R & R of SRK, F & F of KKR

Just a bit of irony - a biographical film on SRK some time back was titled ‘Rise and Rise of Shahrukh Khan’. Today’s Hindustan Times reported another headline – ‘Fall and Fall of Kolkata Knight Riders’.

Of the eight teams, seven have been winning some and losing some, but the KKR has been only losing and losing.



Remember, the beginning of IPL? Which team was most talked about? Which team got best of the sponsors (Nokia!!!)? Which team had one of the most successful captains? Top it with a new bowling sensation of the times (who gave a new meaning to the word ‘embarrassment’ to one Mr. Ponting) and a powerhouse engine behind them – Shahrukh Khan. Every other team looked outclassed even before it all began!

What went wrong? Reams and reams have already been written and much more would follow as it is about two biggest passions of more than a billion people – Cricket & Bollywood! Here is my two penny worth.

To me, this poses a case study of - an attempt to drive very hard (towards your way to success). Contrast this with nurturing, building and slow but deliberate steering. I am an advocate of the latter. In my close-to-2-decade experience in corporate, I have come to this conclusion.

As they say, the ‘whole’ is more than sum of its individual parts. A team is not just only a summation of individual talents of the team-players but is also about their binding. This binding is further dependent on the frame of minds of these players. This frame gets positively impacted by factors such as –a positive (non-threatening) environment, a common (winning) cause, a clear understanding of know how – what’s to be done (what each player’s role is) and finally a feedback loop.

In corporate parlance, one would refer to these as the culture, the vision, the strategy (planning & execution) and the review.

We Indians are emotional people. Our performance varies very strongly based on our emotional mind frame. To me, this is what is being missed out by people who are hard task masters. In order to bring wholesale changes, one often overlooks the acceptability of these changes by the affected individuals (change management).

I think this was the nemesis of KKR. John Buchanan and SRK didn’t seem to do this so well. Their strategy evoked a threatening environment where apprehension was bigger than anything else. To form a “team” in such circumstance itself is a difficult task, forget about performance. The symptoms are then mistrust, sullen-ness and even ‘an insider mole’!

“What can a coach or captain do if team drops so many catches?” asked team CEO Joy Bhattacharya. My question is - you think KKR players have butterfingers? Or dropping catches is just a symptom of a deeper malaise?

A successful captain, who was successful in the first place because he backed his team-mates, became just a caricature of himself as his own existence was threatened. Contrast this with Shane Warne – who had no other big influence on the team except him and who could take his time, could carefully nurture, build and strengthen a real ‘team’. They were slow starters this IPL, but as the time passed, like wine they are back at their winning ways.



In the matrix of task orientation vs. people orientation, in India I guess, it’s better to err slightly on the people side. Hope Shahrukh becomes a bit of builder too, apart from being a driver!