NHRD April 2013.pdf - National HRD Network

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MENTORS AND COACHES Anita Bhogle and Harsha Bhogle About the Authors Anita Bhogle and Harsha Bhogle run Prosearch Consultants and have done upwards of 350 corporate speaking programs to India’s leading companies on learnings from support for managers. Their book “The Winning Way” has been a big national best-seller. Increasingly, when we do our corporate speaking events these days, we are asked about mentors and managers, about coaches and captains and sport presents a wonderful laboratory to study how the two roles work. Often they do, but when they don’t, the results can be painful. And we have found that while there might be the odd difference, the parallels in the corporate world are many. And often relevant. Cricket is an unusual sport in these matters in that it is the only one in which the captain is actually on the field. In almost all sport leaders demand performance, indeed they must, but it is in cricket alone that they have to perform and deliver in conditions that are similar to those that players under them experience. The manager of a football team has the power to demand, to substitute, to drop, to penalize but he doesn’t himself have to take on the opposition center back who is six inches taller than him. By contrast the captain in cricket must demand that his batsmen stand up to the opposition fast bowler on a fiery pitch but then when it is his turn to bat, he has to do the same. And that is why in cricket, it is understood that the captain runs the ship and the coach acts as the support staff; valued, even reasonably powerful, but eventually he is the support staff. It works better like that though it can lead to gnash teeth and long evenings in the bar. And so the job of the coach is to show the way, suggest a path where a player might see a wall. His role is important because the captain may have his own battles to fight and it is difficult to be a performer and an adviser, especially when the kid being advised might one day become better than the captain on the field! And so it is said that the coach must take players to places they haven’t been to before. It is a lovely line because a coach has the perspective that comes with age and experience but he is also watching the game from a hundred yards away and so sees it differently. Critically, the coach doesn’t compete with his players and that can allow him to be benevolent. That is where the coach most mirrors corporate mentors. And you can see why the mentor in corporate life must necessarily be older, have a more relaxed perspective than say, a line manager, and must have enough 28 April | 2013 NHRD Network Journal
time to offer to an executive riding an uncertain wave. I guess it must help also if the mentor doesn’t sit in judgement over his mentee. One of the contentious issues in sport, and you can already see this is an HR issue, is that the player goes to the coach with a problem, whether technical, mental or simply personal, and the coach uses that knowledge to make a judgement on a player and declare him not right in the side. If a corporate mentor has to win the respect, and confidence, of a mentee, he cannot sit in judgement over him. Essentially, the coach must bring to a side something it doesn’t already possess. India was a vastly talented but, let’s put it respectfully, mildly chaotic side. The new coach, John Wright, came from a culture where you had to distill the maximum out of yourself to make a mark and so, training and work ethic were crucial to their success. By contrast, India worshipped talent, whether on the sports field or in corporate life, and to a large extent still does. But talent is only the starting point of success and no more, if not married to work ethic it can actually be destructive. Wright cajoled them into accepting that discipline and a rigorous work ethic could take their talent to another level. So how did Wright gain respect in a new culture. Senior HR professionals will probably have experienced this but he just worked harder than his words. If practice was at 10, he was on the ground at 9 to see that the pitch was ready, that the gear was in place and that once the players came to train, nothing would come in the way. By giving so much of himself to the team, he earned their respect and won them over. Some years later, India had a coach who came from another country but had a similarly admirable work culture. Gary Kirsten said that when he asked himself what he could do with a team that had so many stars in it, he came to the conclusion that he could do no more than offer all of himself. And like Wright, he often worked harder than the players themselves to create an environment they could flower in. Can a mentor do that in corporate life? It was important too, for both Wright and Kirsten, to understand the culture of the team, and therefore of the land, they were working in. Paddy Upton, the mental conditioning coach who worked with Kirsten, once said that he based some of his work on the knowledge that India, as a nation, had never in its history invaded another. It had been attacked but had never initiated an attack. He said it helped him understand the culture of the people he would work it. Neither Wright not Kirsten was intimidating, neither was in your face. They were more consultative and Kirsten said he believed that rather than forcing people to work on their shortcomings, and in doing so focussing on what they were not good at, he preferred to talk about their strengths and how to ensure that they could be channelled into delivering superior performance. It is an interesting parallel for HR leaders to study. In mentoring do we merely ask for weaknesses and work on them or do we play with strengths and the confidence to deliver them for it is out of strength that victory emerges. It should make for an interesting debate. Between Wright and Kirsten, India had, as coach, the straight talking Greg Chappell. He was a legend, one of the greatest players in the game and a man with deep insights into cricket. He was a gifted cricketer but with an almost scary work ethic that came out of deep thought. In his personal life April | 2013 NHRD Network Journal 29
Page 1 and 2: ISSN - 0974 - 1739 NHRD Network Jou
Page 3 and 4: profe sion. Donn Doongaji Anil Sach
Page 5 and 6: CONTENTS S.No. Title of Article Aut
Page 7 and 8: Editorial Comments Dear Reader, Wha
Page 9 and 10: opportunity for organizations to go
Page 11 and 12: Picking up weak signals in the new
Page 13 and 14: or https://twitter.com/rossdawson/
Page 15 and 16: In a company, this “making sense
Page 17 and 18: Resonant Leadership for Results Dr.
Page 19 and 20: Leadership for Results has touched
Page 21 and 22: Day Two, then, is highly customized
Page 23 and 24: Enabling Learning through Technolog
Page 25 and 26: letting go the control mindset and
Page 27 and 28: exhibit a positive view of the tech
Page 29 and 30: The Employer Brand: A Truth Lived E
Page 31 and 32: In an ideal sense, every element in
Page 33 and 34: cynicism, under-ambition sloth. Mak
Page 35 and 36: In short, life in the workplace tod
Page 37: of knowledge, passion and ownership
Page 41 and 42: Buchanan. With a team of uniquely g
Page 43 and 44: This paper seeks to demystify gamif
Page 45 and 46: l l approach to create opportunitie
Page 47 and 48: Learning Employee engagement l l l
Page 49 and 50: 5. Yardstick: An HR professional ca
Page 51 and 52: l Move beyond formal learning proce
Page 53 and 54: having the ability to hold the tens
Page 55 and 56: HR, Social Media and creating the o
Page 57 and 58: l mistakes? Can leaders be question
Page 59 and 60: and visions of the future, to look
Page 61 and 62: A business within the business Dave
Page 63 and 64: of which can function as a complete
Page 65 and 66: customers successful.” Customers
Page 67 and 68: and readable by everyone; second, t
Page 69 and 70: those who routinely introduce new i
Page 71 and 72: competencies as part of the organiz
Page 73 and 74: ABOUT THE JOURNAL The National HRD

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