Ajay is a good friend and a fellow Michigan Ross alumnus. He runs a fabulous sports management startup by the name of Sport365. Earlier this year, I was helping him organize second edition of The XWarrior Race, the first and one of its kind commando style obstacle race in India. In the course of putting the event together, I visited many stadiums and practice workshops where I had the chance to see many sports men and women practicing.
This post is about my observations on the field as I saw people in the stadiums and practice arenas. I saw strong parallels with the people I have come across in the course of my career and mentally classified the folks into two main categories. I have come to call them Players and Punters.
The difference between the two groups of people is stark and with just a little bit of time on the field you can usually tell them apart:
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When Players and Punters work Together
There are times when a player and a punter start working together. More often than not I have seen the player coming down to the level of punter rather than the other way round. It seems that the gravitational pull with punters is much higher. After all, human nature is such that most people would rather be comfortable than step out of their comfort zone, endure pain and put in the focused effort and discipline necessary to achieve their goals and dreams.
Relevance for Entrepreneurs
I am not a hardcore sportsman. I used to work out regularly till a couple of years ago and have started working out again over the past couple of months. Perhaps me showing up horribly out of shape for the XWarrior has something to do with it :-). But I cannot avoid drawing the parallels between what I saw on the sports field and my own field of practice: entrepreneurship.
As an entrepreneur, you really need to look at yourself and determine if you are acting like a player or a punter. More often than not when someone has decided to make an informed decision about jumping into entrepreneurship, the person is already a player or is on the path of becoming a player. As a next step, you have to figure out whether you are dealing with players or punters on your team. I would strongly advise avoiding partnering with or hiring punters. They will slow you down, delay your decision making and erect road blocks in your path. They have human nature and, in the early stages of a venture, inertia on their side. So, if you are at all interested in achieving extra-ordinary success for your venture, avoid punters at all costs.
Last few years as a professional and entrepreneur brought me in contact with many people. Unfortunately, an overwhelming majority acts more like punters. So beware! odds are stacked against you. But when you find a player, nurture the relationship, make sure that they are properly incentivized and give them the space to perform.
Identifying punters around you
Identifying a punter however can be difficult. On the first blush, they might actually look better than a player. They seem better dressed, more relaxed, easy to talk to and more engaging than a player. I have also observed that they usually talk a big game and many sound extremely convincing. Only after working together for a bit can you start to identify whether you are dealing a player or a punter. So, have some preliminary milestones for everyone. Timeliness, quality and communication in the course of achieving these short, early milestones will tell you a lot about the person.
The extra effort and scrutiny is worth it. After all, have you ever seen a punter winning a medal in Olympics!!!
I posted this originally on my website https://www.rajeevsoni.com/players-and-punters/
Follow me on Twitter @rajsoni
Image Credit: CBS Detroit https://detroit.cbslocal.com/
asha chaudhry
‘Rodinhooders Rock’ can’t be fictional…. :))))))
it’s so nice to see our young rodinhooders write relaxed short stories/fiction.
keep writing sunaina… you have a knack for it!!!
🙂
Abey John
🙂 Just what I needed to shake off those punter blues. Thanks Rajeev!