The Next Engine: Beyond Campaign Thinking

Many of you may not know about cricket. (Not the one that keeps you up at night.) In a loose way, it is similar to baseball. The “Batsman” uses a bat to hit the ball that is thrown at him from 22 yards away at an average speed of 80-90 mph. The person who hurls the ball at the batsman is called the “Bowler”. The players who are positioned in the outfield to stop/catch the ball and throw it back ASAP in order to stop the batsmen from scoring runs are called the “Fielders”.

The batsmen (the hitter) bat. The bowlers (the pitcher) bowl. The fielders field.

This video clip will give you a better idea.

And here is an article from cricinfo.com that talks about two of the greatest batsmen in the game.

Historically, your batting was as good your technique. The first thing that a cricket coach will tell you is to bring your front foot close to the line of the ball before you hit it. It was criminal to flay or reach out to a ball that was not close to you. Any cricket pundit would tell you that doing so would make you hit the ball in the air or edge it behind. Some fielder will catch the ball. Game over. There are many other similar “dos and don’ts”. But you get the point.

Sehwag was different. He didn’t care about what the coaching manual said. He dealt with the outcome. Sehwag was your “Stand and deliver” guy. He rarely moved his feet. It was as if his feet were glued to the ground. But when he hit the ball it stayed hit. A friend who had seen him bat once told me “You can’t see the ball after he hits them.”

He thrilled the crowd and made the game more exciting to watch. When he got out, many fans would leave the stadium even if the game had only just begun.

Then there is this other guy, Dravid. His batting technique was peerless. He is what you would call textbook stuff. If his team had its back against the wall he would drop anchor and play defense. He did not mind blocking ball after ball without disturbing the scoreboard. Sehwag on the other hand could turn the tide of an entire game in a few minutes. Sehwag was a game changer. Dravid kept things afloat.

In the end both of them have been successful in their own different way.

But the key difference lay in the reaction of the fans that followed the game.

Few fans cared to see Dravid bat. He was the damage controller. But his approach had an undesired outcome: He could bore you to death. In contrast, Sehwag was like your morning cup of coffee. He smashed the ball all over the park. He brought the game to life. He thrilled. He entertained. People would drop everything else that they were doing to watch him bat.

It made me think of the parallels that these two men had with what we did in our line of work. How do we want people to look at our agency? At us? And at our work? On one hand we can ‘get by’ – which at best gets the job done. (And call us successful.) Or we can go beyond and also pay equal attention to how we do the job. We can entertain, inspire and create experiences that make people want to spend time with our work. And us.