Emotional intelligence -- lessons from the IPL 2016 final
It often does not require more than basic and elementary common sense to succeed in life. However, more often than not, we miss the wood for the trees and do things that are not at all based on common sense. We miss vital opportunities, we weigh only the short term pleasures versus the long term goals, we do not sweat much, we do not do enough hard work and so on. When all this happens, the inevitable also happens -- failures in life.
Be that as it may, a new filed of applied behavioral science has now emerged and a great deal of research is now on to explore more dimensions of what is called emotional intelligence. When we say a person has very good emotional intelligence, we mean that the person is optimistic, his behavior has a huge effect on others, his behavior motivates others, and when he keeps his emotions under control, there are huge gains in any given situation.
The current Indian captain for the One Day International matches and the T20 format matches, in Cricket, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, is often sited as one of the best in this regard. He rarely shows his emotions on the filed, his communication is bare minimum, but he makes his point very clear, and this becomes loud and clear, when it matters most. The net result is that there is a tremendous optimism when he is around.
The team that he represents in IPL at the moment, Rising Pune Giants, unfortunately did not qualify for the final four this year, but the last match was indeed memorable. It required 23 runs to win of the final year, and Dhoni did not panic.
At a time when critics were debating his lack of form, he rose like one man, and hit all the 23 runs from his own bat, and six that he hit of the last ball was simply superb --- it was vintage Dhoni, at his best.
Well, the final of the IPL 2016, saw a new hero -- David Warner of the Sunrisers Hyderabad, who did what he is well known for -- superb captaincy, and shrewd tactics on the filed. His calmness and the way he motivated his team --- very young team --- to success will be talked for a very long time.
In a span of 54 balls, the entire match turned on its head. The clinical RCB were 114 for no loss, at the end of the 11th over. Everyone thought that the match would be over by the 17th over, and the Sunrisers would bite the dust.
But it later transpired that Warner spent the 150 seconds available after the 9th over, to talk to his boys and execute a plan of bowling short and slow, to get the dangerous Chris Gayle out. This plan was executed to perfection, and Gayle was out in the 12th over. RCB went on to loose six more wickets and the rest is history. What happened during overs 12 to 20 will ever be remembered forever.
It was left to Cutting of the SRH who bowled a beauty and Gayle was gone. But the superb Kohli and AB De Villers were at the crease and the crowd was so anxious. Kohli reached his fifty, but was clean bowled by a straight ball from Sran, who had till then had a very ordinary spell.
Warner did not show his emotions at any point in time. He did motivate his bowlers at every stage, and the fielding was again superb. They had to contend with the dangerous Stuart Binny, who was capable of hitting sixes. The throw from Bipul Sharma was simply superb and Binny was run out.
Earlier, the trap laid to get rid of A B De Villers in the form of a short ball from Henriques was simply superb and spoke of the accuracy of the bowling. An unassuming Mustafizur Rahman, who comes from a pretty ordinary background from Bangladesh, was another hero of the team, and it was he who, along with Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, did all the death bowling in each of the matches, with superb and telling accuracy.
SRH now has the best bowling team in IPL and is now a superb unit, in batting, fielding and bowling. It was superb to see Ben Cutting of SRH, comes out with such a superb spell with the ball, and with figures of two wickets for just 35 runs in a crucial match.
The lessons in emotional intelligence are aplenty. The leader has to show the way. In this case, the leader showed the way, with both the bat and his leadership. He has now built a new and superb team, brick after brick. This team is now a well knit unit and complements the strengths of each member of the team.
Its mentor, the former Indian cricketer, VVS Laxman, is another person who has motivated the team and formulated strategies to execute.
Emotional intelligence is a superb tool to excellence. A person high on emotional intelligence not only knows to remain cool at all times, but also motivate others to perform, even under the worst of circumstances. They see light at the end of every tunnel and do not give up. They understand that in every crisis situation, there is a very good opportunity, and all that needs to be done is to marshal all resources available and effectively use them in a crisis situation very effectively --- precisely what David Warner did on that particular night at the IPL final.
We can easily learn a lot from such experiences. For instance, young people, that is, graduates in particular, do not know that there is an opportunity for the asking in the BPO sector, where even the knowledge of spoken English is not very essential. Once they get in, they can work their way up, by mastering English, through some special courses and move up the career ladder.
This is exactly what is being done by the street smart people from the tier 2 and tier 3 towns, since they realize that if they bite their nails and feel frustrated and ventilate such anger on others, nothing will happen.
Instead if they catch on to the first ever opportunity, that helps them to be creative and positive. They start looking at life from a fresh perspective and move up on emotional intelligence, far better than others who are very choosy and end up getting nowhere. This is exactly what we should all do under every given opportunity --- make the most of it, and keep on trying for better opportunities. Once we start doing this, not only will be grow economically, we will also be to become and stay positive and enable the positive feeling to rub off effectively on others. The world will then become a better place to live in.
The IPL final 2016, is worth watching any number of times, for all the positive lessons it offers on emotional intelligence.
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