Leadership Lessons from Indian Premier League.

Indian Premier League ( IPL) was started in 2008 and Rajasthan Royal won the league, the last team in the point table was Deccan Charger that year. Fast forward 2009 and Deccan Charger became the champion while the tournament was played in South Africa. The journey from the last in the points table to becoming champion was not easy as in the beginning they lost few matches in a row. Then the transformation happened which is a lesson in people management. Here is an insider account of what happened within the Deccan Charger Team.

Adam Gilchrist, the captain of Deccan Charger decided to do something, which is so simple and so obvious that often we miss it. He called every member of the team and started asking as to what is wrong with the team and what can be done to correct it. This is the account from the youngest and first player called by Adam. The young player suggested that the team has problem of groupism and the Indian players and foreign player operate in their own silos and not even talk to each other ( IPL has this mix of Indian and Foreign players in each franchise) and the team has to acknowledge this problem and do something about it. It was two extremely simple suggestions that there is a problem in team bonding and let us accept and do something about it. The captain immediately took action and ensured that the groupism stops forthwith. Like making team members of different countries to sit together with Indian players in the bus, aircraft, dinner table etc. and also practice together as a deliberate action. And then the miracle happened. Deccan Charges won all matches after that in the league stage and finally won the tournament under the leadership of legendary Adam Gilchrist.

The leadership lessons that emerged is,

1.????? Identify and acknowledge the problem

2.????? Do something to address the issue using simple structural changes in the

set up.

sometimes the most obvious solutions are the most effective. #leadershiplessons #peoplemanagement #IndianPremierLeague