What was I thinking? I don't know anything about cricket... or organisation for that matter. In fact, I often feel totally hopeless when it comes to getting things done.
I think cricket works like this:
Two men stand at either end of a strip of grass holding bats made out of wood. Another man throws a leather ball at one of them, trying to knock over a pile of sticks behind the man with the bat. The batsman tries to whack the ball with the bat as far away as possible and then runs away. Then people in deckchairs start applauding just before it rains and everyone has to go indoors. For some inexplicable reason, this goes on for five days, or maybe one day, or maybe however long it is until the cucumber sandwiches come round.
It was my own fault really, for remembering the work event, two summers ago. It had been Rob (an avid cricket fan) who'd organised that particular do. He seemed to know about cricket, about nudging and nurdling and silly mid-off and overs and run rates. He'd worked out how to organise the teams and how to fit a whole game into a summer's evening. He'd made it happen.
I turned up as a spectator, hoping to figure it all out. I was flustered when Rob thrust the score sheet into my hand and asked me to do the scoring while he captained a team. I've had fewer more stressful evenings. As I say, I know next to nothing about cricket. I enjoyed flipping over the numbers on the huge board, but it was really difficult to keep up with what was happening. I had a pencil, the A4 scoresheet, flapping about in the breeze and nothing to write on. One of the Finance Guys (who'd dressed in his pads and whites) got really confused when I miscounted his runs. He looked over to me with a sort of shrug of disbelief and then went back to the crease, shaking his head. I didn't really know people all that well and I couldn't see the umpire.
Since that summer's evening somewhere on the Englefield estate, Rob has left. In a meeting the other day, I foolishly said, "Oh, are we doing a cricket match this year?" at which point, the general agreement was yes and good idea Matt, get on with it.
So, I think I need to find someone who knows more about cricket than I do - which shouldn't be that difficult. In fact, I probably need to delegate the whole thing somehow to a team of people with skills I don't possess. It might be a good opportunity to practice that forgotten art. My own experiences of delegation usually turn into a complicated mess where you're not sure who's really in charge. Then you make a decision based on an assumption and there's trouble afoot.
Actually, that might be a key to success. I need a well-chosen team, a clearly communicated vision and an appropriate and achievable task list, perhaps? Also, it strikes me that delegation actually means sort of untying yourself from something. You become de-legated from it - which is freedom by any other name. That's how CEOs can go off and play golf, isn't it? I've got a lot to learn.
Especially about cricket.
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