Learning Comes Through Action Not Talk Especially in India
Humans are programmed to talk and talk and talk and talk. I’ve found that Indians especially love to hear their own voice. It’s now been over a year of working in sports in India and I’ve heard more talk about future plans, great ideas, etc… than I heard in 7 years at MLS. Now I’m all for healthy discussions and communication, however, the sad thing is that I’ve only seen 2% of this talk actually turn into action.
This 98% of failure to execute rate has created a lot of pessimism and resignation within the sports industry. There were times that even I would think and sometimes say that nothing ever really gets done in this country. I now know that you can either live inside of this resignation or get into action and be the change that you want to see in this country.
Fortunately, Conscient Football has provided me that opportunity to be the change. Inside of planning and executing a professionally run youth league I have learned more about grassroots programming in India than I ever did from the countless meetings, conferences and brainstorms that I’ve attended over the past year and a half.
I am by no means an expert, far from it, however I now have a sense of what works and what doesn’t in India when you try create and promote a new concept, how to work with operations staff to have them feel empowered to get things done well, how to build a solid foundation for a program, how to truly gain Corporate support of a program that doesn’t provide immediate ROI and so on and so on.
The key point is that the only way to learn is through action and the only way to get results is through action. And yes you may fail and most likely you will fail the first few times. While I was MCing the CPFL Closing Ceremony I failed many times as I apologized for my accent, destroyed a few Indian names, became nervous at odd times and just flat out lost control of the event at many moments, however, inside of getting into action I now have firsthand experience of what it takes to plan, execute and host a successful program in India. I would have never have learned this unless I actually went through the experience myself.
This 98% of failure to execute rate has created a lot of pessimism and resignation within the sports industry. There were times that even I would think and sometimes say that nothing ever really gets done in this country. I now know that you can either live inside of this resignation or get into action and be the change that you want to see in this country.
I am by no means an expert, far from it, however I now have a sense of what works and what doesn’t in India when you try create and promote a new concept, how to work with operations staff to have them feel empowered to get things done well, how to build a solid foundation for a program, how to truly gain Corporate support of a program that doesn’t provide immediate ROI and so on and so on.
The key point is that the only way to learn is through action and the only way to get results is through action. And yes you may fail and most likely you will fail the first few times. While I was MCing the CPFL Closing Ceremony I failed many times as I apologized for my accent, destroyed a few Indian names, became nervous at odd times and just flat out lost control of the event at many moments, however, inside of getting into action I now have firsthand experience of what it takes to plan, execute and host a successful program in India. I would have never have learned this unless I actually went through the experience myself.
Proud of you Neel - keep up the great work! Best luck in the new endeavor! - jd
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