Blame yourselves not the players
Sun, Dec 16, '18
ONCE again the leadership of Cricket West Indies (CWI) is blaming the players for their lack of commitment and discipline and for the sad state of West Indies cricket. Just a few days ago, Dave Cameron, the president of CWI questioned the commitment of the players and warned that “serious decisions” will be taken at board level to curb the problem. He stressed that the board was spending “millions of dollars” to develop players but was not managing to maximise its investment.
The players and coaches must accept responsibility for the team’s poor performance but so too must CWI. Instead, the leadership of CWI has adopted the “Trumpian” philosophy of blaming other people and other factors for its own incompetence, mistakes and failures. This blame culture is endemic in CWI; it encourages members to dismiss crucial and accurate feedback about themselves and their performance and to ignore deficiencies in the board’s management and leadership. Effective leaders do not blame other people or circumstances for results. They look for the circumstances they want and if they can’t find them, they create them.
Blame is about the past, not the future. Instead of creating hope, aspiration and growth it produces fear, anger, resentment and defensiveness. It reminds players about what they have been and what they have done, not what they can become and what they can achieve. CWI must now see its players in terms of future potential not past performance or behaviour.
The depth of an organisation’s motivation and self-discipline often determines the level of its performance. Building awareness, responsibility, commitment and self-discipline should therefore be CWI’s first important priorities. That the president is complaining about the players’ lack of commitment confirms the fact that CWI has failed to create the environment in which those values and priorities can grow and flourish.
When I speak to former players about West Indies cricket, without exception, they point their fingers at CWI for the weak state of the game. They go to great lengths to stress that none of its members has had any experience in elite sport nor any understanding of what is required to achieve success at the highest levels of cricket. Some of these players even claim that performance on the cricket field is less important to CWI than some of its business imperatives.
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