Two golf lessons that Tata's Gopal swears by

For corporations struggling with challenges like economic sluggishness, retaining and motivating employees and building a sense of integrity, golf may hold a few lessons, believes R Gopalakrishnan (Gopal), director of Tata Sons.

A tennis fanatic, Gopal picked up golf in the early 1990s realising tennis was a tough partner to keep up with, but not before he mocked a friend for indulging in a sport where you chase a tiny white ball into a hole singularly ill-fitting for it. Only to his surprise, he didn’t know he could be just as good with golf. Unlike games on courts, golf is played against a stationary ball. It’s not your reaction but your action that counts. So, Gopal put golf to use even as he wrote several management books, latest of which is What The CEO Really Wants From You.

“Technical skills, human skills and temperament skills – these are the common trinity of the skills required in a competitive situation in sport or in business,” says Gopal.

Little did he know golf would change his perspective in the two decades of playing it. That he would return to his boardrooms with lessons. “Two lessons: First, that in life, as in golf, it is not the distance that matters but the direction that you take. Second, that apparently little things matter a huge deal in life, just as the short game matters a huge deal in golf”.

Among his learnings, Gopal asserts innovation and a flexible management approach are agnostic to the type of industry. He insists promoting an environment that’s tolerant is important and that most of corporate failures occur because of a climate that inhibits free flow of suggestions.

In this era of rapid change, the idea of social behaviour is critical to the new ways of leadership. Textbook theories can take you only so far but people-to-people interaction and a customised approach to human resources (HR) problems are key to any company’s growth. “This is so important that I have written and published as many as three books on these aspects. In today’s technology-driven work environment, there needs to be added emphasis on social behaviour and people-to-people interactions. It’s a mistake to think that technology has obviated the need for these; rather, technology developments have actually increased their importance.”

No doubt, Gopal has been quite the guiding caddie to the Tata group on both management and HR matters. He’s also come to believe leaders are best if they remain learners. Like golfers. “In golf, a player can neither exult when there is a good drive nor despair when there is a poor putt. That, incidentally, is the greatest lesson for business as well as for life.”

Shaili Chopra is an award-winning business journalist and founder of www.golfingindian.com