“Transformation for me means belief. It means to see the future and looking after young talent and having faith in them. That’s how you change mindsets,” said Sourav Ganguly, speaking on high-impact leadership at a session organised by Innoverv at the Biswa Bangla Convention Centre on August 17.
Innoverv, an AI-powered boutique consultancy, had organised a similar session with Ganguly at Lord’s, clips from which went viral earlier this year. This time around, Innoverv teamed up with the former Indian captain in his hometown and Innoverv’s India base to inspire young minds through lessons on visionary thinking, resilience and the pursuit of excellence.
Sana Ganguly introduces Innoverv; Dona Ganguly was the special guest for the event Amit Pramanik
“I admire Innoverv for their compelling mission to challenge the status quo. They are a good team, and some of them are fellow Kolkatans. I first came to know of Innoverv through my daughter Sana’s role there. Her enthusiasm and love for Innoverv have fascinated me — she gets out of bed everyday wanting to go to work with the team, full of energy and verve,” observed Ganguly.
“Innoverv is an industry disruptor in the AI and SAP (Systems Application and Products) industry that provides consultancy to smaller companies on how to enhance their growth by leveraging AI as a tool. Innoverv is small enough to care, but big enough to matter,” said Sana Ganguly, introducing Innoverv to kick-off the event, where Dona Ganguly was the special guest.
Ganguly’s biggest challenge as captain
Jo Whalley in conversation with Ganguly Amit Pramanik
The headline act of the event was Ganguly’s one-on-one chat with Jo Whalley, Innoverv’s clients and markets leader. “At Innoverv, we see Kolkata as the next Silicon Valley of SAP. We’re excited to scale our operations in Kolkata and aim to bring in 400-plus of the best in the Kolkata SAP community over the next six months,” said Whalley, prior to her conversation with Ganguly.
“If you play the same way, you’ll get the same results. As captain at home, my job was simple. I had to stand in one place and hand the ball to the spinners and they would end the match in three to four days. But my biggest challenge was whenever we played in England, Australia or South Africa. We had a lot of quality, but even if a Sachin [Tendulkar] or a [Rahul] Dravid or a Ganguly got centuries, we’d still not win. That’s what I wanted to change,” explained Ganguly, whose captaincy brought more aggression and decisiveness to Indian performances on foreign soil.
What does Dhoni look for in leaders? Ganguly reveals
Ganguly spoke candidly about getting dropped from the Indian team and making a comeback in 2006 Amit Pramanik
Drawing parallels between sports and business, Ganguly focussed on two key similarities – risk-taking and backing talent: “We had a lot of tried and tested players when I was captain, but I needed to take risks and give chances to youngsters who could become match-winners. But once you pick a talent, you have to give them the right time and platform to succeed. The same applies to business — you don’t hire individuals to fail, you hire them to succeed. Successful leaders prevail because they keep doing the right things with the right people over a long period of time.”
On the subject of personality in leadership, Ganguly made the case for adaptability and selflessness: “The best leaders in the world adapt. You can’t think that whatever you do is always right. Being a good leader is about acceptance and it’s about letting individuals perform.” Talking about the traits of leaders, Ganguly recollected asking Mahendra Singh Dhoni what Dhoni looks for in leaders: “Dhoni said he looks for confidence. For him, the players he backs are not the most successful ones but the most confident ones.”
Whalley proceeded to turn Ganguly’s attention to adversity, especially in 2006, when he was dropped from the national team during the coaching tenure of Greg Chappell. “In the span of two months, I went from leading a billion people to playing a Ranji Trophy game with three men and a dog watching. But in three months’ time, I was back, with 60,000 people watching me again in the stadium,” remembered Ganguly, inviting the loudest round of applause of the day. “Getting dropped made me realise the value of my runs,” continued Ganugly, before adding: “Sport has taught me the value of counting on yourself to deal with things. You can have your coaches, your family and your well-wishers on the outside. But when you’re facing a delivery at 90mph from Shoaib Akhtar or Brett Lee, you’re on your own. It’s you who has to deal with it.”
‘I’m convinced you won’t be captain anymore’: Steve Waugh to Dada during the Eden Test of 2001
(L-R): Partha Chakraborty, Anindya Mitra, Sourav Ganugly, Ambarish Dasgupta and Asidhara Lahiri Amit Pramanik
The second segment of the day saw Ganguly join a panel of eminent professionals to share anecdotes about leadership. Alongside Dada on the panel were Partha Chakraborty, CEO, Innoverv; Anindya Mitra, chairperson of the Indian chapter of Innoverv; Ambarish Dasgupta, senior partner and founder at Intueri Consulting and global advisory board member at Innoverv; and Asidhara Lahiri, enterprise architect, SAP.
To the delight of the audience, Ganguly shared his experience of captaining India during the famous Test match of 2001 against Australia at the Eden Gardens, when Ganguly’s side overcame a follow-on to clinch the contest and end Australia’s 16-match winning streak. “By the end of the third day, we were in a terrible position. I kept thinking that my captaincy career was over. But as we got more runs [in the second innings], I could see the look change in Steve Waugh’s eyes… I took my time to declare. Even my father got annoyed and sent a note to the dressing room, saying: ‘Are you going to declare or is this match going to end in a draw?’”
When Ganguly eventually declared and India came out to bowl, the skipper dropped a catch of his opposite number off the bowling of Harbhajan Singh. “‘Neither do you score runs and nor do you take catches. I’m convinced you won’t be captain anymore” is what Waugh told Ganguly, according to Ganguly himself. But it was the Prince of Kolkata who would have the last laugh, as Harbhajan and Sachin Tendulkar took nine wickets between them to bowl out the Aussies. “That’s the day I understood that even when you’re stacked with talent like Australia [at the time], you can crumble under pressure. After that match, we made a conscious attempt to put Australia under pressure. We had to do that to win, or else they would’ve walked away with the game,” wrapped up Ganguly.
Chakraborty believes that ‘Kolkata can be the Silicon Valley of SAP’ Amit Pramanik
Summing up the event, Partha Chakraborty underlined its importance as well as the role of Innoverv in Kolkata going forward: “The vision for Innoverv is to build a world-class, global tech consulting organisation with Kolkata at its heart. Innoverv is looking to hire 150 top experts here in the city, to prove how Kolkata can be the Silicon Valley of SAP innovation. Learning how Sourav transformed Indian cricket instilled a lot of belief in us, reminding us that like him, we, too, can achieve our vision.”
