. The International Olympic Association (IOC) & the Republican party establishment in the United States, in particular. The International Olympic Association (IOC) Russia, a sporting superpower was recently indicted in an independent anti-doping enquiry for establishment-backed doping by Russian athletes in the 2014 Winter Olympics at Sochi, Russia. Imagine hosting the Oympics and playing dirty on the side to help your country athletes win. This goes against the very spirit of everything that the Olympics stands for. With the Rio Olympics so near, the IOC had to respond and act fast. What did it do? The bare minimum was to bar Russian track and field athletes from Rio 2016. And that it did, though even here, there is a provision to get them in. But the IOC did not impose a blanket ban on all Russian participation in Rio. A blanket ban would have sent a very strong, but much needed message to all member nations and their sports-establishments that the IOC is uncompromisingly committed in its fight against doping and any other…
The Awards Controversy & A Way Out
There are no whole truths: all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays to the devil. – Alfred North Whitehead We, in India, love the feeling of having had our say. In that, we are not special or different. What is special and different is our ability to say the same thing over and over again. With every round of repetition, we think less and less about the whole thing. Our mind is made up. We are right. What else is there to think of? There are people who believe that those who return awards against the perceived rising intolerance in India are creating an issue where none exists. And there are people who believe that those who return awards have highlighted an issue of grave concern. Both sides of course believe that they are right and the other side is wrong! Do we see both sides actually talking with each other? Of course, not. They talk past each other. Each side selects facts most convenient to it and interprets the facts in…
Advice Given – Ignore Politics. Guess What. Politics Won’t Ignore You!
I read about an HR head sharing advice he got from a senior leader on the subject of politics. The gist of it was – “Be aware of politics, understand the dynamics. And ignore it while continuing to do the right thing for you and your organization.” As a politics student, I beg to differ. Politicians have given politics a bad name. Our own ineffective participation in the political process as citizens and voters has given politics a bad name. Politics is not a dirty word. If you equate politics with everything negative and refuse to have anything to do with it, you haven’t quite grasped its essence. Politics is an inescapable part of our human condition. You might think you have washed your hands off, but politics impacts you all the time. In other words, you may ignore politics but make no mistake about it, politics is not ignoring you! What is politics? It is the process of resource-allocation in any set-up. How to use any resource – food,wealth, time, material resources, arms, energy, any resource.On what basis is this…