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“What I soon learned about him was that Viru did not want to dedicate himself to taking his talent to its zenith. He was happy to turn up and play and accept what came his way. No amount of cajoling from me could shift him from his insouciant way.”

“Strangely, for someone who only wants to play the game on his terms, he harbors a desire to captain his country,” he wrote. “I have no doubt that he could do it for he understands the game well, but what he fails to grasp is that with the honor comes responsibility. In fact, the responsibility to show personal leadership has to come before one can earn the higher honor. He wants the prize, but has been unwilling to pay the price.”

Those were few lines that I picked from Greg Chappel’s article on Virendar Sehwag, published last week.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with these names and background, Virendar Sehwag plays Cricket for India and plays as an opener. He is known for his astonishing skill of hitting the cricket ball with the kind of ease that no one can even imagine. His strike rates are as follows, ODI 104.6, T20 149.35, Test 82.17, again a rarity in International Cricket and speaks for his talent in batting. Greg, renewed Australian cricketer who took up coaching after his retirement, coached Indian cricket team during the period between years 2005 and 2007 and had closely worked with Viru during those years.

Keeping aside the undercurrents between Greg & Viru, I felt like there is a great  message in Greg’s statements to all of us.

Irrespective of the talent we all possess and irrespective of the positions that we all hold, and irrespective of stature that we have, it is important for us to keep polishing the skills that we all possess.

It can be by the way of reading to expand the thinking, it can be practising a certain skill that we possess at a set frequency so that we can keep improving, it can be by the way of talking to others and picking up few points to enhance our skills , it can be by the way of observing and learning from others successes as well as mistakes. But, the important point is to be open to learning no matter from where it is coming and internalizing what we think we are learning.

Many a times, I have seen (happened to me too), after attending a workshop or listening to a talk, we feel like we have enlightened and we think that we have learnt what we are supposed to learnt from that workshop or talk. But, the fact is unless we spend some time in thinking about what we went through in the workshop/training/talk and to see how can we apply that in our day-to-day work, and keep applying the concepts learned, the learning is not going to get internalized and without getting internalized, it is not a learning.

By internalized I meant, being able to think and implement the concepts learned to different scenarios and see results.

I come across individuals who think just because they spent number of years in doing certain things, be it writing a piece of code, be it playing a certain sport, be it working in a particular role in an organization, they deserve to move to the next level.

Another category of individuals that I have seen is individuals who have put in numbers of years in doing certain things and think that there is nothing to be learnt and they can be what they because of the fact that they have a reached certain level and they have seen it all.

Please note that there is nothing like “seeing it all” and “have learnt all that I could.” Please also note that just because we have spent number of years in a particular role, it does not mean that we have acquired a progressive learning experience.

As Greg said, with the prize comes the price and with the honor comes responsibility. The question is “Are we prepared?” and if not, “Can we?.”

In my experience that spans across different industries over a decade and half, I am yet to see a person who is successful and has seen the honor that comes with it, without the hard work and continuous refining of skills they have by being open to learning.

To summarize,

a. Let us keep fine-tuning and refining our skill set, irrespective of number of years that are being spent on using that skill set.

b. Never stop looking for the opportunities to learn and be open to learning in order to refine ourselves and our skill set.

c. Always try to internalize the learning by revising what we have learnt and keep applying the learning wherever possible in our day-to-day work. Mind you, without an application of learning, it is not a complete learning.

d. Let us prepare ourselves by way of upgrading our skill set suitably for the responsibility that comes with the position or power that we seek and go for. Let us be willing to pay the price that comes with the prize.

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other – John F. Kennedy.