Viren Rasquinha is a man of many parts. A former captain of the Indian hockey team, he’s also an Olympian, an alumnus of the prestigious Indian School of Business, and now the CEO of Olympic Gold Quest. It is an organization that’s helping to make champion sportspeople in India. At a Coaching Conclave organized by the Coaching Foundation of India, I had the privilege of being on a panel with Viren, trying to pick his brains on what executive coaches could learn from sports coaches. Viren was humility personified, and couldn’t resist a chuckle as he recalled two turning points in his life.
The first was when he was passing out of school. He was a good student, and when he scored high marks and topped his school, everyone expected him to get into an engineering college. After all, his mother was a doctor and both his brothers were engineers. But by then the hockey bug had bitten young Viren, and he was tempted to chase his dream and give the sport a shot. When he chose hockey over studies, everyone was surprised.
And then, at age twenty-eight, came the next turning point. At the peak of his playing career, he decided to give it all up to pursue an MBA at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad. When he chose studies over hockey, again, needless to say, everyone was surprised!
As someone who has played sport at the highest level—he led the India team—and then moved into a CEO role, Viren knows a thing or two about leadership and coaching people. He loves to narrate a tale from his playing days that holds a valuable lesson for leaders and coaches in every field of life.
It was a day of practice for the India team before an important game against the Aussies. Coach Cedric D’Souza was in charge and he was going through recorded footage of an earlier game, sharing expert advice. He was a good coach, much respected, and one of the first to use video analysis in training. As they watched the game on the big screen, the team saw Mukesh Kumar—India’s star forward—dribbling his way towards the Aussie goal—but instead of hitting it into a gap, he hit it straight to an Australian defender. The coach hit the pause button at just that instant and said to Mukesh: ‘Dekho! Itne saare gap thhe—aur tumne seedha unke player ko pass kiya! (Look! There were so many gaps—and yet you passed the ball straight to an opponent!)’
Mukesh turned to his coach and asked him to rewind the tape. And as the sequence played out, Mukesh said to his coach: ‘Sir, upar se sirf gap hi gap nazar aata hai. Neeche aake dekho to kuch aur hi nazar aayega! (From up above, all you see are gaps everywhere. On the actual field of play the reality is very different!)’
What is true of the game of hockey is true across businesses too. Leaders and coaches would do well to remember that they need to relate to other people—at their level. The distance between a leader and a subordinate may not be too great on an organization chart but the perspectives can be very, very different. Good leaders learn to put themselves in their teammates’ shoes. The view from the top is often distorted. Good leaders never forget that ‘Upar se sirf gap hi gap nazar aata hai!’
As I heard Viren recount the story, I was reminded of my days at Pepsi. My mind went back to those innumerable market visits. We’d be out meeting dealers and visiting stores, and the script would be the same for most visits. Typically, the sales guys would have slogged to ensure that our products were available in as many stores as possible. They’d also make sure every store had at least a few bottles of even the less popular, slower moving brands. The salesman would be doing his bit to help his company win the war. But as leaders, what would we notice? We’d see a small shop somewhere selling soft drinks—but no Pepsi. And we’d point out the huge opportunity we were missing! We’d spot some shop that would have Pepsi but no Mirinda. And we’d talk about the missed sales opportunity. It now strikes me that we could see only the missing pieces—the gaps! And there was little or no appreciation for the effort put in to ensure that Pepsi was everywhere. Well, almost everywhere. And as all those images from the past raced through my mind, I wished I had heard Viren’s story earlier!
When the hockey coach pointed out the gaps to Mukesh Kumar that day, he was falling into two common leadership traps. One, failing to appreciate the good work done—after all, Mukesh had dribbled the ball past several opponents to get close to the Australian goal. And two, failing to realize that in that moment, all that Mukesh could probably see were the Aussie giants in yellow and green!
As leaders, we often fall into the trap of wanting to dish out advice and point out the flaws. We should take some time out to understand the real picture before coming up with our master solutions to the problem.
The next time you think you’ve spotted an obvious flaw in a colleague’s work—or the missing piece in a team member’s output—take a deep breath before you take off. Don’t rush to tell him what’s wrong. First, try and appreciate the work done. Put yourself in his shoes. And try and look at the problem from that perspective.
And remember, upar se sirf gap hi gap nazar aata hai!
The distance between a leader and a subordinate may not be too great on an organization chart but the perspectives can be very, very different. Good leaders learn to put themselves in their teammates’ shoes. The view from the top is often distorted. Good leaders never forget that ‘Upar se sirf gap hi gap nazar aata hai!’