School of Management and Labour Studies

M.A. in Human Resources Management and Labour Relations

(2017-19)

Organisational Behaviour - II

Case Study Writing

In guidance of

Professor Sasmita Palo

Group – I

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 Team Members

1. Parth Khare - M2017HRM067

2. Gautam Jayasurya - M2017HRM057
3. Kunal Singh - M2017HRM058
4. Akshay Ravindran - M2017HRM033
5. M. Yasleen Toppo – M2017HRM059
6. Arnaz Ghumman – M2017HRM010

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 Table of Contents

1. Learning Objectives ........................................................................................................... 4

2. Executive Summary ........................................................................................................... 4

3. Facts of the Case ................................................................................................................ 4

4. Questions............................................................................................................................ 6

5. Organisational Behavioural Analysis ................................................................................ 6

7. References ........................................................................................................................ 12

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1. Learning Objectives
 To better understand concepts related to organizational behaviour from the perspective
of a case study.
 Acquiring a new skill of writing a cohesive case that stands the test of reliability and
validity and adds value to the reader. This includes selecting the content for case study,
curating the theoretical elements and justifying desired outcomes.

2. Executive Summary
This case study is based on the series of incidents that took place among the stakeholders of
Indian National Men’s Cricket Team that first led to appointment of a new coach, ouster of a
reigning captain, resultant public anger, return of the captain as a player and ouster of the coach.
The Indian National Men’s Cricket Team is the subject matter of the study and concepts in the
domain of organisational behaviour discussed here are leadership styles of coach and captain,
the nature and degree of the influence and power exerted by the captain and coach on the team,
the uncertainty in the decision making, impact on team’s cohesion, factors that impacted the
performance of the team, the nature of the conflict that lead to breakdown of inter-group
relations. The case study focuses on the question of why certain actions of the coach and captain
had an impact on the team’s performance and relations from the perspective of organisational
behaviour studies. After highlighting relevant facts and underlining the key problems, the case
study intends to inspire the reader to uncover possible solutions based on research, experiences
and readings. The final output expected out of a reader would be that of a viable solution backed
by evidences that support the proposition.

3. Facts of the Case

After the match fixing scandals that rocked Indian Cricket in the late 1990’s, BCCI began
looking for new direction to steer Indian Cricket to. The resultant shake-up led to the
appointment of the first foreign Coach in John Wright and a new captain in Sourav Ganguly.
This successful duo led a new look Indian team to great heights with the run to finals of the
2003 World Cup being the highlight. Ganguly’s aggressive captaincy combined with Coach
Wright’s soft touch build together a team which was cohesive and brought results. It was part
of a great run for the Indian Cricket Team which involved major successes abroad for a team
which was traditionally known to be very poor travellers who wilted under foreign conditions.

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 The team success was attributed to a mix of youth and experience. Sachin Tendulkar,
Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble along with Ganguly were the experienced core of the side which
Ganguly augmented with a dash of youth. Ganguly personally brought in a group of youngsters
and mentored them. He also gave old hands Ashish Nehra, Zaheer Khan and V.V.S Laxman a
longer run to cement their places. The youngsters whose careers he helped build included the
swashbuckling opened Virender Sehwag, the middle order batsman Yuvraj Singh and off
spinner Harbhajan Singh. This helped build a team which was highly loyal to its captain and a
group of seniors in the team who gave each other mutual respect and space which allowed the
team to work together as a unit. The work ethic of many of the players especially with regards
to fitness were questioned now and again but with results in their , the cracks were papered
over. The Coach John Wright with his backroom management also helped keep the team
together. India were traditionally never short of brilliant Individual performances in losing
causes but under Ganguly and Wright’s reign their performances came together more often
than not.

While Sourav Ganguly performed admirably as Captain of the team, his performance with bat
suffered. Since it was his team, he got a longer run but his critics started questioning his
contribution to the team. Along with his performance , Ganguly’s relationship with the Coach
Wright also started going downhill. But Wright was not one to go for a tussle with the powerful
Captain and instead chose not to apply for an extension when his contract ended. This was
characteristic of his approach in general wherein he was able to read the situation in the dressing
room and outside better and choose his way. He understood the power dynamics within Indian
Cricket very soon and choose a method of Coaching with him firmly in the background.

With Ganguly as the face of the team , Wright method of choice was persuasion and not
conflict. He was aware of the power of star player’s like Sachin Tendulkar commanded in the
cricket mad nation and as such did nothing to upset the apple cart. Even when critics pointed
fingers at India’s lack of athleticism on the field which was mainly attributed to the senior
players, he chose not to hang a sword over their heads. Instead he let the problem’s remain
while he worked on incremental methods to solve it which never really bore fruit. This led to
Indian team being constantly being among the worst fielding sides in World Cricket which
remained their Achilles heel for a long time.

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4. Questions
1. How is leadership and coaching looked at in a sports context? Explain with reference to
how Ganguly and Chappell's leadership styles contrasted with each other.
2. What are the factors that led to the team becoming susceptible to the majority influence
exerted by the captain to minority influence exerted by the coach?
3. What were the changes in the running of the team under Chappell that led to a breakdown
of group cohesion and eventually a heavy drop in performance?
4. Explain the Theoretical Underpinnings of the concept of Trust and the breakdown of it in
the Chappell era.

5. Organisational Behavioural Analysis

a) Leadership styles of coach and captain - Ganguly vs Chappell: East vs West, or
Man against Man?

“A star wants to see himself rise to the top. A leader wants to see those around him rise to the
top.”

-Simon Sinek

The strength of a team is the strength of its leader, and in a sport that is so heavily based on
real time strategy and decision-making as Cricket, the leader naturally becomes the focal point
of attention. In a country where the players are deified or vilified based on the last result, the
role of the Leader becomes even more important. When Greg Chappell took over the reins of
the Indian Cricket Team, he brought with him is famous approach called The Chappell Way.
It was based on intensive research drawn from varied sources and sports, used Data and was a
huge change from the erstwhile gut-feeling approach Indian players are used to.

The Literature on sports coaching broadly divides coaching into two types, athlete oriented and
Task Oriented (Hinkson 2001). For the purpose of the case, we use the same classification for
Leadership, as the comparison is between a Coach and a Captain. Athlete oriented Leadership
refers to a focus on development and nurturing of the player as a person, capable of making
decisions on his own. It is much more holistic in nature, and the focus is on the athlete himself.
The leader is there for the player and takes away the fear of Failure. As an example, when
Sehwag was asked to open in Tests, he was apprehensive about being dropped from the team.
Ganguly reassured him that if he did not do well, he will not be dropped, only his order will be

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reverted back to middle order. It worked wonders and Sehwag was one of the best openers
India ever had.

On the other end of the spectrum, there is the Task-oriented leadership, embodied by Greg
Chappell. The focus in such an approach is only on results, and the player has to absorb the
inputs and work on them. The quality of motivation is extrinsic and the player is effectively
working for appreciation from the coach. If player development and providing independence
is the goal, then this approach is not suitable. (Martens 1998).

It is quite evident that Chappell’s style did not work, not just because of his commandeering
style, but also because of his lack of empathy and understanding of Indian values and mindsets,
something he had very less regard for, as is evident from his attacks on Indian working style
later on. Ganguly on the other hand was charismatic, iconic and understood Indians very well.
However, this is not to say that Chappell’s style is wrong, it did not fit the context well.

Figure showing win ratios for India’s Coaches.

b) The nature and degree of the influence and power exerted by the captain and
coach on the team.

Ever since Sourav Ganguly took over the captaincy of Indian National Men’s Cricket Team at
the turn of the millennium, there has been visible resurgence in its performance and a positive
change in the attitude of players. Sourav Ganguly was so influential such that both the young
and experienced players alike carried a great deal of self-belief when it came to being
competitive on field. Later, many of the young players backed by Captain Ganguly would go
on to become champion players at later stage of their career. This influence of captain on

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younger players ensured that loyalties for the captain ran high in the team leading to greater
conformity, homogeneity, uniformity and consensus among both senior and junior members
alike. With the arrival of Greg Chappell, an accomplished player in his own right there started
to emerge an alternative power centre within the team management. Chappell with his
aggressive personality gave a lot of importance to the fitness and practice at a time when the
team’s culture was more focussed on making the most out of individual flair and less on talent
development. Due to this culture, the fielding performance of the team barring a few sprightly
young players suffered along with along with players not putting enough effort into becoming
all-rounders, adding greater value to the team.

The process of social influence was at play long before the Chappell was introduced into the
fore. Ganguly along with the other senior players like Sachin, VVS Laxman and Zaheer Khan
did not place a lot of premium on the fitness. Their opinion on the how practice sessions went
encouraged the other team members newly inducted into the team to follow the same. An Asch
situation was at play as team members were the under the illusion of making perceptual
judgments exercising their free will but in reality, was confirming with the majority view.

Introduction of Chappell led to a case of minority influence on the team members to change
the culture of poor work ethic and motivate them to come out of their comfort zones. He
initially had to face the majority alone without a single ally, bearing 100% of the group’s
pressure. To gain a partner, Chappell resorted to create insecurities among players starting with
team captain. He believed that if he is able to successfully prove that the captain was not worthy
of a position in the team, it would then create disunity among the team members, reduce the
size of majority coalition and will help his cause of reducing the pressure to conform.

As formulated by Bibb Latané, Chappell’s and Ganguly’s degree of social influence in ensuring
compliance or conversion depended upon the strength, the immediacy, and number of people
(sources) present on their side. Ganguly and Chappell shared equal strength is we are to take
their standing as players among the members of the team, however the number of team
members who sided with Ganguly was overwhelmingly greater than it was with Chappell. With
shortage of support in terms of numbers, Chappell assumed the role of an influencer and
targeted those players who displayed a sense of independence or anti-conformity for converting
them to his side. Conformity is shown to be decreasing as one get older, hence he targeted
younger members of the team. These targeted players were high on dependency, agreeableness

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and were low on self-esteem who were more proven to be conforming to an influencer than
others.

Crutchfield situation by Richard Crutchfield explains that as methods of collecting responses

from team members become more private with less face to face to interaction, social influence
by influencers to comply has a reduced affect. One could see a greater tendency to convert as
the respondents would be freed from the constraints of public evaluation and the immediate
scrutiny of others. Management could use this insight in deciding what the team prefers in a
situation when it is torn apart between two high profile leaders whose degree of social influence
is very similar. Idiosyncrasy credits were at display when Ganguly’s contribution to the group
dropped as a result of his performance and Chappell’s hypothetical interpersonal credits were
on the rise as team’s performance started improving.

c) The interplay of trust and decision making in the team.

When Sharad Pawar, an official in BCCI then, was asked down to pin Greg Chappell’s
downfall to one reason alone, his answer was “Trust. There was absolutely no trust in Greg”.
Trust in one of the most important factors for a group to become a team and be effective. A
leader, a coach is characterized by his ability to inspire trust. Chappell’s actions of leaks,
sending emails berating players, spreading tales about misdemeanours of the players, texting
the media and manipulating players led to the Indian Cricket Team players having practically
no trust in him. His immense knowledge of cricket was of no use to them when he couldn’t
gain their trust. Instead players started ‘switching off’ to him and his advice as they did not
trust his actions. Chappell equated man management to man manipulation. He attributed all the
team’s successes to himself and when it came to failures, blamed the players.

The whole dynamics was a paradox to Jack Gibb’s Trust Theory, which states that ‘higher
levels of trust correlate to higher levels of functioning in groups’. The theory centres on the
pyramid shaped TORI model, now revised to TORRI model wherein T stands for trust and is
at the bottom of the pyramid upon which is built O – open and effective communication
followed by R – Realization of common goals, R – Respect and finally, I – Interdependence.
If this pyramid were in place, it leaves no space for unhealthy dynamics. Unfortunately, the
base of the pyramid itself i.e. Trust in the coach never got developed in the case of Chappell vs
the Indian Men’s Cricket Team.

As stated in the paper, Socialization and Trust in Work Groups by Richard L. Moreland and
John M. Levine, whenever a new member enters the group, three psychological processes come

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into play evaluation, commitment and role transition. A basic cycle of socialization takes place.
First the group and the new member assess each other’s readiness. This leads to commitment
which can rise and fall with time which finally leads to a transitioning in the role. In Chappell’s
case, having him as the Coach seemed extremely rewarding for the team, which is why even
Sourav Ganguly lobbied for him. His ‘Vision 2007’ had gone very well with the board, team
and Indian audience. Things went downhill after that because of a personality clash between
the captain and the coach. There were allegations that Chappell used “double standards” and
instilled “fear and insecurity” into the team, which led to low levels of confidence amongst the
players. His act of leaking dressing room discussions and using terms like ‘mafia’ and other
derogatory terms, led to extreme levels of distrust which acted as the blocker for the process of
socialization to complete.

d) The impact of team’s cohesion on team’s performance

The cohesion among the group was severely affected under the Chappell regime. The Principle
of Equifinality wasn’t achieved as Chappell’s style of coaching didn’t benefit the team and
hence considered ‘dark times’ for Indian Cricket Team. Harbhajan said, "Chappell destroyed
Indian cricket to such an extent that it required at least 3 years to again get back on track.”

The collective efficacy and structural cohesion of the team dropped significantly as the player’s
specialist positions was changed like to accommodate Ganguly, Dravid was asked to play as
makeshift opener, replacing Gambhir during the Pakistan Tour 2006 even though he
specialized in the middle order. Dravid wasn’t successful as opener and losing the test series at
1-0. The team’s shared optimism drooping low with every loss, the group potency took a toll.

With frequent changes in the playing XI structure, the collective cohesion was lost as the
players had to have an individualistic approach towards the game in fear of getting kicked out
of the team. Harbhajan said, “The worst part was some players in that team, who sucked up to
the coach and would supply selective misinformation creating bigger rifts". With Ganguly out
of the team, the identity fusion among the team started breaking as Ganguly was the one putting
the team together.

With negative feelings and emotions running high during the frequent shuffling and losses, the
Relational Cohesion Theory was evident when the ties of the team weakened with the source
of the negative emotions – Greg Chappell. Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh
and VVS Laxman criticized the coach for draining the team morale emotionally by personally
targeting the team members and being a control freak.

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 e) The nature of the conflict that lead to breakdown of inter-group relations.

One of primary reason for conflict between the coach and captain has been lack of cooperation
in decision making as they found trapped in a mixed motive situation. The situation can be
regarded as mixed motive because while their larger goal is fixed at improving team
performance and making the team No. 1 in the world, the methodologies of doing it was
different. The factor of social dilemma initiated social dilemma in Captain and Coach as they
started acting in self-interest. While the captain failed to contribute to the team consistently,
coach was focussed on the exploiting the shared resources of the team.

Team that finished second at the 2003 World Cup and one that had done so well in 2004 and
2005 with basically the same set of players from the last World Cup turn from champs to
chumps in the 2007 World Cup. Lack of fixed batting order for given one of the major reason
for the dismissal performance, Chappell was held liable for this. He was accused of not letting
the batsmen get comfortable at any one batting position. Chappell’s method of running the
team has been hinted by some people as a reason for the lack of form of players. It appears
that the players are not sure if they are in or out of the team. Even Tendulkar criticised Chappell,
calling him a "ringmaster who imposed his ideas on the players without showing any signs of
being concerned about whether they felt comfortable or not".

Even in the matter of Irfan Pathan, who was considered a miracle found in bowling, but
Chappell thought he could be more than that and asked him to focus on batting as well to
become a good all-rounder, as a result to improve his batting skills, he lost his bowling form
and his god-gifted swing and also had injuries added to it, and thus was out of action for a
longest period of time. All this is because Ian Chappell for too ambitious and when he wanted
India to perform he should have brain stormed it with senior players in the team. Infact senior
players of the team themselves were shocked at few of his steps in the name of team building
and better performance. During all this team India lost its actual productivity.

Actual Productivity = Potential Productivity – Loss owing to faulty process.

Due to over ambition and unnecessary experimentation somehow, faulty process was increased
during the reign of Chappell and few of the players who had the potential could not perform
well, hence Actual Productivity of the team was diminished, as a result of that in 2007 team
India was knocked out by the team like Bangladesh in the initial stage of World Cup.

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6. Conclusion

In a country where Cricket is a religion, and cricketers are gods, it matters who is calling the
shots about the one thing that connects all of India, It's cricket team. While it was evident that
Greg Chappell was bringing in a new philosophy and culture, breaking the old paradigms, he
had to be careful of not upsetting the apple cart of social norms too much. With Chappell
coming in the picture, the team lost their integrity and cohesiveness through discomfort arising
out of frequent shuffles, individualist mindset creeping in the group cohesion and team
members getting personally targeted. Trust is the foundation on which a group transforms into
an effective team. With this basic ingredient being absent because of Chappell's deceitful ways,
the clockwork of the team was bound to fail. The case looks at key issues like leadership
differences, breakdown of trust, dressing room politics, social polarization and so on, from a
theoretical point of view, and aims to provide questions and answers as to what went wrong
with the group dynamics in the dressing room, and what could have been avoided.

7. References
 Cricinfo. (2018). Harbhajan comes to Ganguly's defense. [online] Available at:
http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/india/content/story/220115.html [Accessed 21 Feb.
2018].
 TORI Theory Nonverbal Behaviour and the experience of Committee, Jack R. Gibb, La
Jolla, California. URL:
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/104649647200300407
 Build Your Leadership On A Foundation Of Trust, Chris CancialasiURL:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriscancialosi/2015/02/16/build-your-leadership-on-a-
foundation-of-trust/#5ca0e0e14e06
 Why Team India coach Greg Chappell had to be sacked, Sharda Ugra, India Today
Magazine. URL: https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/sport/story/20070416-greg-
chappell-tenure-comes-to-an-end-748726-2007-04-16
 Socialization and Trust in Work Groups, Richard L. Moreland and John M Levine
 Hinkson, J. (2001). The art of team coaching. Canada: Warwick
 Martens, R. (1998). Successful coaching. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

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