A useful model in organisational excellence

On the eve of the opening match of the Stanford 20/20 Tournament, there is a gathering of 20 team captains, 14 legends and the media at the grounds. The event is informal, allowing free access to all by all, enabling productive use of each person's time.

It is a sign of things to come as the tournament unfurls for the second time.

The grounds are beautiful, and all the amenities show careful consideration for the needs of users. What has been modified on the ground itself – larger seating areas, more accessible concession stands, increased toilet facilities – has been done to improve spectator experience.

The same can be said of the media centre, which has been augmented with an annexe just off the pavilion to meet the needs of journalists to file stories away from the noise of celebration. Players' dressing rooms have been expanded and are well equipped. Former West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) physiotherapist Stephen Partridge will be available to all participating teams.

It is the striking thing about the organisation of this tournament. It is not about thoughtless and lavish expenditure – although everything obviously costs pretty pennies – it is that the spending shows regard for the needs of players, spectators and the media, traditionally at the low end of the hierarchical ladder.

The organisation of the first tournament was impressive, and although no balls have been bowled in the second edition at the time of writing, it seems that whatever could have been improved upon, has been.

Ably led by the Rhonda Kelly-Laurie Ann Holding partnership, and supported by the indefatigable Imran Khan, this team should be a model of how to stage tournaments and the like.

I asked the legendary Wes Hall, a former president of the WICB, what he thought made the most significant difference.

"The presence of women," said the good reverend without missing a beat, happy to remind me that it was a confirmation of something that he has been preaching ever since his daughter, Kerry, made him to realise that West Indies cricket suffered from the lack of a woman's touch.

"It is because two women organised the thing," he said, launching into one of his famous sermons. Women, he said, are the operational people with a great eye for detail, but importantly, they bring a more nurturing presence that seeks to look after needs. He was very proud of having got Ann Browne-John to sit on WICB committees and reminded me that just last week he had been in Trinidad at Harvard Sports Club, busting their chops for keeping women at the periphery, and arguing that it should never have taken me ten years to get Queen's Park Cricket Club to accept female members.

I had been particularly keen to look at the way the tournament was organised, with a view to seeing what could be adapted in other areas. Certainly, I felt the WICB could learn useful lessons from this experience. It is true that one gets the powerful impression that money is not an issue here. And the more one learns of Allen Stanford, the more one realises that he has a true fixation with perfection and follows it with super close attention to detail. Doubtless this has permeated his ranks and has lifted performance standards.

There is much more to explore, perhaps in further columns, but for now it provides a useful model to study how one sets out to achieve excellence, especially as this is just the beginning of a new chapter in the West Indies cricket saga.

* This column is republished with permission from the Barbados Nation, where it first appeared.