Is it time that most of us in management cadre across levels of responsibility watch sports with a lot more focus. Maybe place TV sets at appropriate places and make watching the world cup, Wimbledon and Olympics (to name a few) mandatory. Maybe we have been missing a lot between the balls and swinging with euphoria when aces were being served. Other than the score line and the next beer that may have been on house, we rarely tried to see through this bit of excellence. Hardly did we try for success transfer strategies, work style, processes, grit, passion into boardrooms and ground zero.
Vinay kanchan thinks he has cracked the code and serves it in a four course helping in his second book ‘Lessons from the Playground’ And he has kept it brilliantly focussed on to the Players and real games. He has in his quest, respectfully stayed away from the process, planning and managing of these mega events where the lessons were written. He single handily paints the picture of sports being a rich mine of management innovation and disruptive processes, only if we ware willing to look deeper and try learning.
He brings few brilliant analogies and example and some often stated and done to death ones too, but these are also dealt in Vinay’s own style of frank free wandering discussions. The pitch- is hey can we look at this in a different way and not the normal preachy tone that frequents such books. I respect and find that interesting. This book incidentally made my list of 14 books from 2014 that people in management, Media and Marketing should read.
Vinay deals out his thinking through 4 sets of five chapters each.
Section I : – PEOPLE– Great craftsman who inspire. It is devoted to the legends Pele, Ali, Michael Jordan, Sachin Tendulkar and Roger Federer. Section –II:- PLATFORMS– the great sporting events and it captures The Olympics, World cup soccer, ODI world cup, Wimbledon and Indian Hockey. Section III:- PROCESSES captures the thought process, strategies and mind set of Cricketing Captains, Cricketing Ideas, The barcelona success story etc and Section-IV :- PINNACLE that deals with the epic moments and innings in sports- Roger Bannister, Kapil 175, Maradona mexcio world cup, Martina Wimbledon love and Michael Pelps 8 gold medals.
ADVICE. Instead of reading the whole book at one go, better would be to read a chapter or a section at a stretch and then view it from your point of referece.Trust me the insightful anecdotes and the stories hidden within them make an interesting reading.
CAUTION: Book at times seems a bit of repetitive in its tonality. The first half seems far more decisive and forceful than the later part- where the lessons look a bit forced. Hence read it in bits and pieces.
The book seem to have restricted itself to few sports and few well known legends and incidents, maybe there is a commercial angle to it and in process have lost the chances to touch a lot more people, process and platforms. Maybe there should and could have been lessons from FIASCO- to teach what should not be done. The DRS fight, the boxing association, the Sania story, Tiger zeal and passion and a lot many… but then a book can cover a limited spectrum. And it’s the authors right to choose what is the best.
Sanjeev Kotnala and Vinay Kanchan
TRIVIA: When I met him was the time I realised that Vinay also runs / owns the JUHU BEACH UNITED, the football club that celebrate ‘The unfit, working professionals’ and they practice every Sunday. More so they play into tournaments.
PUBLISHER : Fortytwo Bookz Galaxy AUTHOR: Vinay Kanchan PAGES 431 PRICE : INR 495. Available at FLIPKART INR 460
DISCLOSURE: I know Vinay Kanchan and he presented the book to me in Nov 2014.
