Entrepreneurial Traits and Cricketers

Last week, on a flight to Delhi, I was reading the February issue of the Entrepreneur. The lady in the aisle seat enquired if I was an entrepreneur and we got talking. She mentioned that she writes a regular feature in the magazine. The issue that I was reading had an article by her on entrepreneurial traits and styles of some Indian cricketers. The lady is Ms Nandini Vaidyanathan.

I have thought about her article for the past few days.

The article lists 11 traits:

1. Focus - Gambhir, 
2. Fearless - Sehwag, 
3. Reliable - Dravid, 
4. Outside the box (Nandini calls it "Do the impossible") - Laxman, 
5. Genius - Tendulkar, 
6. Leadership - Ganguly, 
7. Street fighter (Nandini calls it scrappy) - Dhoni, 
8. Identity - Irfan Pathan as an example of losing one's identity, 
9. Resilience - Kumble, 
10. Adaptability - Harbhajan, and finally 
11. Aggression - Sreesanth.

 Cricketers at this level have been playing the game since they were kids. They have had time to experiment with styles. They have varied their heroes. They have learned whether they were speedsters, or leg spinners, or off spinners, openers or middle order, close in fielders or outfielders. In short they have had a long time to discover their identity. They have had time to discover if they should pursue cricket, or become an engineer, or in some cases both. Except, of course, a prodigy like Sachin. Prodigies do not require time to discover themselves.

Entrepreneurs, largely, start much later in life. By that time their traits have been set. What is worse is that most entertain wrong notions of their traits. To discover their identity they need to go and play "gully cricket". But then scoring "ducks", or getting hit for "sixes" in "gully cricket" is very bruising for the self-image - also the pocket. A mentor, someone like Ms Nandini, can be of great help.

In subsequent posts I will write about some of the traits.