leading to victory!

One more weekend and one more ‘training offsite’. I do tend to think that these traiing programs are highly over rated and boring. Though like any book, no matter how bad it is, it is never a complete waste. This time it was only for top management. So now we have senior shit with one person per room. So how do we up this further for the even more senior people. We have Suites for them.. Corporate India never ceases to amaze me. Cut to the activity.
The activities are always fun. Far better than the yappity yappity talking that happens in closed rooms. It is interesting to see the people trying hard to understand the games and trying to win them. They try so hard to win. One of the games we played required us to take an estimate of the score before we start the game. The other team had played it before we did and all we wanted to do was beat them. The people try and the way we stop listening is crazy. We try so hard. Competition pushes us to extremes. We stop thinking clearly and start pushing. We assume stuff that never was. We start distrusting. In another game, which required all the players to survive wasn’t actually a winning game. It was a survival game where if all survive all win. People did not understand that as well. They thought it’s an ‘us versus them’ and started by not trusting and by not sharing resources. I was in a team that was supposed to be mute and was stranded on an island surrounded by acid. The only way out was to get the acid proof tiles that the blind team had on another island. That required the lame team to direct the blind team to come to us with the tiles. So obviously the only thing we could do was wait till they come to us. Relax till then. I sat down to bide my time, relax till the tiles came. Post which I knew I had to scramble like hell. It was a bit amusing to see my team mates gesturing and clapping and tryuing to explain stuff to everyone. Getting all excited. When the tiles came I swung into action and was super fast enough to get the tiles to all the stranded players. In time to ensure all win. That’s all that there was to it. Simple stuff. no rocket science. I don’t know if the guys thought I was not a team man when I was relaxing and biding my time, when there was really nothing to be done by us. Relax and wait till the tile comes to us. Post which we run like hell.
I realised an important truth this offsite. Well it is a truth to me. The jaimitism is coined thus – winning and leadership are so over rated. We are so blinded by this thing about leading to victory that we fail to see the process. You don’t really have to win. Teaching Jispa I realised that its not about winning. It is about the process of play. Every time I try and drill it into Jispa – the Olympic credo – when a great sportsperson comes to write against your name, he writes not whether you won or lost but how you played your game. If your process is right and you have done your best, the result will be in your favour. You don’t have to win. Look at yourself, your own limitations and always use that as a pressure tool. Not winning. Sure in a competitive sport you have to out run and out perform to win. And I am not saying that one must be a wimp but if you focus your energies towards yourself and not the opposition then the game is won there itself. You fight hard, every point every game, but you aren’t really fighting him or her, you must be fighting yourself. The opposition is a useful benchmark, but it is not the end.
Similarly leadership. It is so bloody overrated. We understand it as rubbish inspiration and motivation. I think true leadership is exactly what it is not. It is listening to a lot of people. It is getting involved only at grave risk. It is by making yourself almost dispensable. Letting people do what they want to but only being the guide and using your experience to suggest. If you know it well enough then being an example always helps :).
But both of these are so tough to follow. You want to win, you want to lead. At least the kind of personality I am. Severely competitive and severely pushy. I can’t not try. And thanks to my pushing I end up being in a leadership role.
But also I realised that I have matured over the years. I come into my own with people who look upto me. In situations where more than one leader emerges I tend to be quite about the whole thing. Almost disinterested. I guess people feel that I have tuned off, but I haven’t. I only see the futility of multiple leadership. I know if I open my mouth I would be forceful and dominating. That would just upset everything a bit. It is not a battle I wish to fight at this level. And hence my silence.
It is similar when bosses refuse to listen. Too many hot heads will spoil whatever broth was being cooked.
So I try and conquer my urges to win and my urges to lead. Its not easy for me. funny nah. I get this realisation as a truth and I also do not follow it. But I am improving. Slowly slowly I am getting to see the benefits of being stable and level. The benefits of process and pain as opposed to the pain from ‘competing and leading’. I think that this has also come about thanks to me switching sports and taking up swimming. It is a meditative state of sorts. Me swimming against myself. My own technique being used by me to improve and push myself.
Or I am just getting old, hopefully wiser hehehe. .. whatever.