Games People Play

We all cherish those childhood days when we would sneak out of the house to play kabaddi or stay up late nights at the club to play tennis. We won some and lost some, but little did we know that our character was being steadily moulded through sports. Experts confirm that the qualities one imbibes as a sportsperson can easily be translated into one’s work life. And if you feel that you have lost touch with your favourite sport, it’s time to revisit your golden days – with a little help from your employer.

A NEW INNINGS
Organisations are making sports an important part of their employee engagement and retention policy. For example, Percept Holdings employees have participated in many major sporting tournaments. They also won the CAG Shield cricket tournament recently. Percept’s group company P9 Integrated also participated in the 17th Bombay Gymkhana ‘6-A-Side Soccer Tournament’ 2007. Sangeeta Chacko, Head - Corporate Communications, Percept Holdings enlists three qualities that employees can learn by playing sports:

1.Strategy -
At work or at play, it’s all about making ‘strategic’ decisions. One may adopt either a short-term strategy or a long-term strategy to win on the field. Let’s illustrate this point with an example related to India’s favourite sport: cricket. While you may have a short-term strategy to promote a certain batsman earlier in the batting order to achieve a certain objective, you may also have a long-term strategy to groom a specific player for a specific position in the batting order. Just as in sport, work, too challenges your strategy skills.

2. Planning v/s execution -
The plans you discuss in the boardroom or dressing room will remain mere plans, until you are able to physically implement them successfully in real-time at the workplace or on the field.

3. Thinking on your feet -
At work or in a sport, one is always faced with critical situations when smart decision-making becomes vital, especially when the spotlight is on you and your moves are being scrutinised. If the right decisions aren’t made, it could lead to disastrous consequences. Similarly, an employee too can be faced with such a situation in his/her
work-life.

Sports have an universal appeal and help employees bond in a way, which would otherwise not be possible. “Hierarchical considerations are ignored during a passionate debate about a sport,” says Roopa Badrinath, HR Head of Rediffusion DYR. The company screened the T20 finals between India and Pakistan and got the entire office to watch the match together, to foster team spirit. Badrinath adds, “Sports help unearth the employees’ dormant leadership qualities. It nurtures problem solving, communication, conflict resolution, goal setting, and planning skills of employees in the context of a game or a sport.” Experts also say that sports are a great way of infusing fun at the work place in addition to making the work environment lively and positive.

While Percept has got a kickboxing expert on board, the employees at Rediffusion DYR have entertaining pool sessions especially when the CEO enthusiastically plays with the employees. Employees at Patni are also huge fans of ‘box cricket’ and they do organise cricket matches for women only. On the other hand, The KPIT Cummins Infosystems Ltd football team reached the semi-finals of the 5th inter IT Football Championship trophy organised by ‘The Maharashtra Krida Mandal’. “We followed the policy of not having one captain. Everyone in the team got a chance to captain the team for different matches and build their leadership capabilities,” says Shrikant Kulkarni, VP HR, KPIT Cummins Infosystems Ltd. Teams from the entire Mudra Group across India participated in the Mudra Cricket Cup held in Mumbai. Six of Mudra Group’s most talented employees were also sent to West Indies in 2007 to watch the World Cup as recognition of their excellent contribution to the company.

SCORING SUCCESS
With the world shrinking and the nature of work activity getting increasingly integrated, employees are required to
work in close synergy with teams, which could be very disparate. “In such a scenario, employees must be able to exhibit strong cohesiveness and team spirit. In addition to this, they have to be able to work as a productive unit unmindful of geographical, national or personal beliefs. Professional sportsmen stand for similar ideologies,” says Vikram Karayi, Senior Vice President – HR, Xansa (India). The value of working as a team remains the most imperative lesson that we learn from sports activities. Prince Augustin – Senior VP, Human Capital, Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) – Automotive Sector gives his take, “The diversity of the teams creates an environment of equals. Their interaction is not that of a superior-subordinate at work. New strengths are identified and this creates a league of confident people.” Kalpana Srinivasan, HR Head, Aspire Systems adds, “Peer team members who earlier had a notion of disliking each other or team members who hated a particular boss, all come to look at each other in a totally different plane when it comes to sports.” Xansa’s cricket team participated in the 8th ‘CRY CADENCE Corporate Cricket Challenge’ in the month of October. On M&M’s Founder’s Day, they had a special football match in which Mahindra United participated. Taking on from the success of this informal bonding, M&M has introduced football coaching as a part of the extra curricular activities in the Graduate Engineer Trainees (GET) induction. At InfoVision, ‘InfoVision T20 Cricket Challenge’ between two centres was organised in Delhi. Apart from the winning trophy, awards were also given in different categories like the man of the match, best bowler, best batsman and best fielder too. GlobalLogic too has been participating in inter-company tournaments from time to time and its soccer team won the ‘Airtel Soccer tournament’. The employees at Thomas Cook (India) Ltd. have taken part in the Mumbai Marathon for the past two years. Most of the leading organisations have exclusive screenings of movies like Chak De! India, Lagaan, Remember the Titans, Rocky Iqbal etc. in order to instill sportsman spirit among their employees. So if your boss suddenly challenges you to an impromptu dart game, don’t be surprised. For once, he won’t mind you outshining him!

(Please send in your commens/queries to viren.naidu@timesgroup.com)