Business
Cricket lessons for big business;Special report
David Bolchover
4,928 words
26 June 2005
The Sunday Times
Business 1
English
(c) 2005 Times Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved
How England coach Duncan Fletcher's consultancy style has put the Ashes within reach. By David
Bolchover
In the second of our series on the value of management techniques used at the top of British sport, we
take some business lessons from England cricket coach Duncan Fletcher as he prepares for the
looming Ashes series
IT IS easy to hate management consultants. Robert Townsend, the businessman and best-selling author,
once wrote of them: "Consultants are people who borrow your watch and tell you what time it is, and
then walk off with the watch."
Perhaps Townsend would have thought better of this remark if he had spent some time observing the
England cricket coach Duncan Fletcher at work.
In cricket, because of the duration of the game and the necessity for constant decision-making on the
field, the playing captain has more tactical authority than in any other sport.
Fletcher, having taken England to No2 in the world Test rankings and now plotting the team's assault on
the Ashes starting next month, is happy to operate in the background, the self-professed "consultant" to
the captain he describes as "the managing director", overseeing his playing lieutenants.
After Nasser Hussain's reign as England captain ended, team-mate Michael Atherton described Fletcher
as having been "very much the Cardinal Richelieu to Hussain's Louis XIII, the power behind the throne".
Fletcher prefers a simpler description: "I do not seek to be high profile, whether we win or lose, but
prefer an active, thoughtful and level-headed behind-the-scenes management role."
The England team's first full-time incumbent in the position was David Lloyd, Fletcher's predecessor,
who was appointed in 1996, some 120 years after an England team first took to a cricket field. Fletcher's
interpretation of the job is thus likely to serve as a prototype for many who follow him, not least
because of his long track record of demonstrable success.
The 56-year-old, born in what is now Zimbabwe, coached Western Province to the South African Castle
Cup in 1995-6, Glamorgan to the English county championship in his first season in 1997, and has
presided over a dramatic improvement in fortunes for the England team since his appointment in 1999.
When he arrived, England were in the doldrums, with the home defeat against New Zealand that
summer leaving them rock bottom of the Wisden international league.
Five years later, in 2004, with Michael Vaughan as captain, England won 11 out of 13 test matches
played, and drew the other two, making them a real threat to Australia's possession of the Ashes for the
first time in years.
Hussain said about Fletcher: "He is without doubt the most important and influential figure in the rise of
the England team."
One of the principal lessons business can learn from the transparent world of sport is that people find it
difficult to work under joint leaders -two individuals with similar roles and vested with equivalent
authority. Whose instructions should they listen to? Who should they approach with a problem or
suggestion?
The most high-profile example of the long-term unworkability of this arrangement could be witnessed at
Liverpool Football Club in 1998. Roy Evans and Gerard Houllier stumbled along together as joint
managers for four months before the board of directors was forced to see sense and Evans was ousted,
leaving Houllier in sole charge.
One of the key foundations of Fletcher's success has been his ability to carve out a role for himself that
enhances the performance of the team without undermining the necessary authority of the captain. It
has not been easy.
Fletcher said: "When I was first made captain of Zimbabwe, I thought I needed a coach to run
everything. I was an all-rounder and I wanted time to concentrate on my own game. So I had Peter
Carlstein installed as an omnipotent coach. It took me two practice sessions to establish that this was
not working. The players can't have two bosses; the captain must be in charge."
So how has he done it? Firstly, he has sought to establish demarcation lines between the respective
roles. "There are certain areas where players know this is Duncan's area, and this is the captain's area."
Secondly, he habitually uses little tricks of speech, designed to cement the captain's authority but so
subtle that the intent behind them will be virtually imperceptible to the players.
"If we have a team meeting, you do little things that are crucial. Vaughany always has the last word. I
talk and then Vaughany finishes, so they know who is in charge.
"Once he has finished, I won't say, 'oh, and do this as well.' Maybe I'm thinking of something while he is
talking, but I won't ever say it. You wait until later and bring it up at another point. The captain always
starts the team talk as well.
If I am going to say something, he will say, 'Okay, right guys, listen up, here's Duncan.' That's all he
has got to say. Who's in charge there?"
This is Fletcher to a tee. He really hates waste. Waste of effort, waste of time, waste of words. He looks
to reduce everything to its essential core. He thinks long and hard about complex issues, but his
eventual answer will usually be simple, short and pithy. If you want to crack open a nut, don't use a
sledgehammer. He applies this principle to his technical coaching and he applies it to managing his
people.
Why radically change a batting technique when all that is needed is an alteration of milliseconds in
timing? And why make a big deal of maintaining the captain's authority when a word carefully positioned
here and there will do the trick?
Fletcher possesses an extremely rare combination of characteristics that goes a long way to explaining
his success. He loves analysing systems and procedures, using his considerable powers of logic to
determine the root cause of technical problems, but is equally able to read people and engender
commitment and motivation. In business parlance, he is a "techie", a "strategist" and good
communicator -all wrapped up in one very determined individual.
DUNCAN FLETCHER was born in Salisbury (now Harare), the third of six children and the middle of five
brothers in a farming family. If you had told him a little more than a decade ago that he would
eventually be recognised throughout the cricketing world as an established and talented coach, he would
not have believed you.
He was a gifted cricketer, a batting and bowling all-rounder and an excellent fielder, but was denied the
opportunity to play Test cricket because Zimbabwe was not afforded Test match status until his career
had ended. He did play one-day internationals, however, and captained Zimbabwe to a famous giantkilling defeat of Australia in the 1983 World Cup -a match in which he played the starring role.
By all accounts, his most obvious attribute as a player was his steely combativeness, his stubborn
refusal to submit to Zimbabwe's role as the whipping boy of international cricket. Dave Houghton, his
team-mate at that time, once recalled his tenaciousness: "The thing about Duncan was that if we were
200 for 3, he would get 0. But if we were 30 for 3, he would get 80."
There was no professional cricket in Zimbabwe, so Fletcher played as an amateur and had to earn a
living elsewhere. His love of systems attracted him to computers in the very early days of the industry,
in the late 1960s. "I was working on one of the two computers in the country at the time, in the
government, in the Treasury computer bureau. I learned to operate the computer to start with, then
moved on to programming at code level and then to devising systems. We just wrote systems for any
government department that came along -car licensing, water-billing systems, statistical systems.
"I was there until about 1980, and then I went across to the big medical aid society in Zimbabwe. I
managed their computer department, which dealt with medical aid claims and billing systems and
finance systems."
In 1984, he emigrated with his family to Cape Town. At the age of 36, this was no easy move. "There
was no freedom to move money out of Zimbabwe. You could only take 4,000 rand. What's 4,000 rand?
"Everything had to be four years old. We had to take our car and prove it was four years old. Our fridge
had to be four years old. I had a son of nine and a daughter of six. We couldn't afford to own a house
and it wasn't a highly paid job which I moved to. So when we got to South Africa, we were basically
starting our lives again."
He worked at first for a company that manufactured steam boilers. But it was to be his last job before
entering full-time cricket coaching that really fired his enthusiasm, utilising and honing his considerable
logistical strengths.
Soon after he started work at Power Engineers, a manufacturer of electrical transformers, he was to
witness at first hand the powerful benefit of outsiders who can view individuals and operations from a
detached and fresh perspective, unblinkered by industry prejudice.
External consultants performed an exhaustive analysis of the troubled company, leading to wholesale
sackings and restructuring. After several interviews, Fletcher was invited to become the company's
production-control manager, in charge of more than 50 staff.
"I looked after their storehouses, the shop floor where all their transformers were manufactured, and
was also in charge of their purchasing department," said Fletcher.
"But the big thing was their material-requirements planning, analysing exactly what amount of materials
were required at exactly what time. They were moving from an old-fashioned system to what was called
in the industrial world at that time the 'just-in-time' philosophy. I found that probably the most
interesting job I've had in my life."
Some statement from a man whose job now is to coach elite sportsmen to perform on the international
stage in front of audiences of millions. What did he love about it?
"I just really like systems and bringing in new innovations to systems. This benefits my coaching career
because I just hate sitting still with techniques. A technique is a system -how you hit a ball, how you
throw a ball. And you should always challenge techniques.
"It's about saving waste. It's no different. 'Just-in-time' was based on a Japanese philosophy that says
you can waste time. A waste of time is more important than what I had thought was waste. I thought
waste was a piece of paper after you had eaten a sweet. But when you got involved with 'just-in-time'
systems, where time was a huge thing, you just thought, 'why repeat the same errors all the time? Get
rid of errors, if you are repeating them.'"
Fletcher was highly successful in this role, reducing the stockholding from 6m rand to 2m rand. The
problem was, he was too successful for his own good. "It was one of those Catch 22 situations, where I
thought, 'hold on, I'm enjoying it, but I was so involved in it that it was affecting my health and my
family life.
"Also, because I was the only one who did this work, I could see that I couldn't go up in the company.
They would never let me leave that position and promote me.
So I thought, 'what future have I got?'"
On arrival in South Africa, he continued to play amateur cricket for a couple of years for a "pittance"
until he was offered more money by the University of Cape Town to become a part-time coach. It was
there that his coaching ability first became apparent. "I took UCT to probably the top club side in the
whole of South Africa, and they had never really been successful at all before. We won the national club
championship. That's when I put my name on the map as a coach."
In 1993, at a time when he was questioning his future at Power Engineers, cricket teams throughout the
world were just beginning to place their coaching arrangements on a more professional, and better-paid,
footing. He was offered the newly created position of director of cricket at Western Province, dealing
with all cricketing matters, including coaching the "A" team.
But even then, coaching had only limited appeal. "As cricket is only for five months of the year, there
was to be a lot of admin work to do over the winter, planning everything and so forth. It was only then
that I decided to take the job.
"It was more that side that attracted me. I didn't really know how far I'd go with the coaching. It was a
huge decision, but I just thought, 'why not, it's an adventure, let's just go for it.'"
So at the age of 45, a somewhat wary Fletcher started his first full-time job in cricket, and set off on his
second life-changing journey in a decade.
HE DOES not see it in as a disadvantage when he is coaching Test players that he himself has never
played at that level. In fact, the "consultant" in him sees it as a real potential advantage. "I still believe
there are people out there who think, 'how can he help when he hasn't played Test cricket?' But when
one looks around, it could well be that when you haven't done it, you learn and understand the game
more than those who took it for granted and were natural players.
"How many of the top sports coaches played at international level. Did Arsene Wenger play for France?
Did (cricket coach) John Buchanan play for Australia? Did Bob Dwyer, the rugby coach, play for
Australia?
"To be a good coach, to understand things technically, you don't have to have played at the highest
level. Sometimes, you can introduce better plans having viewed everything from afar, looking in, rather
than being in it, having played Test cricket all your life and having blinkers on."
It is sometimes said that the managerial techniques used in the "one dimensional" or "macho" world of
sport would not suit the more diverse, more complex and gentler world of the office. The reality is very
different. Because of the greater rarity and indispensable Joint leaders don't work As far as management
goes, two's a crowd. If two individuals are in positions of authority, ensure that their roles are clearly
divided and that ultimate decision-making power rests with just one of them Never be afraid to hand
responsibility to people Have faith in human nature. Don't try to dictate to people. Give them a chance
to prove themselves and to learn from their mistakes. They will rarely let you down Co-opt the rebellious
by awarding them management responsibility Don't just sit there getting irritated by people who won't
subscribe to a team ethic. If their ability makes them worth keeping, give them management
responsibility and watch their characters change Listen to what your team is telling you There is nothing
more demotivating than a manager who won't listen. Your workers will more than likely know their own
job better than you do. So if they're telling you something, it might be worth taking heed Always be
sensitive to the human balance of your team Team spirit is a vital ingredient for success. Take care to
ensure that your team has a critical mass of individuals who get along with each other and have a team-
oriented personality If you show faith in individuals, they will repay you People will generally respond to
a manager who says that he believes in them and is prepared to work with them over the long-term to
capitalise on their strengths Commitment from the manager is in itself a motivating force Don't ask your
workers to put in maximum effort if you're not prepared to do the same. Resentment and cynicism will
be the inevitable result. A strong work ethic, on the other hand, can be infectious Only criticise in private
No individual likes to be rebuked in front of others. Arguments in the heat of the moment can escalate,
causing irreparable damage to a working relationship. Save your criticism for when you are behind
closed doors For every action, there is a reaction -always establish the root of a problem Don't jump in
head first to attack problems in individual or team performance.
What you are seeing are the symptoms. You constantly need to ask why something is happening and
then address that Recruit character -it's very difficult to change mental make-up It's much easier to
improve technical faults or to teach new skills than to transform an individual's personality. Ensure as
far as is practicable that the person you are recruiting has the right stuff nature of genuine talent, the
management of people in sport has had to be far more advanced, which is one reason why we can learn
so much from it.
Fletcher's comparison of his experiences in both worlds underline this point.
"They are very similar in the sense that you have got to motivate in both. The only thing that is slightly
different is that when you have a problem with staff in commerce and industry, it is just a couple of
warnings and you are fired.
Whereas it is hugely different in sport. You just can't do that.
"There is such a scarcity of top players that they hold the balance of power. You can be more demanding,
more dictatorial in business, if you want to be. But I still believe that to get the very best out of people,
it is not about being dictatorial, it is about handling people, and motivating them."
One of the core principles of Fletcher's style is to award responsibility to his players, to encourage
individuals to think for themselves and take charge of their own destiny. "One of the biggest things in
man management is to listen. You act as a consultant. They have got ideas. Human beings will always
respond, I feel, if they are in charge of their own ideas.
"To use a cricketing example, I always say to captains, 'listen to what your bowlers are saying.' I was a
bowler and there is nothing worse than captains who won't listen. Because your focus then is not on
your bowling -you are more concerned about why you haven't got the three slip fielders you asked for.
"You should always listen to what your worker or player is saying. And let him learn from his mistakes.
Throw the ball into his court. I don't think he will throw it away."
Assigning responsibility is also Fletcher's main method of making talented but awkward or rebellious
individuals more committed to the team cause, often appointing them to the senior management group
which he himself introduced to support the captain. "I don't know anyone who doesn't like responsibility,
in whatever form. We've seen individuals come on board who have been seen as rebels.
We have put them on the management team and it has just changed them. It just made them better
individuals. Suddenly they start participating with everyone. There is a whole different attitude."
Given that Fletcher's coaching career has been relatively brief, his record of identifying and developing
future stars has been nothing short of phenomenal. As a specialist batting coach -he employs Troy
Cooley to coach the bowlers -his discoveries have tended to be batsmen.
In his early days at UCT, Fletcher took aside an 18-year-old Gary Kirsten, then batting low down the
order for the club team and heading nowhere in particular, and told him that he could make it as a topclass batsman if only he would decide to put his mind to it. Kirsten went on to score 21 centuries in 101
Tests for South Africa, describing Fletcher as "one of the greatest influences on my life and career, a
true mentor".
For England, Fletcher is associated with the promotion of Vaughan, Marcus Trescothick and Andrew
Strauss to the Test team -all three are now regular Test batsmen.
One of the methods Fletcher uses to assess the character of Test hopefuls is to invite them to spend
time in the England set-up. He goes round the country asking players and coaches to name individuals
they think could play Test cricket within two years. He has a list of such individuals, and invites a couple
of them to be twelfth men for each England home match. Fletcher then assumes his natural position,
looking in from the outside, watching, observing.
"Quite often, we will have a warm-up game in the morning. And we normally split them into two teams
to warm up. What we do is we put these two guys in charge of the senior players and say to them, 'right,
you are in charge, get them motivated, warm them up.' And then you sit and watch how they react to
being given that authority."
What would count against them? "It is more what impresses you than what puts you off. There is
nothing better than when a twelfth man comes up and starts talking to me. 'So coach, what do you
think about this? What did you do there?' Straight away, you think, 'there's a guy who wants to move
forward, who wants to learn'."
This option of testing an individual out before taking him on is, of course, not available in most business
situations. But companies could avoid some costly recruitment mistakes by more internal hiring from
other departments where trial periods are possible. A survey published this year by hrlook.com, the
human-resources firm, reported that 75% of employers were not confident that they would choose the
right applicant when hiring.
Once a batsman is part of the England set-up, Fletcher works hard with him to improve his technique. "A
lot of coaches can identify the problem but they don't identify the cause of the problem. For every action,
there is a reaction. Most coaches only identify the reaction, rather than the action. The technique of
batting and bowling is like a row of dominoes. The last one only falls if all the other ones are in order.
Which domino hasn't been placed correctly? You constantly need to ask why something isn't working
properly."
Radical change might not be necessary. With proper analysis, a tiny alteration might result in a radical
change of fortune. Any final decision to amend technique must rest with the player.
Fletcher also believes in doing what you ask others to do. "If you say, 'we're going on a six-kilometre
run', you should be out there in front, trying hard. In that way, no one can question you. I can't do what
a young 22-year-old can do in the gym. But I'll go and spend the time there. And I'll make sure all my
management team are there. When we were in Bangladesh, even the scorer who was about 60 was
there".
Once he has a hunch that a player will make it, he tends to give him time to prove it. Consistency of
selection, so absent in the recent England past, has allowed team spirit to develop and grow. But the
principal result can be seen at the individual level. The faith he shows in individuals, together with the
huge amount of work he does with them to improve their game, forms an extremely powerful
motivational cocktail.
What human being can fail to respond to being told: "I believe you will make it, and I am going to work
all hours with you to make sure you do?"
Gary Kirsten summed up the effect of Fletcher's approach: "He worked so hard with individuals that you
had to measure his input in days and weeks, not hours. By the time you went out to play, you felt you
were performing for him more than anyone else. If I failed, it felt like I was letting him down, not giving
him a well-deserved return on all the time he had invested in me. The greatest compliment I can pay
him was he believed in me before I believed in myself, and he gave me the ability to believe in myself."
Much of Fletcher's work is performed on a one-to-one basis. It is in this environment that any necessary
criticism is meted out. "People, no matter who they are, do not like being rebuked or criticised in public.
Even if there are three people in the room, they don't like it."
Fletcher will now be trying his utmost to pinpoint any weaknesses in the Australian team and to prepare
his own players for the titanic Ashes battle ahead.
Much of the pre-series hype will focus on his meticulous planning. But how many will talk of his human
perceptiveness and empathy, his burning desire to see others fulfil their potential? In our lazier
moments, we are drawn into classifying people into mutually exclusive categories. Duncan Fletcher is
living proof that even anoraks can have a degree in caring about people.
oDavid Bolchover is the co-author of The 90-Minute Manager, which outlines the lessons that business
managers can learn from football managers. His next book, The Living Dead: The Shocking Truth about
Office Life, will be published by Wiley-Capstone in October.
davidbolchover@hotmail.com
FLETCHER AT A GLANCE
Born: September 27, 1948, Harare, Zimbabwe (then Salisbury, Rhodesia)
Marital status: married to Marina, one son, one daughter
Education: Prince Edward School, Harare
Playing career: represented Zimbabwe, captain of Zimbabwe
Non-cricket work: computer analyst in Zimbabwe civil service and in large medical aid society.
Production control manager for Power Engineers, Cape Town
Coaching positions: University of Cape Town (part-time), Western Province, Glamorgan, England
Salary: approximately Pounds 200,000 a year
Major coaching achievements: Western Province -Castle Cup winners, 1995-96; Glamorgan -County
Championship Winners, 1997; took over as England coach in 1999, when England were bottom of the
world rankings England's Test record under Fletcher: played 73, won 35, drawn 18, lost 20.
England now rank number two in the world behind Australia
Joint leaders don't work
As far as management goes, two's a crowd. If two individuals are in positions of authority, ensure that
their roles are clearly divided and that ultimate decision-making power rests with just one of them
Never be afraid to hand responsibility to people
Have faith in human nature. Don't try to dictate to people. Give them a chance to prove themselves and
to learn from their mistakes. They will rarely let you down
Co-opt the rebellious by awarding them management responsibility
Don't just sit there getting irritated by people who won't subscribe to a team ethic. If their ability makes
them worth keeping, give them management responsibility and watch their characters change
Listen to what your team is telling you
There is nothing more demotivating than a manager who won't listen. Your workers will more than likely
know their own job better than you do. So if they're telling you something, it might be worth taking
heed
Always be sensitive to the human balance of your team
Team spirit is a vital ingredient for success. Take care to ensure that your team has a critical mass of
individuals who get along with each other and have a team-oriented personality
If you show faith in individuals, they will repay you
People will generally respond to a manager who says that he believes in them and is prepared to work
with them over the long-term to capitalise on their strengths
Commitment from the manager is in itself a motivating force
Don't ask your workers to put in maximum effort if you're not prepared to do the same. Resentment and
cynicism will be the inevitable result. A strong work ethic, on the other hand, can be infectious
Only criticise in private
No individual likes to be rebuked in front of others. Arguments in the heat of the moment can escalate,
causing irreparable damage to a working relationship. Save your criticism for when you are behind
closed doors
For every action, there is a reaction - always establish the root of a problem
Don't jump in head first to attack problems in individual or team performance. What you are seeing are
the symptoms. You constantly need to ask why something is happening and then address that
Recruit character - it's very difficult to change mental make-up
It's much easier to improve technical faults or to teach new skills than to transform an individual's
personality. Ensure as far as is practicable that the person you are recruiting has the right stuff
(C) Times Newspapers Ltd, 2005
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