My take: NID faculty is clean!

I feel extremely sad for this ex-student of NID for his misinterpretation of this course. Moreover I am very disappointed and dejected with the one who made these allegations public - someone has satiated the media cravings for cheap publicity, which unfortunately brings needless notoriety to an unassuming professor of a leading institute of our country; that too he is proclaimed guilty even before a proper investigation!

As one of his students, I can definitely speak for the sessions conducted by him as a visiting faculty at Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad. Though at the very outset, I must admit that the professor under question either builds a loyal fan-following for himself or is strongly despised; there seems to be no middle ground approach towards him. To his fans, he is highly respected for his dedication, course content and his earnestness to make a difference to the lives of people he touches.

Before I begin briefing about the intent of his sessions, let me state unequivocally that there were NO sexual overtures in his class. In fact the discussions were quite to the contrary - of overcoming our mind's pre-occupation with it! His sessions expect his students with a basic level of maturity in their thinking. At the same time, the course demanded a sense of adventure - an openness to experience life to its fullest potential. And, mind it, life's full potential is not about experiencing sex - it's about overcoming the mental blocks that lead to overcoming inhibitions - of transforming beyond morbid fascinations and primal fears.

The course had a very basic yet potent objective:

To be a creative individual, it was essential to have our mind function to its utmost capacity, fullest potential. And that requires immense self confidence, an unwavering inner locus of control, and the ability to rise above obstacles that may come along the way. His sessions targeted overcoming three sub-conscious mental blocks - of body consciousness, fear and possessiveness. And of course, he never asked us to strip in public - instead he posed us with a question of how we would react if confronted with such a situation. He implored us to meditate, to be conscious of our physical reaction to any external stimulus; and to extend our consciousness to eventually become the master of our 'self'!

Another allegation that has been raised against this professor is that he insisted that his students sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). Firstly, it has to be understood that this was not an NDA. An NDA implies that you are not supposed to divulge any information on the content of his course outside the forum / class. That was definitely not the case; in fact, he even allowed the non-signatories to sit-in on his classes if they deemed useful. Though as has been craftily extracted from a fellow student's blog in a TOI story, if one reads through carefully, the contract clearly stated that we are completely responsible for our actions, and for taking up this class. The sessions involved commitment, of participating in group meditation that required active engagement of the class and taking solitary walk at night under thick forest cover that happened to be a dwelling of quite a few wild animals and reptiles. The aim of such walks in the dead of the night were to overcome our primal fears - a step in the direction of becoming fully aware of all our senses. That meant he needed full commitment from his class to conduct these exercises. Along with that, the contract also covered him against any liabilities in case any untoward did happen (though if ever a need arose, such statements written on plain paper could be challenged in any court of law). I did not find anything wrong with it, more so since this was an elective course and anyone uninterested could always opt out of it. In any case, all adventure tourist agencies across the world do make their customers sign such contracts.

But unfortunately in a group of 20-30 odd students in a class, there would always be those with a degree of immaturity, those who misinterpreted the simple message he delivered. I believe that the individual who complained is just simply unaware of the possibilities that he could have experienced - something that just cannot be learned, it has to be experienced with a lot of practice. Again, his reactions could have a lot to do with the conditioning of our mind for over twenty-thirty years of our existence. Now if we are asked to meditate and imagine ourselves growing out of this fascination of sex and treat it as just another natural act, for a few naïve individuals like this complainant, it seems to have had just the opposite effect.

For centuries, our society and our education have created a taboo on this subject - the mere utterance of this word (even in a supposedly mature audience) keeps pounding in people's heads and the inferences drawn, as in this case, could be entirely orthogonal to the essence of what was being taught. It is extremely sad that a few such individuals have lost their way out in their 'self-created' deep-rooted clutter of emotions. In the process they have lost out on an invaluable experience!

I sincerely hope that this unfortunate set of individuals (like the complainant) first become rational and good-hearted human being before they achieve success in their respective spheres of life.

Institute's Pedagogy

In IIM Ahmedabad, business education is not the sole driver; the institute prides itself in teaching a much broader realm, beyond mere business, and hence prefers to call itself a "management" institute that provides education about managing resources based on solid foundation of knowledge, attitude, skills and habits (KASH) approach. I will talk more about this approach subsequently but let me concentrate on its pedagogy for now.

IIMA takes great pride in its pedagogy of the case method of teaching. This is borne out of the fact that the school was initially established in collaboration with Harvard, which is renowned for this form of education. The interesting aspect shared today was that there is an essential difference between between "case" and "case study" method, so much so that the profs can get extremely touchy if we fail to appreciate the difference. I won't delve into the details of the difference; I've mentioned this primarily to impress about the importance placed on using the right terminology or nomenclature.

Now a major complaint against the case method1 is that it has dependency on how much indepth knowledge students allow themselves to be forced into, e.g. shallow analysis of the case might lead to lack of "KASH" generation! To overcome this shortcoming, IIMA is extremely serious about the prescribed readings, and taking surprise quizes are a norm with profs here. I have heard instances of students getting a "zero" in these quizes, probably for the first time in their lives. The term examinations add on another level of challenge for courses. Net-net, the school ensures that the shortcomings of case method are overcome through numerous means, including strict monitoring of the quality of class participation . Few courses even stipulate 30 percent of their grading for class participation.

The chairperson today was candid about the need to "dive-in" to draw the strengths from this case method of learning. He recommended at least two hours of self analysis of a case before participating in a group discussion. Typically, on an average bad day with three heavy duty classes, we could have three cases to analyze. The typical turnaround time for each case is overnight. If we add the necessary readings for each course in the midst, we are looking at roughly 12 hours of extra study after class hours (2 hours self study * 3 courses + 1 hour of minimum group discussion * 3 courses + 1-2 hours of reading * 2 courses approx as three is impractical). If we start the study at 2.30 in the afternoon after lunch, the earliest we could realistically complete the study would be early morning of the next day. Then we could have few cases that are more dense than others and might require extensive quantitative analysis; the result: for the next few months, sleep will be biggest casualty!

To wind up with KASH: this is the liquid asset in great supply at IIMA. Knowledge and Skills are essential learnings through its rigorous course curriculum. But the circle completes when this results in development of the right Attitudes (or philosophies) as we get ingrained with the correct Habits. Typically, finance courses are slightly more loaded with "K" & "S", and Strategy courses deal more with "A" & "H". I'm eager to find out how case method will evolve for finance courses.

1 - Management development - by Joseph Prokopenko, International Labour Office

Day One Impressions

Today has been a red-letter day: I officially started my management education at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. As I was walking into the auditorium for our introductory session, a sense of fulfillment overcame me as I gazed at the black-and-white picture gallery staring back at me. It projected a vision architected in an India so non-receptive to change, and showed oomphs of inspiration, courage and dedication!

The start of the induction itself was very poignant. Mr Barua, the current Director, walked us through the history of the institute. I was reminded again of how much I love history; it's a matter of pride to be associated to this institute for a lifetime. At that moment, any complains about a hint of bureaucracy experienced by many of us paled into insignificance. The faculty demanded and deserved the respect for their knowledge and belief. It will be interesting to see how our interactive sessions pan out.

I am intrigued by the philosophy of the education that we are about to get though. The stress is so much on making our lives difficult; every faculty member was referring to the experience as "the grind". Any suggestions of student involvement in extra-curricular activity was mildly interjected with this reference. This is in contrast to my interactions with various US b-school students about their experiences. But then Indians always have been driven by "an aggressive quest for knowledge", and the world does recognize that as to our advantage.

Another awe-inspiring experience is diversity of my class' work-experience. Though technology professionals do form a sizable number, I am pleasantly surprised that it constituted less than forty percent of the class. All the while, this thought of lack of diversity has had been a dampener. Now I am really happy with the current profile of my batch. I think I will have a great learning experience and am excited about participating in this diversity of thought process, which was so evident on the first day itself.

Now the key goal is to extract learnings from this experience and derive my life's philosophy. Another immediate goal is to organize our group learning process. I will describe the dynamics of study groups in a subsequent post. Till then... adios!

Dreams Unlimited!

First a bit about my experience; I am charged with business development, customer relationship management and program management for my client’s ecommerce line of business. I was responsible for building our revenues from insignificance to substantial, and was managing a program with a team spread across geographies. This experience at a top 50 Fortune 500 retail organization exposed me to work on multiple novel solutions. For instance, I was helping my client come up with a Personal Shopper for its ecommerce websites, in which it will act as a concierge for its customer to get the best products at best deals. We were in parallel developing tools to run analytics on various ecommerce sites, so that our client could offer the same products to our customers without keeping any inventory within our warehouse. Another instance of an interesting challenge was of leading an execution of a solution that provides an intersection of internet, retail and social commerce for managing online web-content. Such innovative solutions inspire me and I now wish to invest in the growth of such innovations.

So I am looking for a career transition; from a career of technology consulting, I now want to invest in technology. Honestly, I am looking for direction on how I get there in my b-school education. Immediately after MBA, I want to get into business development in a technology company. I will leverage this experience for my long term goal as I evaluate potential deals and use this opportunity to network with venture capitalist and investors in startups. I intend to gain sufficient exposure to understand the financial and operational nuances and then transition to become a venture capitalist.

Also, I believe that this economic condition will throw open doors for many opportunities. I need the right tool-set from the business school to convert such opportunities into viable businesses. As such the current global economic turmoil is poised to challenge the way we conduct business. There is a lot to learn from this economic debacle on “why” and “how” the economy crashed and analyze how to do things differently in the emerging world order. I believe that the emerging market and technology changes are going to be too fast-paced and dynamic for big corporations to exploit economies of scale. Consequently, businesses that execute on the cutting-edge of innovation will thrive in this emerging landscape. I envision that future businesses will grow by creating niche communities and operating within them. And of course I strongly believe that the next wave of such innovations will come from developing countries, notably India, China, and Brazil because of purchasing power parity, emerging middle class and highly skilled technical manpower. Look at China, how it has leapfroged from an industrial age into "mobile" age. There are approximately ten million mobile phone subscribers added every month and the various business solutions built to support this massive data flow. Or for that matter, the sheer rise in the number of patents in ICT sector in India is indicative of where we are headed. This critical awareness offers myriad opportunities for a new entrant like me. I need to study business now, as this is the perfect time to not only equip myself with the appropriate business tools, but also the precise moment to gain an in-depth understanding from the current debacle.

Finally to sum it up, I am looking at business education not just for pursuing my dreams but also for personal development. I see an MBA as an expansive experience that will help me become a better person!

What Got Me Here?

I must say a lot of inspiration got me here, now the perspiration begins. I am lucky to be surrounded by a bunch of motivated friends and family who have rubbed me the right way. I have been thinking about an MBA ever since I joined my engineering college in the summer of '96 (read '69 in reverse) but the reasons have been constantly changing. My motivation back then was drawn from my childhood, when my father planted this germ of an idea that I had a great knack for people. MBA was then the tool to sharpen that skill. The thought was too lame to stick or to jump on that bandwagon, though, I must admit that, occasionally, I was indeed lured by the job prospects.

A lot of water has flown since then. Now, I am in for an experience. The bad job market would make the experience more intriguing and interesting as I am hopeful of greater minds engaged in crazier ideas. All said and done, my peers will be the most important ingredient of my learning experience; the wilder the ideas, the more exciting and adventurous the experience. As one of my battle-scarred friend suggested, "do learn to apply the tools the school teaches you, but the true experience would be from building your own philosophy".

My variation on what Edison quoted on being a genius; "success is ninety nine percent perspiration and one percent inspiration", I see a challenging road ahead with a bulk of work waiting after having accomplished the one-percent success!

A quote that forever resonates in my head, from Robert Frost, "And miles to go before I sleep...". This poem somehow always comes to life from the pages of my sixth grade English course book, and has always inspired to bring out that adventurer in me.

Let me mention my current dreams and ambitions in my next post.

Keep The Window Open, for Johari's sake!

My journey for MBA begins... the journey to IIM-Ahmedabad for my MBA (PGPX to some). I'm on the AA flight 292 from Chicago to New Delhi non-stop. I love the fact that I get to see the North Pole every single time I take this flight. It keeps me awake; so I started penning down some of my ideas and thoughts. I have just left my wife and cute-n-dumb dog behind in Chicago, as we start this journey to create a common dream!

Let me think of a name I'll call it. But before that let me clearly lay down on the table what I'm here for. Is it some additional skillset that I want to learn to become a better manager or a leader? Or is it part of the bigger and deeper master plan? I see this as about rediscovering myself. For now, I don't have a ready answer yet of where this will all lead. I have a "blueprint" of few ideas, but let me call it just that. It's the "holy grail" quest that got me here. I intend to chart out my path to create an experience that lasts a lifetime. Yes, I am going back to school!

I want this to be my window of expression. My wife proclaims my "Johari window" is small and well insulated. I want to seize this moment and let fresh air in. In doing so, I will share some of the aroma from the potpouri of my life at IIM-A. I intend to keep this as a diary of my life here and, in the process, hope to share my impressions of what would be an exciting and challenging discovery!

By the way, I thought of a name; this is dedicated to my wifey and pooch. "Keep the window Open, for Johari's sake; IIMA here I come!"