Fear is the Key

Sunday 25^th March 2015. South Africa hammered India for 438 runs in 50 overs. This is like breaking the 10 second barrier in 100 meters running. Just imagine a time trial, where your competitor runs 100 meters in less than 10 seconds, and throws you the gauntlet – try and beat that. In 90% of the cases, you will be beaten even before you start. Mentally.

I guess that’s what happened to the Indian cricket team. We fell 200+ runs short. It is like we took more than 11 seconds to run 100 meters when we had to do it in ten.

I have read a lot of sports writers saying that every game is played in the space which is six inches between your ears. You win or lose in your mind. They say that it is important to inculcate a winning habit. A side which is accustomed to winning finds ways to bounce back from desperate situations. While a side which is accustomed to lose, chokes. It invariably loses its way from a winning situation. Many a times, the underdogs, start well, because they have nothing to lose. They suddenly find themselves in a winning situation which they don’t know how to handle and suddenly start losing their way. There are enough and more examples of teams gifting away winning situations.

Circa 1995, World Chess Championship, Anand vs. Kasparov. Kasparov was the undisputed champion, while Anand was the Challenger. Anand was talented, very fast, known as the whiz kid and Kasparov’s equal. All chess champions came from Russia. The only champion from outside the iron curtain was Bobby Fischer of USA.

In that sense Anand was always the challenger, the pretender, the commoner who aspired to overthrow the king. At that time, it was clear that if anyone could dethrone Kasparov, it would be Anand, but not many were hopeful. World Chess Champion from India? Preposterous.

A match scheduled over twenty games, began with eight consecutive draws. The challenger was hanging in there. Game 9 – Anand won. The challenger was mounting a serious challenge. There was joy in India. Would the king be dethroned?

And then Kasparov won four of the next five games, two playing with black pieces. After fourteen games, Kasparov was leading by three points, massive. The deficit could be surmounted with 6 games left. But my guess is by that point, Anand was mentally defeated. The match did not even last the distance, it got over after 18 games..

Anand learned from this experience and went on to become World Champion, multiple times.

I distinctly remember two hockey matches, which amplify this mental aspect

1985 Champions Trophy – India vs. Germany. Germany leading 5-1 with 10 minutes to go. That is when Pargat Singh a defender, decided he will not lose. He started with solo runs along the flanks slammed one goal and created a few more. It was one of India’s greatest comebacks and we drew the match 5-5

2000 Olympics. A combination of results, meant that India needed to defeat Poland the lowest ranked team to qualify for the semi finals. India had not won an Olympic medal in hockey for 20 years. Here was a chance. The enormity of the situation got to the India hockey team. They could not score till three minutes were left. Two minutes to go, they let in a goal. Poland got away with a 1-1 draw and India’s Olympic medal chances went up in smoke

Let me now go back to another cricket match in March 2006. Australia scored 434 in 50 overs against South Africa. The 400 barrier had never been breached. It would have been natural for the South African players to get dejected. In the break they were sitting with their faces sullen. Suddenly Jacques Kallis said, “They are 15 runs short, its a 450 wicket.” Motivational? Yes. I personally think this was a masterstroke from Kallis. He just insisted that they can win it. As a result South Africa won with one ball to spare.

Looking back at work, there are many such stretch situations.  When we look at the targets, it looks like we need to squeeze blood out of a rock. So many times we dismiss the challenge as not doable. We attribute it to experience and give up even before starting the chase. We are destined to fail.

We see organisations handing over new market / new product roles to young executives. The reason is they have no fear of failure. Experienced people will approach the task saying why it will fail. Young people will approach it with an attitude of “How can we make it work?”

This is because youth knows no fear. They don’t have the experience and hence don’t have any baggage. They don’t understand the word failure and are only driven by the hope to succeed. There are enough and more examples of stretch targets being overshot.

Experience counts, but it also brings fear and baggage. Give me the person, who knows no fear. I would love to have Jacques Kallis in my team.