Getting things done

8.1.11

Nurtured in an open, capitalist, western society, we're encouraged to discern for ourselves what is sufficient and what isn't. The quality of leadership is one area we seem quick to judge. You can see this in the atmosphere of a team. Who is meant to be the leader? Is he/she respected? Is everyone open to their guidance? What are they like when they're under fire?

Roy Hodgson and Michael Clarke have not been going through the best of patches at the moment. Liverpool lost 3-1 to Blackburn at the weekend and Michael Clarke has endured a dreadful Ashes campaign. I admit, being in Germany at the moment, I'm extremely detached from both of them, but I'm judging the rhetoric they use in their press conferences.

In times of hardship, it really is up to a leader to make sure the best attitude or mentality is emphasised. In a group situation, it's so easy to follow the first voice that proclaims an attractive perspective. Furthermore, groupthink will further embed it until it becomes a status quo. I think it's fundamentally wrong, when a group comes to believe that everything is okay and they're only losing because of some bad luck. This can work the first few times, but when you don't find form again, it becomes destructive.

I've noticed it as a common phenomenon in park soccer and park cricket. At half time, we (Peakhurst United) would be losing 3-0, and Dave would say "Hey lads, don't worry, I actually think you're playing better than you were last week when you won! Just stay patient, keep doing what you're doing, and they'll get tired. You're still in it!" After getting a wicket, Lee tried to say something about walking in hard, being ready in the field (a really obvious thing to say, but he was trying to bring real focus to the group) and then some dickhead piped up with "Hey, let's just fire up, boys, we're not doing too bad, they're only 3 for 50-odd, let's just keep going!" and then the huddle finished.

Roy Hodgson: "I thought in the second half we did our best to retrieve a seemingly hopeless situation and get back on track and who knows, if Steven's penalty had gone in we might have even made the last five minutes even more exciting". It was good that he admitted his team played poorly (though no top manager should admit that it was a "seemingly hopeless situation", especially not when it was against a team that has barely threatened the European spots in the past decade).

My point is, as the leader, it's wrong to say, oh, if we had done this, we might have had a chance. It lulls your team into a false sense of security, suggests you think there's little wrong with your approach, deludes everyone from the fact that you are in a rut and have to work on something to get out of it, distracts everyone from coming up with a plan - no matter how simple the plan is... for example, Rafael Benitez at least got Liverpool's defence right!

I'm not a staunch Michael Clarke supporter and certainly not at the moment, but I found his post-Ashes comments healthy. "I feel a bit for the bowlers, because I know they've copped a lot of criticism throughout this series, but I think we as batters have to take a lot of responsibility as well. If you can put 400 runs on the board, as England have shown, your bowlers generally bowl a lot better than what we have. Putting 100, 200, 250 on the board and expecting the bowlers to get them out for that sort of target, I think we're asking a hell of a lot." Again, extremely obvious, basic plan, but the focus such a comment brings, I think, is extremely valuable.

But alas, Clarke's "It takes a lot of discipline, a lot of planning before the series" was counterbalanced by James Sutherland's ignorant and diplomatic "To point the finger at the preparation and suggest that was responsible for us losing the series 3-1 is rubbish, we actually played more Test cricket than England did in the two or three months leading into the Ashes series". Yeah, but what type of Test cricket was it? A hastily-put together two-Test series against India?! Australia played ODIs for the month before the Ashes series and England played 3 first-class matches around Australia!