I saw the latest Shahrukh Khan movie Chak De India last Friday. I really enjoyed the whole movie – the story was simple, characters full of personality, there was humor, defeat, victory and the game of hockey! Watching the movie, I kept thinking about how it relates to leadership and management in today’s times.
Here are a few points:
- Nothing is better for you than your biggest failure
- If you have the talent, passion and commitment, you can make underdogs win
- Unless pushed to limits, your team will not perform at its best
- People always want easy things, and it is difficult to overcome cynicism
- Be strict and straight with your team. You don’t have to always be nice with them
- In short, be ruthlessly compassionate!
- Strategy is important – know the team members individual strengths and weaknesses
- There is no alternate to hard work, not even smart work!
- If you are after a cause big enough, you will always have people to support you
- Follow your heart!
I am sure there are many more meanings! What did you find?
Another: Intentions are more important than talent.
This one has been a great battle for me, since I have seen many people with good intentions, but insufficient results. It’s really difficult for me to deal with the situation then. I do the best to train such people, and the rest depends on their intention to get trained!
We can’t deploy all these suggestions to any IT company. Its all about leadership, but most of the suggestion will suit only with sport & not in real life.
u hv a keen sense of observation as can be depicted in the way u have extracted basic learnings from the movie. the movie surely has a lot to teach and also inspire.
there are two more which cud be of interest to you:
1. winning is everything
2. you dont win the silver, you lose the gold.
to India, and to the dying sports in our beautiful land..
U pray, i pray, together we pray..
keep smiling
Stained
http://my-fans-hate-me.blogspot.com
Nilesh:
I believe these lessons work in life – and that includes an IT company! Nilesh, consider that it was a team of underdogs that worked hard in Magnet in March 2006 and achieved the super results we did. You were a part of it. And I think most of what I wrote up here, was present then!
Stained:
Thanks for your additions!
ply for india not for self
I would like to add some more to ‘Leadership Lessons from Chak De India’.
· Nothing unites and inspires a team like a common goal (The bashing episode at Mc Donald’s in the film)
· The Leader should be fair and impartial while dealing with the team-members (The way coach Kabir Khan selects the Captain of the team)
· Individual goals and agendas are always counter-productive (as proved by the way two forward players try to become the highest goal-scorer at the cost of the team’s fortune)
· Those who do not play for the common goal should be ruthlessly dealt with and kept OUT of the team (The way coach Kabir Khan orders players OUT of the team is memorable)
· The leader should not hesitate to take hard-decisions on selecting and retaining the members of the team
· Knowing the strengths, weaknesses and strategies of competitors (of the organisation/team) is essential to fully exploit the strengths of the organisation/team, to overcome its weaknesses and formulate appropriate strategies to exploit the weaknesses of the competitors and to win.
I have a point here to share…
Team members should work on the goal and not on individual records. More than the individual performance, team should play to win. Provide required support to make goal and win rather than fighting to get self credit..
Nirav , gr8 man , I’ll see this movie now for sure .
chak de has got every quality required in a successful manager. a few of dem are
1) dedication n determination (as in kabir khan)
2)time has cum to give equal preference to women (as shown by sagarika ghatge to her cricketer beau)
3)teamwork
4)motivation
5)adaptation as per team needs