Mithali Raj : End of a Stalwart due to system or building a new generation of women cricket ?

As row over Mithali Raj erupts, controversies galore, the heads will start rolling soon.

The biggest batting icon, Indian batswoman of all times and country's most loved woman cricketer faces a challenge of integrity for the first time in a glittering career that has spanned almost 2 decades.

A woman of substance who made the bunch of youngsters come together and formed core of women’s Cricket is now fighting the battle to prove her innocence in allegations of being aloof and finds herself out of the core.

Knowing Indian cricket, men or women , the truth will remain inside the doors and we as fans of the game will soon forget it as a volatile issue and move on to find the next super woman icon of the game.

Mithali on the wrong side of age, may or may not have many years to make a comeback and prove critics wrong.

However, for the sake of the game, one must understand the basics and root cause of the whole situation and mess which might have cost World Cup to the nation and dream dismissed for woman Tendulkar.

As is applicable in all walks of life, few principles do apply in sports as well and had those been followed, it might have avoided the controversy that is making headlines today for all the negative publicity of women cricket.

It’s imperative that

a) Talent doesn’t assure success, rising to the occasion does! 

b) Exuberance or Experience ? 

- Youth is Tomorrow ! Experience is Today !

c) Master of the game at next doorsteps or in the dressing room. Remember handling the master is an art (Ask Dhoni for Sachin or Kohli for Dhoni)

d) Coach or Captain or Manager ? 

- Coach teaches , Captain delivers whereas Manager manages, councils and communicates. 

- Handling 11 talented cricketers might not be a cakewalk, it probably needs a motherly(since it’s women Cricket) and stern guide to set the expectations right.

e) Egos or Ethos ? 

- Both in right spirit create magic

- Constrains on both help achieve the results

The situation seems to have arisen due to lack of communication rather than wrong choices or autocracy.

Lastly but most importantly, the legendary Gavaskar once said, move out at the top. Leave to be asked Why rather than When? Very rarely sportsmen or women follow this thumb rule and find themselves in a situation to be overwhelmed by the ones who were groomed under their own leadership.

Women’s cricket has in recent past got into limelight after years of hard work by the oldies but it still lacks in terms of attention and compensation. This has harmed the game in getting media space and experienced support staff. Time to revisit the notion and let this Mithali episode be a learning curve to Women Cricket .

P.S. The blog primarily tries to understand various reasons for Mithali’s exit from the crucial match of World Cup semis and is an individual opinion about the entire controversy. It does not talk or opinions about the choice of playing eleven and right of the coach or captain.The blog also does not intend to find any culprit in the entire controversy.

- Jayawant

Story of Reincarnation of Frog and the Bull

Once upon a time, there lived a frog who was intelligent , strong and ambitious. He was considered best among  frogs and this made the street-smart frog think he was the best and capable to do anything. One fine day, the frog came across a bull who was intelligent, strong and ambitious. The frog felt, the only difference between the bull and him was the size and then it was immaterial as all the other qualities were same. The frog decided to be as big as bull in size and started pumping air in his body. Size increased and frog got happy and kept pumping air. Alas ! Some point of time the energy was lost and frog could not become the full grown bull.

Few centuries later, reincarnation happened. This time the frog was born as a sportsman and started playing at early age. God was kind enough to give him all the qualities of strength, ambitions and talent too. The sportsman started believing he is the best. He had teammates who were big bulls of the game and were way ahead in caliber than our frog turned Sportsman. However, being sportsmen and having huge team spirit , the big bulls never underestimated their team mate and always made the froggy sportsman believe, he was BULL like them.

Time doesn’t wait for anyone. Big bulls and froggy sportsman had to move away from the game. They retired, settled in life with tag of  ‘Former bulls’. Our froggy sportsman knowing his psyche, thought he deserved much more in life, and started dreaming big. He thought he can become a big time politician and can solve international problems. Unfortunately, there was another froggy bull on the other side of international border too and both froggy bulls came together to solve the age old problem of  deciding who is the real bull or who is the frog ?

Life has come full circle for the frog !

P.S. Time has withstood the notion, no frog can ever become a bull. It will decide and find out the real bull on its own. Till then if you come across any frog whom you might see around behaving like a bull is merely coincidental.

- Jayawant

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Understanding Frequently used terminologies in IT

IT Industry for long has been out and out people industry wherein the results are tangible in terms of human output instead of machine measurable. This primary difference with any other Industry has made IT being synonymous with few  terminologies which have evolved over the years. However, many times, the terms and definitions are entangled and measured as per every organization’s requirement and approach towards its employees and business constraints.

Few of the definitions which are abundantly used, this blog tries to look into the other side of the same terminology and supports the old analogies being addressed with cohesive definition instead of measurement in silos.

      A. Utilization vs Utility : The typical KPI for measurement of human resource is utilization. It classically measures the percentage of billable hours in the available hours made by the resource on project/task in hands. More the percentage, happier is the unit in terms of having right number of resources on the task and adding to profitability.

However, one needs to look beyond the utilization. A resource can fulfill the utilization formula but one needs to look at his/her utility. Are we going to look at resource only for mathematical output of utilization or are we interested in making most out of the talent presented?  Utility deals with having a measurable output from the resource ensuring utilization and in addition makes use of his/her skill-sets which provide value or benefit to the customer as well as provide satisfaction to the employee him/herself.

Utility is long term whereas utilization is time bound.

Let the two terms be envisaged as utilization of resource improving utility of the resource towards self and the organization.

B. Billing vs Contribution : No organization can survive without billing and billable resource. However, billing is a relative term which provides tangible and time bound results whereas contribution is long term and building sustainable platform.

Only billing per se qualifies for the ‘Work Done * Billing Rate’ and is not justified only in case of failure of output. However, if contribution is amended as an addition to billing , it also takes value addition into consideration. The contribution need not always be part of the billing, instead it can purely be used to improve upon the face of the organization, act as bridge between deliverables and value addition and also to provide IP to customer or the organization.

The two terms need to be closely associated with each other if the agenda is repetitive satisfaction of the customer and annuity billing. Either of these, used independently would not suffice the needs of customer or the organization.

      C. Output vs Input : The most crucial result for any organization is Output and it is independent and relevant for all the functions whether they are billable or non-billable. The output is measurable considering it gives tangible facts, however no output is good enough for increase in efficiency if the input lacks in its strength.

The inputs are basic principles and thought process of any organization. The input could be in terms of ethics or for that matter can come with cost in terms of expenditure for training, quality requirements, infrastructure or organization goal and policies. More the authenticity of the input, better is the output to input ratio.

As an organization , it needs to look at the term as one definition as ‘Input based Output’.

     D. Leader vs Manager : Both the terms include ‘ER’ ( and To err is human) and unless both these terms are empowered to make full use of Lead and Manage functions, both of them could fail in the long run.

A leader is one who leads by example and needs to focus more on tomorrow leaving today as part of the managerial function who is tomorrow’s leader. A Leader is the one who shows the path, provides ground clearance, ensures that he takes on challenges himself with bull’s head and hands over a field for the Manager who then ensures the vision and expectations of the organization are executed with bunch of team members with integrity and clarity.

Both the roles are continuously evolving and need to move forward in tandem with each other. Either of them fails and the result will be collective failure.

     E.  Loyalty vs Assurance (Longevity vs Value Add)

Loyalty need not always be looked in terms of longevity. Instead it is a term which has to be coined with loyalty to self, role and organization.

It is more to do with integrity than the duration. Close in sync with Loyalty is assurance to deliver. Loyalty in terms of Longevity does not provide assurance. Assurance is more to do with value addition and it can come only through Loyalty (self, role and organization).

With virtual world and humans as the only parameters, all the above terms are extremely intrigued with each other and need to be looked as a single pack of Quality deliverables. Each one has got its own importance and leaving one for other may not result in fulfillment of organization’s goals in the longer or short terms.

P.S. The blog is an individual thought process based on frequently coming across the above terminologies and the author’s way of understanding the meaning of each of them. Feel free to share the blog.

- Jayawant