Story of I & We

Again, it has been a while since a scribbled last time. Lot of thoughts occupy mindscape but somehow could not make an effort. I just wonder how good it would be if a gadget which I could just touch can record the thoughts and ideas and produce a written output. Nevertheless, I will come back from my imaginative world to reality. Last 2-3 months have been very hectic and eventful. I have been keeping busy at work with lot of new and interesting assignments on hand. Somehow this weekend has been totally free after long time, which brought me to the blog again.

This time, I will share an observation from work life. We all work in teams and an effective teamwork is key to success in today’s hectic work environment where you chase one deadline to another and switch from one assignment to other in matter of hours. This is story of “I&We”. I have been appalled and amazed as to how well educated , well experienced industry professionals glibly use “I” in an effort to take credit while giving presentations, updating about the work to senior colleagues and discussing work output with customers without giving any regard to teamwork that behind the output/result. It looks very odd that people at workplace give a damn about the team members who have equally and at times contributed more than them to produce an output. What perturbs me is that people don’t do this because they lack communication skills or have less fluency and control on English because I am referring to MBAs from premier institutes. Such acts are demotivators to contributors and also put them off at work. It creates friction in execution of assignments and more importantly such acts create a negative environment at workplace. But seemingly a small act of weak inter personal skill creates a distress in high performance work environment. But question is why such a thing happens. Here is my take on this:
· There is unending and cutthroat competition among colleagues, there is strong drive among them to be keep stepping up the corporate ladder at any cost.
· Lack of respect and appreciation for peers and their work.
· Schools, Colleges, MBA degrees have failed in some way to teach such people small but very essential etiquettes. These are same guys who are taught to core during their preparations of Group Discussions but they forgot it the days they got admissions.
· B-Schools and corporates have failed in imparting effective soft skill training to their employees.

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Samsung And The Theme Park Industry

View more presentations from Anshuman, XLRI, Jamshedpur.

Recently I received below comments on the analysis of a case study.
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The Term 1 that was!

Term 1 of my GMP@XLRI has come to an end. What an eventful 3 months it has been. I have never been this much stretched and sleep deprived as I have been in last 3 months. Jumping from one assignment to the other, running for marketing project meeting to ELCC ,MANAC, Macro,Micro Economics group meeting, it has been a true roller coaster ride with surprise element built in every moment.

Classes/Studies: On an average we had 3-4 classes of 1.5 hours each. Sometimes it felt it is too much to do with case reading for marketing, Ethical leadership, management accounting practice and of course revision of dreaded classes of Quantitative techniques for Managerial Decisions to complete. Some subjects were taught by multiple professors, hence multiple midterm exams along with end term exams. With a day’s break, term 2 has begun and it seems it is going to be lot more hectic than the 1st term.

Exams: XLRI is very academic oriented Business school but focus remains on basics and applications. The biggest surprise element of XLRI is marquee list of Professors. Profs Make sure students read come prepared and perform at the highest level in various exams and quizzes. Lately, competitive spirit has taken front seat and everyone is talking about grades, marks etc. People say it is all only about leaning and not grades but culture of marks, grades, academic orientation builds in when Professors force you to study hard and remind you of exams in every class. Every exam is different; Standard of exam papers was very high in most of the courses in Term 1. Some exams were open book and some were closed book. Don’t ask for performance in open book. Open book doesn’t mean you will sail through instead you will struggle more than the other format. Only one professor, Prof. Sarosh Ghandy didn’t take any formal exam but he had his unique ways of asking us to submit answers to various questions on Ethics and Leadership on A4 sheets of paper.

Myth: B-school is all about partying, extra circulars: this myth was broken in first fifteen days when I started to realize that I don’t have time for any other activity other than studies. One needs to be incredibly good at time management to manage academic and non academic studies.

The CR factor
I have always been on the opinion that Bschools are perfect ground for networking, peer learning, managing conflict view points and learning prioritization. I have been fortunate that class reposed faith in me in selecting me as Class Representative. I am not sure how class evaluates me but I have tried to do justice to the job. Class Rep is a bridge between professors and students. There have been moment of high adrenaline, excitement, anxiety, frustration, dissatisfaction but overall it has been marvelous experience to manage 48 (strength of my section) of different opinions. Sometimes it becomes huge distraction, many a times you can’t concentrate on your individual priorities but it has made me realize why things move slowly in a democratic setup. Hats off to Indian growth despite Indian plurality and democracy.

CEO visits, guest lecture:
I had opportunity to attend gyan sessions of CEO of Airtel, Bihar and Jharkhand, CEO of SELCO, Dr Harish Hande, CEO of Goonj, Anshu Gupta and TATA Tiscon Branding guest lecture by Mr. Sharan from TQMS. One of the professors even humorously pointed me that I skipped his class to attend these CEO visits. It has been inspiring to know the exemplary work done by Dr. Hande and his team in areas of solar powering of Rural Karnataka and Anshu Gupta’s team. I remember his chilling narration left the whole CII YI team, (which I am part of) in pin drop silence. His words were of utmost disbelief to us.

CII-YI: Four GMPians got chance and were selected in CII Young Indians society of XLRI. We have already organized Kshitij, a one day event for underprivileged school children. I am not very satisfied with my involvement till date as it has been limited because of academics and exam. I hope to compensate for the same in Term 2.
Online group: I am part of the Online group which handles online branding –Blogging, Newsletters, marketing GMP in online space, connecting with prospective students etc. So far the groups’ performance has been satisfactory and but we need to speed up the activities.

Accommodation:
The first welcome surprise was Accommodation. Hostel accommodations are very comfortable with AC, phones etc. The housekeeping staff is excellent. Although people have varying opinions about our mess food, but I have liked it very much and no complains at all. In fact, our GMP Mess committee members are doing a commendable job by keeping tab on quality, menu etc.

Parties
The academic pressure has not made us drab personalities, in fact we have had 2-3 parties, Thanks to our Party/Admin committee members.

Village Trip
XLRI’s focus on social entrepreneurship is commendable. A 3 day trip to villages is mandatory for all flagship programs. I along with my group happened to go to three tribal villages and was awestruck with grim realities of rural India. We had to walk for an hour to cross a mountain to reach the one of the villages. The village didn’t have electricity, road, school, primary health care centre but had lots of hope that things will improve for them one day.

Adventure Trip
The Adventure trip organized by Tata steel Adventure foundation was life time experience. Various Team building exercises such as Rock Climbing, Caving, self made rafting on Dimna Lake was truly amazing experience. These events not only helped us understand each other better but also helped us explore our limits.

Today was the first day of Term 2. Human resource management case writing projects need to be formed; I need to read about HUL’s Sangam initiative and solve a question in Optimization in Managerial decision making for tomorrow’s class. I hope term 2 to be as exciting and promising as term 1 and to get some time to scribble few lines on the blog…….

My MBA Admissions journey

XLRI, ya this is name that I talk, hear and write about these days. I am going to soon join XLRI’s General management Program (GMP), Executive Postgraduate Diploma In General Management. It is one the three flagship programs apart from other two - much famed PMIR and BM. It is a one year full time residential program catering to students who come with significant work experience ( Avg 7-8 years)
While I was applying to various B-schools, XLRI was always on top of my list because of following reasons:
· XLRI’s brand name. It is one of the top 5 http://www.careerlauncher.com/mba/about_mba/top_b_schools_in_India.html B schools in India. It is one of the oldest institutions offering Business education since 1949.
· GMP program is oldest 1 year program. I was nicely surprised with the fact that 1 year XLRI MBA program was started much before ISB’s which is highly recognized for creating and establishing the acceptability of 1 year program among Indian recruiters.
· Indisputably very strong profiles of 2008-2009 batch, http://xlri.ac.in/downloads/xlri_gmp_2009.pdf . The batch had people from diverse sectors – Auto, Shipping, PSU, Manufacturing, IT, Steel, Power, Energy etc.
· Mature Batch in terms of age.
· Marquee list of top notch faculty.
I was in US when I applied for the program. It was the simplest application that I had written - Paper application with a Short note on my current roles and responsibility. When you are writing unending lengthy applications, XLRI’s application comes as a welcome relief. One more visit to USPS, Eden prairie from where I sent the filled in application along with Bankers check for $50.

The journey to B-school is very interesting. You come across students, alumni and tons of data on internet. In order to understand the program better, I wanted to hear from current students. My conversations began with Manish Ballal, who was then studying in GMP. You need some overlap to begin a conversation. I noticed Manish and I shared same level of prior work experience and same employer, Infosys. Since then he has always been very helpful in answering my queries and clarifying doubts.
While in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, I had small group of friends. Prasad and Urvi were part of this group. They were from XLRI and so were natural attractions to me. See, Man is so selfish; he discovers all the overlaps similar to ants finding out their source of food. Those were the days when I was readying to fly back to India as my US assignment was coming to a logical end. Urvi introduced me to Rajesh and Niti Singh, both were XLRI alumni. In fact Rajesh belongs to first batch of GMP.

During this application process, I have been very fortunate of getting attention from people whom I didn’t know before. I had privilege of having long, insightful and interesting conversations. I set an appointment with Rajesh. I called him and soon discovered that he is at Airport heading for a vacation along with his family. I was surprised with the fact how deftly he was conversing with me and doing airport boarding procedures at the same time.
He said, “Anshuman, MBA is for starting a business. Creating Entrepreneurs is what B-Schools are for”. This was the most striking line that I remember till date which has caught my imagination since then. I hope I can work on some ideas and craft concrete business plans.
My wait for result had begun. I was hopeful of getting shortlisted for interview but you never know what is in store for you considering the high level of competition in India.

Jan 23 2009- I was very happy at receiving Interview shortlist and nervous too as the real task of preparing my strategy for interview began.
I flew back to Bhubaneswar with cherished memories of my two year of stay in Minnesota. I was staying in Infy guesthouse, disconnected from world. With no Gmail access for a week, I was going crazy.
Feb 05 2009 - I happened to check my emails and not so nice surprise was in store for me. “You are expected to answer 6 questions/essays. Answer to these questions can be provided by 15th February 2009, preferably by logging in only once.” What??? My not so smooth US to India transition was not yet over and I am expected to write 6 essays in 10 days... XLRI never stops surprising you. This also showed its commitment for innovating new things.
I got to know that record number of applications have poured in this time and essays will help adcom in better evaluating candidates.
I was tensed, frustrated of not getting enough time to concentrate, was looking for accommodation as my guest house stay was getting over and worrying about trivial and not so trivial things but I was determined to give best shot at essays and submit them on time. Essay topics were on long term goals, conflicts and crisis at workplace, creative solutions that didn’t work, risks taken, collaboration and diversity.
Essay topics were unique and interesting. I had to really apply lot of brain to come up with well crafted and logical essays. I submitted essays on time. Thereafter, I shifted my attention back to Interview preparation. Interviewing in an Indian B-School is very different from an American B-school. B-school Interviews in India are full of cross questioning, grilling, intimidation and putting candidate at unease unlike US B-School interviews where candidates are very much at ease and interviewers follow a set pattern.

I was fortunate to attend a seminar on MBA Interviews at IMS, Bhubaneswar by Mr. Srijat MishraChief Executive Officer & Managing Director of Kalingasoft. It was very helpful and insightful talk. Being alumnus from IIM-C, his words carried credence. I built the question tree strategy that he suggested and was confidently prepared for the D-Day.
4th Mar 2009 - I was in Jamshedpur; getting ready for the final strike. I had plenty of time as I my interview was scheduled at the end of day. I confirmed plans with Manish for a lunch meeting at XLRI campus. I reached XL campus and was looking for directions for GMP hostels. I saw three mid age guys coming. I asked them for directions and reached Hostels. It was already way past 12pm. I was hungry. Immediately I accompanied Manish to Dining hall which was buzzing with GMP students talking about classes and placements.
Soon I was surrounded by other students and to my surprise; I was sitting among ex infoscions - Sandeep Vadnere, Sairam Iyer and Niraj. They gave me some tips about interview and talked about happenings @ XL and Infosys.
Loaded with a feel of XL, I came back to hotel where I was staying, was feeling uneasy as time for interview was not very far. I dressed up in Business formals, came out of hotel and looked around for auto in hot and scorching heat.
Here comes an Auto, one other guy and I stopped the same auto. He asked, - going for XLRI interview??. I said yes. There I met Saikat who had just finished his interview and saw going to see nearby attractions in city.
We decided to take the same auto and he shared his interview experience with me. In no time I was in front of MDP residence e block, got down from auto and went towards the building where GMP interviews were going on. To my surprise, I was the last candidate on the last day of GMP Interviews.
My mind was going blank as I was finally ready for the last step towards admission.
Interview panel had 3 Profs and to my utter surprise they were same folks who directed me to GMP Hostel when I came to meet students in the afternoon.
Interview lasted for 30 mins without tinge of ennui on their faces, although they were interviewing since morning.
Since I could answer all the questions very well, was very confident with the interview performance.
Now wait for final results began…
Last week of March 2009, someone sends me an email that XLRI results are out. I clicked GMP results link and closed my eyes for a moment before a “Congratulations” message appeared. I checked results one more time to verify that that I am finally in.
That evening, I was ecstatic, laughing from within and felt satisfied with outcome of a long drawn admission process.