Lessons from the sporting world

These are my personal views.

I’m not the first one to draw parallels between the sports world and corporate world. There is so much sports world teaches which is relevant to the corporate set up. Sports professionals have shown some greater values and characters which conveys some deeper messages to the corporate leaders. I would like to call upon few of those lessons which positively impacted me. There could me many more such instances and I’m happy to hear and learn from them.

-?????????Federer’s farewell: Not a great follower of Tennis as a game, but always had a respect for Tennis players such as Sampras and Agassi. In that line, the perception I had on Federer was that he is the definition of the word ‘gentleman’. But he did something different than the usual ‘gentlemen’ do. He did shed tears during the farewell, and he was holding hand with the fierce competitor he ever had in his career. What does it show, as leaders we are all human with emotions and weaknesses. It is ok to talk about it and let the people around you know who you are. By doing that we are not degrading ourselves, it helps others to understand you better and stand with you. Also, you are defined by your competition, so it is ?important to respect that competition.

-?????????Srilankan cricket team winning the Asia cup: They are yet to be qualified for the T20 world cup and started off the tournament with a defeat to Afghanistan. However, they built the resilience as they progressed in the tournament. They did not have many super stars and many of the players are inexperienced in a bigger stage. It all started with small and consistent contributions from almost all the players. They took turns to hold the fort. Lesson is when you build a team it is ok not to have super stars. If we can motivate the team members and bring the best out of them at different instances, that will lead to high-performance team.

-?????????Sonny Bill Williams giving away the Rugby world cup medal to a fan: This happened at the Rugby world cup finals in 2015. Soon after the game was won by the All blacks, there was a young fan of SBW was running in the field towards him. One of the security guards (with the right intention) tackles (not the best act on a 14 years old boy) him to the ground. This was watched by SBW and he consoles the boy and gives away his world cup winning medal. This made the boy delighted. World cup comes every four years and winning a world cup is not something happens that easily. That medal is a great sense of achievement which anyone would like to keep with them as memory of that victory. More than that the small boy did not contribute directly to the performance of SBW or the team. Many times, in the corporate world we haggle to give credit to others despite their contribution. It is important to recognize small contributions done by the people around us for them to perform better.

It would be great to hear from you all on what are the sports instances which touched you and taught you a lesson to apply in the corporate set up.