In the previous blog I unpacked the challenges of diagnosing institutional failings in a culture that generally seeks to pin the blame on an individual. Yet organisations are a collection of teams, just like their sporting counterparts. So what might have gone wrong for the cricket team what learning might we take to apply in our own organisations? I share these reflections based on facts as they have been reported, and recognising that unless you are part of a group you can’t know for sure what’s really going on individually and collectively, in terms of the intangibles of belief, clarity, confidence, and morale. That said, the following factors seem important. 

One advantage of sport is the absolute clarity over purpose. Whereas in many organisations this is not the case, with different people and teams articulating the ambitions of the organisation in varied and often conflicting ways, in sport the sole binding purpose is to win. Everything else is a spillover effect – public enthusiasm when winning, for example. We get constant feedback as to whether the team is on track towards achieving its purpose or not. And if not, we might have some ideas and options up our sleeve in order to adapt our approach or pivot in a different direction in order to fulfil that ambition. 

Strategy translates purpose into coherent action. Plans are therefore important, which make it hard to hear the vice captain talk disdainfully of team meetings, suggesting these don’t happen. Don’t get me wrong, meetings are often the scourge of the workplace. But without them, how is strategy formulated and communicated, tactics discussed, approaches developed? Without that, you have at best a team of mercenaries, each left to determine the best way they can individually contribute to the cause and perform their best in the process. There are some challenges with this approach, beyond the fact we are talking about a team game. Both batsmen and bowlers must work together in pairs. There needs to be a common interpretation as to the state of the game and the best approach in the moment. There needs to be clarity of role. A bowling enforcer, a batting anchor, someone to change momentum. The mercenary approach also assumes that each individual is capable of reading the conditions and playing accordingly, something the batsmen have proved incapable of in this series.

We’ve seen the failure of strategy on several levels. There has been a clear lack of Plan B for multiple scenarios: only one other batsman in the squad when the top three are all underperforming (and no reserve opener); no reserve keeper; no alternative plans of attack when the Australians batsmen have been in control; no spin alternative. In other words, the team has pretty much self selected, the assumption these are the best 11 and so you don’t need backups, which works fine when you’re winning, but leaves you bereft of options when players fall out of form. One way of keeping people in form is practice and competition. Each player will know what they have to do individually to perform at their best. But it does requires skills to be honed over time, such that the lead up to any form of competition is about ensuring you are in the groove, physically and mentally, ready to perform. The lack of warm up games and times has been widely criticised. 

Building pressure. A strategic commonality shared by the NFL and cricket is that a good offence (or batting display) helps the defence (or bowlers) by giving them time to recover. When this doesn’t happen, the effects compound negatively and become a force that’s hard to overcome; get bowled out quickly and your bowlers haven’t had time to rest up and are pressed back into action, making it harder to attack the oppositions batsmen, who in turn have an easier time of it. The pressure intensifies. 

The lack of competition is important too. The best players give their best performances under pressure. For leadership to back their team is important, of course, but so is the knowledge for the incumbents that waiting in the wings are a set of hungry, skilled and motivated players fighting to take their place. To be backed unconditionally, as many players have been, despite statistical evidence to the contrary, is to send a clear message that other things are more important than performance. What might those be? A cohesive influence in the dressing room, a motivator, a tone setter, perhaps. But also perhaps having a face that fits, being liked by the selectors and/or coach, maybe even having leverage.  

A healthy sport, like a healthy business, needs to ensure it is hiring and promoting (or developing and selecting) the best available talent. You certainly don’t want to simply and dogmatically promote from within without testing the wider talent pool, nor ignore talent when it is in front of you, or just settle for those you have.

While sport may be slightly different, some elements around progression are true. One is that the best should rise to the top: sport (especially cricket) is the ultimate arbiter of performance and class. Statistics bear it out, and the best are the best because they also have intangibles to back up their quantitative metrics. Another is that clear progression pathways need to exist. Whether you are on the fringes of making the England eleven, an early career professional at a county, or somewhere in between, you need to know what it takes to be selected and play for your country. Because when that is not clear, and when criteria exist that you might never meet (such as whether your face fits), the rot sets in. The team, however well it is performing at the moment, will eventually see its performance fall away, because those incumbent are not pressured for their places and those seeking those places will not see a direct link between their own performances and the likelihood of selection^⁠1.

Philosophy. In some respects the style of play has come to characterise this team, and that clarity is to be welcomed as it can help everyone perform at their best. However, it needs alternatives when the (largely attacking and free-flowing) philosophy flounders. As it has over the first three games, the swashbuckling approach crashing on the immovable object that is the Australian approach. It is curious that the captain was clear that one of the greatest ever England batsmen, Sir Alastair cook, would not make his team due to his style of play not fitting the philosophy. Surely in every team there is room for greatness, and greatness can be achieved in various ways. Indeed the best performing batsmen of this current era, Joe Root, has mostly continued to play his own way. Let’s not be dogmatic or fixed in approach. For the change in philosophy was dramatic when the new captain and coach took over in 2022. The players largely remained the same, it was the philosophy that changed, the psychology that says ‘we trust you to go do your thing, perform at your best. Taking the pressure off. And it worked. The same team, the same players, suddenly reinvented. 

Fundamentally, then, there is no single approach that works for every member of a team or organisation. But we can see some core principles to consider and apply as appropriate according to the situation. Because perhaps more than anything it’s the need for flexible and responsive approaches to organisational development that is most critical if we are to foster high performing teams. 

¹ See, for example, the spinner conundrum. Bashir (who I hope will grow and develop into a world class player) was selected on the back of the England captain seeing a viral clip of him bowling at Alistair Cook online. Arguably the best spinner in the country, Jack Leech, has not played for several years. It’s clear that his style of play doesn’t fit the ethos of this current team. His only hope of selection? A change of leadership. Something that may resonate with many in the corporate world.