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What businesses can learn from cricket: Leadership, teamwork and relationships

Aprais

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November 12, 2021 | 5 min read

Cricket is the only team game in which the role of the on-field captain is more critical and hands-on throughout the play

It’s also perhaps the only team game in which there is really no organic relationship between the players on the field. Unlike soccer, hockey or basketball, each ball bowled is a separate event. And it’s the team sport in which individual performances and records play a vital role in the iconography of the person involved – think ‘a hundred international hundreds’ attached to a player’s CV.

And yet, positive player relationships, teamwork and solid leadership are essential for success. The role of the captain in engendering positivity, motivating and getting each individual to think ‘team first’ is pivotal.

There are numerous instances where the best player on the team made a spectacularly unsuccessful captain – think India’s Sachin Tendulkar. He failed to get the best out of his team, going on to lose most games he captained, having to finally, and a trifle ignominiously, relinquish his captaincy. In the 98 matches that Tendulkar was captain, the team won only 27 games.

Then there are instances when average players became outstanding captains, such as England’s Mike Brearley. Not by a long shot the best batsman or player in the England team. His record in Test cricket as a batsman was modest but he was an outstanding captain. He captained the international side in 31 of his 39 Test matches, winning 17 and losing only 4.

His team leadership skills (he was once described by Rodney Hogg as having “a degree in people”) drew the best from the players in his team.

Captains who led ‘from the rear’ succeeded where iconic personalities failed because pursuing personal records, not being able to identify with and assist the less naturally gifted and revelling in the aura of superstardom are all barriers to leadership.

What does all this have to do with business relationships? The corporate world is in many ways similar to cricket, where relationships are largely inorganic, yet play a crucial role in determining the success.

This is all the more relevant in people-driven business like marcomms. And as in cricket, the role of team leadership is central to the performance of the business. When it comes to client-agency relationships, the teams take their cue from the behaviour and attitudes of the leaders.

Client-side leadership could involve treating the relationship with the agency as a master-servant model, coming in only at the end of the campaign development process to dramatically alter direction or referring to the agency disrespectfully.

Or, it could involve treating the agency members with the respect due to professionals. My mind goes back to one of our largest and oldest clients when I was working in-agency, when our team members were given pride of place in all functions and the agency head was seated at the CEO’s table throughout. Nothing could have more effectively signposted the equality of the relationship.

Though demands on leadership agency-side are similar in many ways, there is one crucial difference. Agency leadership must stand up to clients who bully, browbeat, keep people waiting and regularly threaten to take away their business.

If a team sees their leader bowing and scraping at the most ridiculous demands from a client, this becomes the thin end of the wedge. Agency team members must believe themselves to be professionals as good as their client-side counterparts and be treated as such. If not, rot sets in and it can be difficult to eradicate.

Perhaps this is the most important requirement of team leadership, respect and self-respect. Taking hard decisions when needed, without politics, and standing behind your people.

At Aprais, we segment team evaluations into functional disciplines and behaviours. Disciplines change according to the different demands of each role, while behaviours are common and allow us to compare different business teams.

Analysis of our 24,000 client-agency evaluations shows that scores for the behaviour 'challenge' have improved substantially for top and bottom-performing agencies in the decade since 2010.

This suggests clients are more prepared to change processes, resolve issues and take risks than they were a decade ago. Equally agencies feel more empowered to challenge traditional processes and solutions and think more laterally.

It’s not easy, but then who said leadership was a bed of roses? Roses have thorns – the idea is to enjoy the ride, and help others enjoy it too.

Sunil Gupta is Regional Associate for Aprais in South Asia.

#client-agency Relationships #marketingprocurement #teams

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