A story that happened a couple of days back. In the society that we live in, a cricket tournament was organised. If you are from India, you will know that cricket is a religion in my country. It was a big event, and almost 250 people participated, from kids, women and men. I don’t play cricket, but I participated as social pressure. I thought this could allow me to meet more people.
There were eight men’s teams, each with ten members. Suppose a team comes to the finals to win the trophy; they have to play five games. Each has to play atleast three games in the league rounds. The hero of the story today is teamwork. It’s my team’s story which I want to tell today. We were the runner up and lost in the finals, but we won the game of team play.
Our team was not even on the radar of anyone’s strategy book. We had only one player who was known for his play. We also had a young player who played in a tournament. We have a couple of players who could play good cricket, and there were people like me who are playing maybe after 10-15 years. The team met for the first time 1 hour before our tournament started, which meant we didn’t know how others played.
Here is what we think we did well to be in the game
- We always kept encouraging each other after a bad performance
- We celebrate each small win by any player
- We did not spend our energy and attention on fights
- We played a fair game without sledging the opponent.
- Our caption made decision after talking with key players
- We had no extra pressure from our caption
- We never criticised each other for the losses in the beginning.
- No one showed any urge for heroism
- Everyone took their responsibility sincerely
We did not have any strategy, but we played with the above playbook. Try this in your next project and see what outcome it brings.
Vikram Shetty 