Blame yourselves not the players

RUDI WEBSTER

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.

The most significant variable to the success of any organisation is the behaviour of those leading it. Good presidents, vice presidents and board members lead by example and practise what they preach. By so doing, they build trust and credibility with the people they are leading. This is very important because most people admire and follow leaders who are honest, inspiring, trustworthy, competent and forward looking.

Effective leaders know that before they can change the direction, performance and culture of their organisation they must first change themselves. Good leadership begins with self-leadership. If you are not improving, you can’t be an effective leader of your organisation. That is why CWI must now look at the quality of its leadership and its improvement programmes with a critical eye.

In a recent presentation in New York on the transformation of West Indies cricket Cameron quite rightly highlighted important initiatives of CWI. He spoke about the increase in the number of professional cricketers in West Indies cricket, many of whom have retainer contracts, and of two full franchises, the Caribbean Premier League and the Professional Cricketers’ League, both of which have given players a chance to play more cricket. He also spoke about an increase in the number of paid administrators throughout the region, and about full coaching staffs including physiotherapists, and strength and conditioning coaches. There are now 38 certified CWI coaches throughout the region and more are being trained. These are all commendable achievements. But as far as coaching is concerned, we have never had as many coaches and yet, the need for good coaching has never been greater.

These initiatives represent inputs. The president said little or nothing about outputs. And yet, the team is still performing poorly and languishes at the bottom of the ICC Test and ODI rankings. When assessing development and performance one must also look at the output as well as the input/output ratio. That is how effectiveness and efficiency are measured. In the last few years, West Indies have performed worse than they have ever done, losing consistently to Afghanistan, now to Bangladesh. And they almost lost to Scotland in the qualifying competition for the 2019 World Cup.

With the millions of dollars that are poured into our cricket, the increasing number of competitions, and the explosion in the number of coaches and specialist coaches, one would have expected the team to do better. One must therefore question the quality of the input as well as the effectiveness of the transformation process that turns input into output, effort and initiatives into results and success. We must not be fooled into confusing movement and activity with direction, focus and results.

Instead of complaining and apportioning blame, CWI should now do a thorough and honest examination of itself, its structure, its function, its improvement programmes and its performance.

To get back to winning ways, CWI must take the first step by asking and answering a few simple but extremely important questions. The answers will have an important effect on the culture of CWI and West Indies cricket. What is our purpose? Why are we here? Why do we exist? What do we want to achieve and become? What does success look like? Where are we going? What are our core values and beliefs? What is our hierarchy of values? What kind of organisation and team do we want to build? How can we change the gap between rhetoric and reality? How do we want to be remembered?

In addition, the board must design and implement clear and focused improvement programmes that enhance self-awareness, self-responsibility, self-discipline and motivation. It must accept and pay close attention to measurement and feedback, skill development, and to becoming a listening and learning, organisation. It must also pay attention to systems alignment and organisational restructuring, benefits and rewards, and to educational and communication strategies.

Previous leaders, teams and administrations created a great legacy for West Indies cricket. Our cricketers were once loved and revered around the world. CWI must now look beyond itself and its personal and individual needs, commit to serving a purpose higher than itself, and jealously guard and preserve whatever is left of that once great legacy. CWI must guard against going down in history as the administration that presided over the demise of West Indies cricket.