Corporate Lessons From Tampergate

No one wants to take a chance with winning. But why? Do you feel there is something inherently wrong with the business of winning?

Steve Smith, David Warner, and Cameron Bancroft have become the poster boys of all that is wrong with the business of winning — winning at all costs. Darren Lehman, the coach who has taken the moral responsibility has also quit, as if he had any real choice in the matter.

I studied the coverage of this saga in the Indian media, Australian media, and of course on the web; and to my mind at least, I found it to be a partial coverage. The dominant narrative has been that this is a case of individual(s) gone rogue. I did not quite see the coverage appropriately and proportionately questioning other dimensions — leadership, system, and society with any rigor. And in the want of these dimensions, the easiest to blame took the brunt.

Indeed it was a case of individual lapse. Smith, Warner, and Bancroft were adults and knew exactly what they were doing. The act was clearly unprofessional and unethical they must be proportionately penalized for it, and they were.

However, Smith was not only an individual; he was also the captain. He, along with the coach Lehman, who irrespective of the veracity of his claim that he was unaware of this plan formed the leadership team, both were supposed to uphold the fair play together. The breach was right at the top! The breach would have shocked and hurt less perhaps had it been some fringe player who would have indulged in this cheating in the pursuit of individual glory. It hurts more because it was the captain. The leadership lapse was larger than the individual lapse.