Skip to main content

Team Huddles and Energy calls

Once upon a time the Indian cricket team was going through a crisis and if I remember right, this was around the 2003 World Cup - and they started getting into a huddle before every match.

In sport, a huddle is an action of a team gathering together, usually in a tight circle, to strategise, motivate or celebrate. It is a popular strategy for keeping opponents insulated from sensitive information, and acts as a form of insulation when the level of noise in the venue is such that normal on-field communication is difficult. Commonly the leader of the huddle is the team captain and it is the captain who will try to inspire his fellow team members to achieve success. Similarly after an event a huddle may take place to congratulate one another for the teams success, or to commiserate a defeat. The term "huddle" can be used as a verb as in "huddling up". (wikipedia)

This is recognized as a universal strategy. I have seen this in manufacturing industries as the morning prayer (I remember one of the mantras was Karagre Vasate Lakshmi - a beautiful shloka about the hands - so apt in a the factory where people work with their hands). Rugby teams do it, army units do it. Indeed, as it happens, even teams working in technology and BPO do it.

It has a great motivational effect. Coming together before the days work, deciding what needs to be done, understanding what needs to be done and so on and so forth. And perhaps I will segue that into a story on the importance of 'ritual' at some point, but that is for later.

A few months ago, as part of a stage play - we followed a ritual. We would recite, Angikam Bhuvanam (never realised that this was connected to dance). We called it the energy call. And it had an amazing energizing quality to it. People were energised and it directed us into a 'zone' of performance.

Various things happen in a huddle. Sometimes, it is sharing a thought. Sometimes, wishing someone. Sometimes, reiterating the goal. Sometimes, it is just a chant that gives energy!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The man who saved Pumpelsdrop

This was a story we had in college if I am not mistaken. Perhaps it was in school, but a delightful story it was. The story goes somewhat like this ( reproduced from here ), but the college version we had was slightly different from this.  I t was a dull, gloomy and a depressing morning in a town named Pumpelsdrop in northern England. The Great Depression had brought all the businesses to a standstill. The bored automobile dealer was spending time alone, as usual. But, this seems to be an unusual morning as an odd entity (customer) appeared on the horizon. A man in a bright suit walks up to the dealer and says, "I need to buy a Rolls Royce Phantom II. We have a business conference coming up and I need to impress my customers". Then proceeds to pay 10% of the deal with a single check for 2000 pounds. The rest he says will pay when he takes the delivery.   The auto dealer was stunned. He was delighted to hear that someone is holding a business conference of some kind and

The Mintzberg triangle

At a recent training, someone spoke about the Mintzberg triangle. I located it here . Image from that page reproduced here. The page linked above has a better explanation of diagram above, but what intrigued me was that the triangle exists for practically anything. The facilitator referred to this in the context of facilitation. Of how facilitation has science, craft and art to it. That is so true,  I thought. Worth a thought! Need to read of Mintzberg though...

Waigaya and Sangen Shugi - Honda

Two big takeaways from Driving Honda were Waigaya and Sangen Shugi. A few days ago, we were working on a strategy module for a company. As we leafed through old and new theories and books around the same - one comment which caught my eye was Henry Mintzbergs comment where he says "Strategy is like weeds, it has to grow all around your company" A lot of times organisations dip into their pool of employees (and sometimes customers) and solicit ideas from them. This happens either at an offsite or a meeting or some quarterly review and the ideas pile up. Most companies today have an innovation program that encourages bottom up ideation. Many of these ideas are future strategy - provided someone is listening. Sometimes these ideas are not immediately implementable - but if one keeps looking, there might be valuable stuff in there. And if (post such programs) ideas die very often, the motivation of someone to keep doing it will also diminish. Waigaya is what Honda call