Just not cricket

One of the criticisms about business is that it's been mistaking the scoreboard for the game. In a discussion with Martin Whitaker, author of 'Building a more just economy', Gary Hamel used a metaphor that has stuck with me.

Imagine a game of English county cricket where they have that big board with all the stats. And someone stands behind the board moving the numbered tiles to update all the result. He suggests that Boards and leadership stopped focusing on the game that was happening on the field and saw their work as shifting the scores.

Add to that the game of cricket is getting shorter and shorter. In quite a small space of time we have moved from Test cricket that went for five days, to T20 that usually lasts around three hours.

Our time-frames get shorter and our focus is on the score and not the impact.

Let's play a better game.

#doonethingdeep #leadership #shortterm