Archive for May, 2009

Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL 2009: Some Management Lessons

Posted: May 19, 2009 in Uncategorized
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There have been jokes in plenty about the KKR’s disastrous IPL season. Till date, I have also been involved to that extent only – had fun at their expense!

But an article in India Today, probing an analysis of the KKR performance got me thinking. One of the comments made by an ex-Australian cricketer (who is not named in the article) mentions that high profile coach John Buchanan was good to fine tune a team of brilliant individual cricketers (as in the Australian team that he coached then), but he would not be able to handle a team that has disparate and somewhat mediocre cricketers too.

This is an interesting thought, really. I remember during our college days, we had the Agrawal Classes in Mumbai, which had an amazing record at the IIT-JEE exams (and also the class XII HSC exams). The fact was that it restricted admissions to the absolute best-in-breed students and simply honed them to write the perfect exams. There were questions asked those days that if Agrawal Classes were really that good, can they take average performers and make them winners?? And the jury was out on that question. And we have seen others, such as the Super 30 – IIT group out of Bihar, where the not-so-perfect group has been converted into winners! Lagaan and Chak De India told similar stories. In real world sports teams, captains Mike Brearley (England), Warne (Rajasthan Royals) and Dhoni (India and Chennai Superkings) have done similar work. They have not necessarily had stars in their teams, but they have transformed average players into winning ones. Unlike John Buchanan!!

Could the same concept be true with CEOs? Would some CEOs succeed only when given star teams, whereas others manage to convert average performers into winning groups? Which is a better captain / coach / CEO to have? Buchanan or Brearley??

Another related and interesting thought with respect to sports teams is shared in the recent book, “Simplexity“. It talks about why good teams often lose against bad teams. The concept mentioned there is with respect to the ‘single line of fault’. With all the best players and strategy at a team’s disposal, how critical is a dropped catch in the 20th over?! Or a no-ball bowled or a wide given or a batsman giving away his wicket to an indiscrete shot at the very end?

That ‘single line of fault’ can undo all the great work of the great team, and which is the difference between winning and losing.

Like sports teams, companies are equally vulnerable to such ‘single line of fault’. There is a lot to learn from Mortaza’s wide in the 20th over to Rohit Sharma losing his wicket when just 4 runs were required in 4 balls. That could easily happen to your company too.. !

The con job that is India Today magazine subscriptions!!

Posted: May 8, 2009 in Uncategorized
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India’s leading magazine, India Today, may have a great reputation on the content side, but they are a perfect fraud with regards to their promises on the subscriptions front.

I must share a rather pathetic experience that I have had.

At the time of subscription purchase, there are a lot of lures. Free gifts and the like. I went ahead and subscribed. An email of confirmation came sometime later. Interestingly it was from an email id that was called “WE CARE”. That must be the biggest irony. The more appropriate one should have been “WE DO NOT CARE”!!

It was at the point of receiving this email that I discovered that the ‘free gift’ with the subscription will only come 12-14 weeks later!! Can you imagine? In this world of e-commerce, courier delivery etc., they need 12 to 14 WEEKS to deliver the gift?? What world are they living in?

I realized later that their game was about subscribers forgetting that a gift was ever promised. I mean, how many of us would remember after 12-14 weeks? And in that assumption that people will not remember, is their business model, perhaps!

Well, when I read that long delivery schedule and having a calendar handy (Google Calendar), I put a note for myself. And after the full 14 weeks had gone by, there was no sign of the gift. So I decided to write back to the “WE CARE” (lol) id of India Today. They must have been surprised that someone actually remembered about the gift! Taken by surprise, they kept a polite facade and proposed that it will take another 4-5 weeks to deliver. Okay! 12-14 weeks was obviously not enough. They are not tuned in for “express delivery” it was clear 🙂 So they needed another 4-5 weeks.

I was not happy. I made it amply clear. The oh-so-polite “WE CARE” chap apologised a plenty, and promised that it will reach definitely in 4-5 weeks. So now as I write this post, those 5 weeks are up. And there is certainly no sign of the gift. Looks like someone has seen through their game. They did not have any plan for any gift at all, after all?!

With the holier than thou reputation that the magazine claims to have, we now know the goings on behind the scene. What shocks me is the absolute lack of fredom to act, for their executives. I mean, how many people are likely to take up the case for a gift as strongly as I did? All it took was to find a way to send a gift across to me, even if it was completely out of the system, just to “shut me up”. But that liberty was obviously not given to them.

Clearly an old economy company which does not get the new realities. I read recently a report that quoted Aroon Purie, head of India Today, saying that they do not expect to make more investments into Digital media. Obviously not. They don’t get it!