Does WI Cricket Have the Right Leadership?

No other endeavour has brought as much joy, honour and glory to the West Indies than cricket. Over the years, we have tried many ways of bringing West Indian people together but none has come near to cricket. It has strengthened our self-belief and has given us a sense of belonging and a level of pride and self-confidence that no other endeavour has been able to give us.

No other game is more important to West Indian people than cricket. It has a powerful impact on our thinking, emotions, behaviour and self-worth. But, it goes deeper than that. It lies at the heart and soul of our inner world or psyche. Nothing affects the national mood more than cricket. It is the single most important factor that binds West Indian people together.

Cricket is an integral part of our history and culture and is at the heart and soul of our psycho-social being. We must not, therefore, allow any person, any institution or any organization and it employees who might be ignorant of our cricket culture, cricket history and cricket achievements and of the impact these have had on our political and social development to turn back the clock and take our cricket back to the colonial era. How sad it would be if we were to sit back passively and allow that to happen. Survival through submission might have been the norm in the 19th and 20th Centuries, but in the 21st Century it is unacceptable.

(History has shown that) ? leaders who plunge their organizations into crisis are not the best or indeed the right people to take it out.

In 1996 I wrote: ?I believe that the West Indies team is now on the decline and it will take a mighty effort to start a second growth or recovery curve to reach the point where it would have been had it started its second growth curve when the team was doing well. Creating and establishing a second growth curve is the greatest challenge facing West Indies cricket.? These observations are just as relevant now as they were in 1996.

In that article I added: ?(When organizations or teams) are in the stage of decline and decay, motivation is low, finances and other resources are depleted, and people are depressed. In addition, the leaders are discredited ? President, CEO, Coach, Captain, Manager ? because they are seen as the cause of the organization?s failure. Parochialism and insularity usually show their ugly heads and multiply. Eventually the leaders are replaced because it is felt that only people new to the situation would have the credibility, vision and motivation to start a revival curve.? (Is West Indies cricket now going down that path or has it already done so?)

The second curve (or revival curve) be it a new strategy or development program, is usually different from the old. But for this to be successful, the old must for a time coexist and cooperate with the new. It requires great courage and extraordinary understanding for old members to help the new ones and at the same time plan their own departure. People who do this successfully usually ensure the survival and revival of the organization. (Is the current Board committed enough to take a wise lesson from history and follow that path?)

In every part of the world, there is a renewed recognition of the importance of people and the skills of individuals and individual units to the success of the organization. Today, companies that ignore or diminish their employees do so at their own risk. As recently as three decades ago, the importance of employees was downplayed because the company believed its success was due to its systems and not the workers. Workers were seen as part of the machinery of the system and were treated unfairly and in some cases inhumanely. They were told to fit into the system, or else. These organizations often target certain people whom they see as ?disruptive? and set out to eliminate them. Even the most valuable and productive employees are targeted for humiliation and removal if they do not comply completely and fall in line. Does this organizational behaviour sound familiar? Just look at some of the recent events in West Indies cricket.

Most progressive organizations discard authoritarian, rigid and inflexible approaches and design new and creative models around their people. They feel that organizations are about people that should be built for the people and by the people.

There are so many problems facing West Indies cricket that it is difficult to know where to start to solve them. The chaos, madness and pandemonium facing West Indies cricket are systemic problems. If CLR James were alive today, he would say that West Indies major problem is ?Beyond the Boundary?, and not ?Within the Boundary?. I believe that an examination of leadership in the organization is a good place to start.

In today?s rapidly changing and very competitive world there is an ever-growing need for good leadership. And yet, there is an absence of this quality in too many of today?s (sports) organizations.

In light of this, West Indies cricket should ask itself questions about its leadership. To get the right answers to those questions, it must be brutally honest with itself because denial, excuses and apportioning blame do not solve problems. They only perpetuate them. And it is worth repeating that leaders who plunge their organizations into crisis are not the best or indeed the right people to take it out.

The Board must now ask itself if it has the right leadership in place to stop the decline of West Indies cricket? And the public has every right to ask if the Board has the correct President, CEO, Chief Cricket Development Officer, Coach, Captain and Manager in place? It would be interesting to hear the answers to those questions.

West Indies is not the first team to find itself in a prolonged performance slump and it does not need to reinvent the wheel. It can learn from other countries that have experienced similar slumps. If the leaders West Indies cricket don?t wish to ask Clive Lloyd how he took his team out of a very bad slump and built it into one of the greatest teams in the history of sport, they can look at the Australian recovery program in the late eighties and early nineties. The current Australian team has benefited from the hard work and strategic planning of four wise gentlemen ? selectors Bob Simpson, Greg Chappell, Laurie Sawle and Jim Higgs.

Those of you who wish to learn about that transformation process can do so by reading Bobbie Simpson?s book, ?The Reasons Why: a decade of coaching, a lifetime of cricket?.

Conflict prevention and conflict resolution are perhaps the greatest needs facing West Indies cricket at the present moment. Constructive conflict can be a powerful performance enhancer. But when it becomes destructive conflict, performance will always suffer.

In the last few months, our cricket has been dominated by acrimonious and destructive conflict that involved the Board, the players, the Players? Association and a former and current sponsor of the West Indies team. So far the methods used to resolve those disputes have been unsuccessful.

There are basically four ways to resolve conflict: You can fight or litigate; you can negotiate or bargain; you can problem solve; and you can design a way out.

In the fight mode, both sides attack. As they do so, they stop listening to each other, (the purpose of the discussion is forgotten as egos take over), and positions become more rigid and inflexible. Each side tries to prove itself right by proving the other side wrong or by discrediting or humiliating the other side. Eventually one side wins and the other loses. The winner feels good about the outcome while the loser becomes bitter and resentful. Full of bitterness, the loser does not accept decisions willingly and does not go out of his way to make them work. This is the most popular but most inefficient way to resolve conflict.

In this type of conflict resolution, there is always a win/lose situation. If you were observant you would have noticed this behaviour a few months ago before and after Judge Saunders? ruling on player contracts.

Negotiation is about compromise. It is a better form of conflict resolution than the fight approach. Each side takes a position and then compromises by giving ground and moving closer to each other. But if one side does not give ground, negotiation will not be possible. I recently read that this was indeed the tactic of one of the parties in the current dispute between the WICB and WIPA.

In problem solving, the problem is analyzed and the cause is identified and put right or eliminated. People who use this method mistakenly believe that when they remove the cause, everything will automatically go back to normal ? remove the dictator and democracy will flourish. But what happens if you cannot remove the cause? What happens if you can?t find a cause? What happens if there are multiple causes? What do you do? These are limitations of this method. Again we have seen an example of the use of this method in recent times in our cricket team when our best player, the team?s most valuable asset was removed from the team. The thinking was ?remove the trouble maker and the team will automatically perform well?! Saddam Hussein has been removed from power in Iraq, but democracy is not flourishing there.

The design method results in a win/win situation. It is not just a matter of removing a problem or reaching a compromise. It is about creating a new situation that is mutually beneficial. It is the best way to resolve disputes but it requires goodwill, creative thinking and a willingness to find a solution. Again one gets the impression that one of the parties in the current dispute does not want to find a mutually beneficial solution.

The West Indies Cricket Board must not remain stuck in its narrow, confining, and authoritarian perceptual bubble. It must escape that bubble and begin to think in different ways and see things from different perspectives. Piaget once said that the true measure of wisdom is the capacity to see and understand things from many different perspectives.

During the Watergate crisis in the USA, John Dean, the counsel to President Nixon told him that he thought there was a cancer on the presidency. Nixon was not happy with those comments and eventually fell out with Dean. We now know that Dean?s diagnosis was correct, that the Nixon administration self-destructed and Nixon himself had to resign.

The cancer is a destroyer, not a builder. It is not interested in preserving the health and welfare of the body. It is only interested in itself ? its own growth, power and control. It is the epitome of selfishness. Although it achieves its short-term objective of enlarging and spreading to the rest of the body, it always loses in the end, because it eventually kills the body, the very thing it needs to survive. When it kills the body, it kills itself. It commits biologic suicide.

Some one recently asked me if I thought there was a cancer in West Indies cricket. I said I didn?t know but that time will tell.

* Dr. Rudi Webster is a former first class cricketer who now serves as Director of the Cricket Academy of St. George's University in Grenada. This article appears by special arrangement with the ChappellWay Web site.