Scott McNealy, former CEO of Sun Microsystems, once said he was a ‘golf major' who ended up running a tech business.

In a recent study in the US, it was found that 90 per cent of Fortune 500 CEOs played golf. Another one said that almost a quarter of the 25 million golfers in the US are top management executives and 80 per cent of the top executives agreed that a game of golf is an important business development tool.

In India, the Society for Human Resource Management, a global not-for-profit HR association, is using the golf-CXO connect to develop leadership development programmes.

‘Golf and I' will bring together over 20 CEOs for an experiential development programme. Interspersing classroom sessions with several rounds of golf, the workshop will explore and connect the game and the way the person leads the organisation.

The programme to be held in Bangalore from April 13-15, would explore facets of the CEOs such as risk taking, skill development, setting individual goals and the ability to learn ‘on the course.'

“We are exploring the connect because the sport is grounded in reality and there's a lot of individual struggle that happens while playing the game,” says G Ravindra, CEO and MD, SHRM India.

HR practitioners who also play golf would facilitate the classroom sessions, while professional golfers would analyse the leader's game. “Information that the leader would give during the classroom sessions would be used to analyse his or her game and vice-versa,” says Mr Ravindra.

Among the list of CEOs expected to participate in the event are Shailesh Ayyangar, MD, Sanofi Aventis, K Srinivas, President, Marketing, Airtel, B Muthuraman, Vice-Chairman, Tata Steel and Harpreet Duggal, Senior VP, India Business, Genpact.

SHRM India is a not-for-profit HR association with over 2,60,000 members across 140 countries.

>anjali@thehindu.co.in

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