My experiences about Cranfield MBA ..... and beyond

What is Politics!

2011-08-21T21:40:00.004+01:00

I am a fan of a good football game (not of any team though). Reading some headlines around FIFA over the past few days, some words have been floating in my mind – politics, definition of politics, organisational politics, politicians, etc.

Most of us have heard about the classic debate “Leaders – born or made”. But I couldn’t find much content on “Politicians – Born or Made?”
My immediate response – “Politicians are born”.

What Is Politics?
A little boy goes to his dad and asks, "What is politics?"
Dad says, "Well son, let me try to explain it this way: I'm the breadwinner of the family, so let's call me capitalism. Your Mom, she's the administrator of the money, so we'll call her the Government. We're here to take care of your needs, so we'll call you the people. The nanny, we'll consider her the Working Class. And your baby brother, we'll call him the Future. Now, think about that and see if that makes sense,"

So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what dad had said.

Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him. He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper. So the little boy goes to his parents' room and finds his mother sound asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny's room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny. He gives up and goes back to bed. The next morning, the little boy says to his father, "Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now."

The father says, "Good son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about."
The little boy replies, "Well, while Capitalism is screwing the Working Class, the Government is sound asleep, the People are being ignored and the Future is in deep poo."

Interesting!!

When you think of the condition Europe is in, the little boy's understanding comes across as spot-on.

What good is your education?

2011-01-05T14:15:00.002Z

A very recent personal experience has prompted me to pen down these thoughts.

Time and time and time again, I see examples around me where people (myself included) continue to fail in applying their education (and hence, knowledge).

I would challenge any arguments that would offer "memory loss" as the reason. I am beginning to believe that this has more to do with our failure to have learnt and educated ourselves truly and completely; it is a finger pointing towards how superficial our educational pursuit has been; above all, it is a reflection of how indisciplined we are as individuals.

A very powerful lesson I picked up at during my MBA at Cranfield UK was "the Ladder of Inference" - this is something that I have written about earlier too. More than 5 years after having completed my last full time education, I find that I still am a culprit - I fail to follow this mantra 100%....sometimes the slip-up is in my professional life, sometime in my personal life.

It does not matter whether there are many other MBAs who may also be failing to apply their education in real life. My use of "I" should at least tell the world that I am taking onus. The key reflection I need to do is "Why do I slip-up? What good was my education?"

Well, my education and my experiences at Cranfield were not only good, they were brilliant, irreplaceable and life-changing. However, perhaps that was the easy part. The difficult part began after the MBA - applying my education in real life and no one promised me that it would be easy.

So, here's the question to you - How good are you making your education to be?

Manager as a Gardener!

2010-07-08T11:40:00.001+01:00

The bright and sunny summers in UK brought out the keen Gardner in me. With literally zilch knowledge or experience of even planting a pot, I had set out to make my garden a green haven for my family. My ambition and enthusiasm clouded my ignorance completely and off I went to a nursery to bring back few saplings of broad beans, broccoli, capsicums, a set of herbs and some flower bulbs. Of course, I should add that there were loads of pots to plant these in.
Anyways, this was a few months ago.

The sheer joy and contentment I have experienced as I continue to nurture my garden is something I can't capture in words. The growing blades of the green grass, the new leaves appearing overnight in the pots, the blooming of the first flower in the bedding - every morning would bring in a new smile to my face.

Interestingly, over the past many weeks of working on the pots, plants, flower beds, watering the grass, etc. another thought has struck me - the similarity between a supervisor / manager and a Gardner. So, here's a summary of thoughts that I experienced:

A. The Gardner chooses what to plant in his garden - The manager recruits his subordinates who then ornate his team (i.e. his garden)
B. The gardener takes full care of his plants; be it adding fertiliser, plant food and water; be it saving the plants from insects, bugs, animals, etc. - The manager is expected to train and coach his team, be the first line of defence against outside world, continuous nurture the talent of his team and enhance their performance through training, etc.
C. The gardener takes full responsibility of whatever happens to his plants in the garden. How well the plants bloom and grow, the buck stops at the Gardner. I do not think a gardener would tell the world that despite his best efforts, the plant would not produce results. - In the current corporate world, I wonder whether I can safely say the same for managers.

Which category do you belong to? In a figurative sense, "Are you a good Gardner?"

Is our hiring process going awry!

2010-05-10T13:20:00.001+01:00

As I continue to move along my career journey, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, I experience those moments of sheer intellectualism. While I wouldn't want to claim such thoughts to be earth-shattering or pioneering, I do believe in some of such thoughts very strongly.

Let me share one such thought.

I had worked for 13 years before I came to Cranfield to pursue my MBA. Across the 4 organisations in these years, I had never heard, seen or even known of Belbin team profile. During the Cranfield MBA, I was introduced to some tools including Belbin. The assessment showcased my strong and weak team profiles and to say that I was impressed with the tool would be an understatement. I was amazed. I still am.

Another 4+ years of my career have gone by post Cranfield. Yet, I am shocked at the lack of emphasis or focus on Belbin team profile from most organisations. Some organisations do get their employees to assess their Belbin's, but hardly any organisation uses the knowledge on a continuous basis.

So the moment of my sheer intellectualism was this - if I am a business owner, I would ensure that my recruitment process invests the time and effort into identifying the Belbin team profile of a candidate and use the knowledge as a key input into deciding to hire or not. If I need a "Shaper" in a role, I do not wish to hire too many Shaper's within the same team! Similarly, if I need a "Shaper", should I really be hiring a Plant - who's strength as a Shaper may be at other end of the spectrum!

I am sure there may be some readers out there who may say, "I don't like such tools because they tend to compartmentalise people into such boxes!" However, in my view, it is not about compartmentalising people; it is about using the information to make a sensible hiring decision - not just for the organisation, but also for the individual.

Talent Management - only good in books??

2010-04-24T21:09:00.000+01:00

Of late, I hear and see almost every organisation rechristening their erstwhile HR department with this new buzzword - Talent management. I bet lots of HR guru's would even find fabulously crafted language to explain how Talent management is different and / or better that the traditional nomenclature.

But one question lurking in mind for many months now is, "Where does Talent Management end?" or is it supposed to end at all?

Here's the context - based on my recent personal experience, I am beginning to question, "If organisation's are bringing in talent, why does that talent not stay?" While I do not have any statistics to share, I get the feeling that the average career longevity of a professional at an organisation is coming down. More and more people are changing jobs more frequently. Of course, this is a generalisation - as many would say.

One of my personal views is this - Talent is deciding not to stay in organisations because they are not being allowed to work in their own way. While it is not an explicit case of "do this! don't do that!", lots of smart Alec's (read senior management) expect their own incarnations in the wider organisation. If the talent is not their clone, s/he aren't liked. A desire to build diversity in thoughts and action is all lip service - the senior management is all looking for themselves.

Talent acquisition is happening, but Talent execution was never born!

One of the many ironies.....

2010-01-31T16:09:00.003Z

For those not familiar with Lean manufacturing, the philosophy of Lean is simple: Eliminate waste!

As a lean practitioner for over a decade, I have been driven by this mission in all of my corporate stints. So much so that I now almost live and breathe Lean philosophy. Whether it was rolling out Kaizen within my team that would ultimately become a corporate level initiative or whether it was to undertake a Supply Chain diagnostic for a retail client - I have continued to strive and eliminate waste of any form.

It does not amaze me anymore when I see organisations who are trying to generate efficiencies by eliminating waste in their processes, end up creating newer processes that add to the waste. In our role as project managers, we ensure that we have the stakeholders mapped out, communication plans chalked out, etc. Most of PM's would periodically develop presentations and decks for stakeholders update as well. Conference call invites, action logs, etc. are floating around that give the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction to one and all. Occasional red flags on risk items also add to the excitement.

What goes un-noticed is the scope creep within the project management tasks - which is duplication of what is already happening - and thereby adds back waste to the process of Project Management. One senior management position would initiate a separate discussion, create more calendar invites, PowerPoint decks, action logs, etc. etc. And as a crucial stakeholder, most PM's would end up getting sucked into these "wasted" add-on items. Chances are, such an action by one senior manager would get emulated by a few other senior managers, because the latter would not want their influence / importance be seen as any less. So you have more calls, more decks, more duplication or simply, more waste getting created. Ironically, no one would have sufficient visibility to this incremental waste. If this is indeed true in most organisations, imagine the scale of waste that is created across any industry, country or the economy.

Just as we say that Lean transformation needs top management support to be successful, the remediation of this invisible waste also needs to begin from the top and a sincere introspection would be a good first step.

Don't get killed by whispers

2009-12-10T23:28:00.003Z

The moment I heard this phrase, I decided that I need to share about this. It is such a powerful statement that every professional in any part of the world should remember it and manage it.

People talk about you - that's a known fact. The question is: can you manage or influence what they talk? The experiences of life tell me that yes, you can (and should) constantly try to manage what people talk about you. And you can do this only through your actions or deeds. To be successful, every professional needs to realise that their success will be a function of what they deliver as well as what people talk about them. Managing one without managing the other won't bring them the level of success they'd hope for.

Take a pause and reflect back on your career till date - have you ever been killed by whispers?

Made it!

2009-10-18T12:58:00.001+01:00

The power of network prevailed, yet again. A Cranfield alumni has been instrumental in my securing a fantastic career opportunity. My strange and uncanny track record continues - in the coming days, I start in my new job in an industry absolutely new to me - my 7th job in the 7th industry.

Could I have imagined making a foray into Financial Services? Honestly, no. Yet, it has happened - all because an alum saw a role in her organisation, reached out to me to check my interest and then recommended my candidature. After 5 rounds of interviews and a successful outcome, I can safely say, "whatever happens, happens for good!"

Ironically, the paradox of choices also happens at strange times. I have received another job offer from a bank, based on a direct application on their careers website. So, the two unusually powerful channels that I mentioned about have worked for me.

Job hunt in uncertain times!

2009-10-16T22:01:00.000+01:00

My redundancy had put me in a very difficult spot. But with no luxury of choices, my only pursuit was to get economically active once again.... and quickly!!

During the past few months, my job hunt became my full time job. I pursued a multi directional approach, and there are two specific channels that wish to stress upon.

Alumni network: One should never under estimate the power of your alumni network. I moderate the Cranfield MBA Alumni group on LinkedIn and it never ceases to amaze me how impressive and high profile the Cranfield MBA alums are. I carefully searched for alumni who work either in the industry or function where I am seeking career opportunities and contacted them. Most of them responded and in fact, one senior even shared information on a specific role that was posted on his organisation's intranet. Get the message? I had beaten the traffic of external candidates when he put my CV through the employee referral.

FTSE250: I must say that I had never heard someone share this approach of job hunt and in these changing times, I'd assure you that this is perhaps the most effective route. I picked up the FTSE 250 list, visited the careers section of each organisations' website and checked if there were any advertised roles that met my objectives. Many organisations also allow you the feature to create job alerts whenever any new roles are posted.

For some reasons, I have never had success with recruitment consultants....partly because I see a lot of cowboys in their field. Quite a few would actually ask me details on which organisations am I talking to, what roles etc. and then go on to approach those firms to secure business relations.

The "R" word - my personal experience!

2009-10-13T21:46:00.002+01:00

Over the period of 2008 - 2009, the "R" word has perhaps become the most dreaded word. Not only did it cast its web far and wide globally, it created a massive cloud of fear over even those who survived it. In case you are still wondering, I am talking about "redundancy".

I faced the first such experience in my life earlier in 2009. As a double whammy, my wife was the recipient of redundancy too almost at the same time. "Life was tough" - is perhaps the understatement of my lifetime now.

There are many lessons in life that one learns only by going through them and for me, redundancy was one such lesson. Unfortunately, my Cranfield MBA program could never have taught me how to deal with redundancy, and I pray no one finds the need ever to learn this lesson.
Yet, from a remote corner of my heart, a voice calls out and says, "No! Everyone in their lifetime should actually go through such an experience (at least once)".

No, I am not being a sadist. I say this because the lesson is priceless because it is the most vigorous "wake up" call one can ever experience, as it was for me. This was the time, when I felt once again, the value of a close knit family, the dependability of real friends and the rekindling of financial sense. And above all of this, the power of your network.

Right...so where was I?

2009-10-10T21:40:00.001+01:00

After a long and unsettling period in my professional life, I am back.....delighted that I still have much more to share. Sometimes, it surprises me as to how much resilience I have developed over the past decades. Yet, it should not really be surprising. Over 16 years of career, switching countries, going back to school to pursue a second MBA (at Cranfield), starting career once again in completely new surroundings, etc. - all this was enough to further develop my instincts to survive.
So watch this space as I share some more lessons of life with the hope that there will something for you to pick up and pass on.

Silence - by choice!

2009-09-13T18:30:00.002+01:00

My blog has been silent for a long time now - not without reasons! As the economy comes out of recession, I will be back too! Thanks for hanging in, guys.

International experience assessed

2008-10-20T16:23:00.007+01:00

Why did I come to UK? Why did I pursue the Cranfield MBA program?

These and a few other questions keep surfing every now and then in my conversations. My answers to such questions almost sound like pre-recited by now. As I celebrated this month the completion of 3 years of my professional career in UK, I thought - what would be my key note from my real "international experience"? As always, there will be a one or more contentious observations, many will disagree with them; but then should I care??

I had worked in India for 13 years and quit to come to UK to gain some international experience. At a very basic level, this just meant stepping out of my country and work with non-Indians. However, at a more tangible level, it also meant stepping out of my comfort zone (now who remembers ZOUD!!), exposing myself to unchartered waters - be it cultural, philosophical or even the weather (remember, I chose UK!!). It meant putting significantly extra effort to understand the different ways people work, their preferences or lack of it, etc. etc.

There is one key difference between the skill set used here in UK and that used in India. At the cost of generalizing, I believe that we Indians are excellent at functional knowledge but we fail significantly on people skills. In fact, while we love to deep dives in almost everything, getting into details etc., we do not show sufficient sensitivity to the people dimension.
It is the reverse in UK - Britishers are by and large very good on people skills, but cannot match us on functional skills. They are great at big picture discussions but avoid getting into details.

There isn't (and shouldn't) be a conclusive view on what is better. You need the right balance to be better than your peers. It is from this perspective that I would put my money on an Indian manager who has worked in UK for some years. The experience of emerging markets supplemented by that in a developed country would provide one with a robust and valued profile. You don't see that many British managers with "Indian experience", do you?

P.S. To all regular followers of my blog: I did not realise this post was left in draft mode for so long!

The Cons of Consulting

2008-09-06T22:15:00.008+01:00

Years ago I had read the following quote somewhere: "Every good thing has something bad about it; every bad thing has something good about it!" And amongst others, it quoted an example about the reindeer and their antlers. The reindeer uses it antlers for its safety, yet if the antlers get entangled in bushes, it causes the death of the reindeer.

This good-bad paradox is so true of many more things in life. Consulting included.

The past 15 months in a consulting career have also highlighted a few cons of consulting. Besides the challenge of work-life balance that one faces, I believe there are a few more worthy of a mention.

Missing action orientation - Consultants advise clients. Period. Hardly anyone wants to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty. So if you have been used to being on the ground "doing things", be aware that you will also have to kill your desire to know whether the client really did anything that you proposed or whether your fancy PowerPoint deck that cost the client hundreds and thousands of ££ is gathering dust in their drawers.

I had spent 15 years in Operations and Supply Chain before the consulting stint, was used to climbing onto stacks of stocks in warehouses, inter alia, leading people and delivering on KPI's. I miss that action.

Your career path - While "your career is in your own hands" is true even when you are in industry, in consulting you may find that your influence on your career path is weaker. More often than not, it depends on whom you tag along with (read "demi-Godfather"). If there aren't many assignments coming in, you would be on the bench, which has an adverse impact on your changeability metrics, which is then not seen positively in the bigger scheme of things. Yet, you may have little or no influence on your deployment on projects. Sounds crazy, isn't it!

No people management - Though they may never agree to this, but most consultants would actually make very poor managers. This is because in a consulting career you really don't have to manage people in the truest sense. In industry, as a senior manager I was responsible for getting output from over 250 people across multiple sites. I was managing and leading people on a daily basis, fire fighting with them, solving problems for them / with them, managing inter personal conflicts between them. There is nothing like that in consulting. Excellent skills in communication and structured thinking reflected in PowerPoint slides will only take you so far. Beyond that, the journey would involve igniting fire under your chair and that of others - something that I do not see in consulting.

Exit barrier - Once you've grown beyond a level in consulting industry, you get out-priced from other roles. Industry doesn't match the kind of packages you would be earning in consulting. By the time you figure out that you have saturated in this field and would like to move into industry, you would have developed the tendency of "living high" and then would be reluctant to take a "price-cut".

Like all my previous posts, the above observations are my personal views. The reader should remember caveat emptor!!

I am OK! Are you OK?

2008-07-27T21:50:00.003+01:00

Some of you may have heard of the fabulous book "I'm OK, You're OK" by Thomas A Harris, M.D. In the book, he refers to the approach of Transactional Analysis (TA) or the P-A-C (Parent, Adult, Child). I had read the book many, many years ago but have constantly been reminded of the concept during interactions I have with my family, friends and colleagues.

For those not familiar with the approach, there are four life positions that each of us take, with different choices during different moments / interactions:
i. I am OK, You are OK
ii. I am OK, You are not OK
iii. I am not OK, You are OK
iv. I am not OK, You are not OK

Differently put, each of us have three states within us - that of a Parent, an Adult and a Child. In every interaction between two or more individuals, for every individual one of the state is more active or dominant than the other state within him / her. An ideal state would have an Adult interacting with another Adult. I would encourage the readers to check out the book to understand more.

During my recent trip back home for vacations, I was sharing about this with my mom following an interaction that I had observed between her and another relative. A simple question of asking for a choice between dishes to be cooked could have been so different a discussion if the participants had used TA.

In the explanation of the approach, it is stated that generally the position "I'm OK, You're not OK" is uncommon.
However, I think otherwise. I have seen it as a very common approach in personal as well as professional life. I see interactions between colleagues that could be so different only if.......

This is true even of Management Consultants. I am sure almost every consultant will agree with me that they do not approve of a slide made by another consultant. While the depth of experience and skill set could definitely be a factor contributing to such disapproval, many a times, I think it goes beyond this. Many actually choose the position "I am OK, You are not OK". Such choices happen unconsciously, and none of us realise how the same interaction would have been different (and perhaps more constructive and mature) if their choices were different.

I remember this topic getting discussed during Organisation Behaviour program at Cranfield MBA. I am sure it is covered somewhere in most of the MBA programs. What surprises me is that so many of us qualify with the MBA degree and yet fail to translate into practice what we learnt. If this weren't true, why should then I see lack of application of these powerful concepts in real life?

I would agree that applying this approach consciously in your life will not be easy. It would compel you to step out of default / comfort zone - whether in your role as a father, a son, a manager or a colleague. But life would be so different and better if all of us could succeed in doing this.

So, you want to get into Management Consultancy?

2008-06-21T19:48:00.006+01:00

Great! I guess most of you might answer the question with a "Yes!" Especially if you are studying for your MBA anywhere in the world.

I am sharing here two extremely powerful concepts that almost every consultant uses. You would be expected to demonstrate a good understanding of these to stake claim for a Consulting career. While these are not exhaustive, kick starting your journey to learn these would do you well. So here goes:

Structured thinking
I came from the industry and had a self belief that my thinking process is extremely good and organised. Well, I guess the trick is actually "to know what you don't know". And I wish I was advised about the "Issue trees" much earlier in life.
Simply put, the usage of Issue Trees, also known as Hypothesis trees (and I am sure they come with different names) help you bring structure to random thoughts, ideas, etc.

Pyramid Principle
Perhaps every successful consultant would swear by this concept of Barbara Minto. It is a very practical, yet extremely difficult discipline / skill to acquire. In fact, it is considered as a process to organize your ideas to write business documents / reports that are compelling. It also often uses a framework called SCQ - Situation, Complication, Question.

Before getting into Consulting profession, I had heard about the often quoted view towards consultants - "they are the ones who borrow your watch, tell you the time and then keep the watch!" Well, figuratively it is the truth!

But before you jump and conclude anything, read on. I am adding a different perspective to this quote by dissecting it into pieces.
"they borrow your watch" - means they step in to understand the problem the organisation is grappling with!
"they tell you the time" - means they have tried to diagnose the issues and then attempt to give you the solution!
"they keep the watch" - means they take forward the lessons from the assignment and add it to their intellectual capital!

Good luck!

Is MBA fluffy?

2008-05-11T12:50:00.003+01:00

Just a few days ago, I and one of my office colleagues, also a Cranfield MBA had an interesting discussion over dinner on the subject line. Drawing experiences from our lives beyond the year at Cranfield, we were remembering the mindset a typical MBA student has (yes, this is a generalisation, maybe a bit unfair too). The varied unspoken attitudes could range from the He-Man approach "I have the power (read MBA)!" to the intellectual demi-God approach "Mujhe Bahut Aata hai" (that's in Hindi; translation means "I know everything").

Regardless of the country or the school, MBA education is often criticised and claimed as "fluffy". An interesting article that I read somewhere recently stated that in general, an Asian MBA is very strong on fundamentals, subject / content knowledge but is found lacking on developing soft skills. In contrast, a Western MBA is extremely strong on building behavioural / softer skills but lacks the ability to create deep knowledge on functional skills. Going forward, the war for talent will require professionals who bring a good blend of both the skill sets.

While studying for the MBA, most of us believe that we would conquer the corporate world following the silvery-sprinkled 3 alphabets next of our names. And then we get humbled time and again in real life. So what is it about an MBA, if anything, that is fluffy?

My answer: Nothing!
There is nothing about an MBA that is fluffy! It is the application of the knowledge we acquire during the MBA program that is fluffy! And by saying this, I transfer the onus from the school or the degree to "ourselves". Unless we demonstrate ownership and accountability, the perception about an MBA degree will not change.

Lesson from Mahabharata!

2008-03-28T09:08:00.002Z

For the benefit of wider audience, "Mahabharata" is a Sanskrit epic from ancient India.

Over the weekends, when I get time, I have been watching the tele-series on Mahabharata and in one of the episodes, a dialogue hit me very hard. It was about Luck and Karma (deed).

So often, we hear statements such as "s/he was extremely lucky to have succeeded!" or something on similar lines. But what I heard in this fantastic epic was a whole new angle - simply put the message was "Luck does not interfere in the path of your Karma!". In my view, this philosophy goes much beyond the adage we grow up with - "Fortune favours the brave!"

If I try to put this in the context of what managers do in organisations, I see an easily available "crutch" being removed from the "excuses ammunition". Whether it is a person or an organisation, the entity is controlling its Karma and should not use Luck to justify the outcome, if it is adverse. (after all, we hardly hear an organisation or a manager giving credit to luck for their success).

Think about it! And read / watch the epic for understanding philosophies that can change lives.

In search of clones

2008-02-03T19:12:00.000Z

How many times have you seen that a hiring manager recruiting for a vacancy, finds flaws in almost every candidate profile! Sometimes you might have been a mere observer to the selection process. Perhaps you might have been the candidate and had wondered why on earth were you not selected when the job description was about you 100%. Better still, you might have been that manager who just never could find the best talent to fill that role.

Many years ago, I had read somewhere that the only person who can accurately read your handwriting is you! (hopefully this was applicable to doctors too). Today, I propose an extension to this view. I say that as manager's, almost all of us believe in something on the following lines:
-I am one of the best example of how a manager should be.
-The skill sets I possess should be present in most others.
-My way of problem solving is perhaps, most appropriate and effective.
-The words I speak or use should resonate in that of others.
And that, in plain speak, is the Art of Cloning.

Some years ago, I was supporting a senior manager to fill up a vacancy. The process went on and on for 6-7 months with no success. In one of those frustrating moments, I asked him, "Why are you looking for another you?" The answer, "Hmmmm!"

This seems like a universal phenomenon, regardless of the country, industry, function or culture. In fact, I see this even more in the consulting world. A management consultant wants to recruit a management consultant. Of course, the desired profile will need more tick in the boxes than just this one. Don't get me wrong guys! I had confessed in one of my previous posts that consulting skills definitely are different from those acquired in industry. But the bigger question is, "How did these management consultants made a start in the consulting world?" Surely, no one is born with the skills they are using today. Someone gave them a chance. And that someone must have chosen the option not to recruit a Clone!

Have you been searching for your clones too?

The fascination for Strategy Consulting!!

2008-01-10T22:00:00.000Z

More often than not, I hear budding MBA's talk about wanting to be Strategy Consultants. I have always wondered why this strong fascination exists for such career options.

I thought perhaps it would be good to understand this from the perspective of a Strategy Consulting firm. So I looked up the Internet and am borrowing one such definition:

What do our Strategy Consulting services provide?

Fresh and positive insights into your businesses core challenges and problems

A practical and common sense approach to agreeing strategies and tactics that will deliver a winning result (that is the best outcome for your business)

Well, now let me share something less well known to the budding MBA's and Strategy Consultants. This is from The Conference Board Report "CEO Challenge 2007: Top 10 Challenges".

As this suggests, the typical CEO does not face the challenge of devising strategies; s/he is desirous of achieving Excellence in Execution.

Amongst the top reasons why a firm typically hires consultants is one that they do not have the resources within and hence seek outside support.

So, I put two and two together and can safely conclude that most of the firms / CEO's would now be looking for professionals who can help the firm "execute" their strategies effectively and consistently. But I did not see the pitch of the firm mentioning anything about "we'll do it for you".

In my view (and I may be biased), the management consultants of tomorrow would have to be ready to take off their ironed business suits, roll up their sleeves, get their hands dirty and actually "do it" for their clients. This would require real work experience and MBA will not be enough.

The direction of the wind is changing.......only those who are listening would survive!

I stand corrected!

2007-12-02T17:00:00.000Z

"A steep learning curve" was how I was advised what my situation would be as I entered the world of management consulting some months ago. How true it has been.

With 15 years in the industry behind my back, it is a bit difficult to fathom what further opportunities exist for accelerated learning within the corporate environment. "Been there, done a lot" could be a self created trap - as I was to realize following my last deployment.

Now back after an intensive Lean assessment for a manufacturing site in Europe, I have been reflecting on the feedback I had sought from my peers who were veterans from consulting space. Their feedback was valuable because it gave me an independent view on what I need to work on further.

It also took me down the memory lane on the game plan that I had tried during my MBA studies at Cranfield. I had believed that by studying the elective on Consulting Skills, I would become a consultant. I stand corrected! The impression of how that opportunity would work was misplaced. True consulting skills are not as evident to the world as one might think. There is a lot more than what meets the eye.

The bottom line is that I am glad to see that my choice to throw myself in uncharted waters has proven to be an excellent decision. Not only am I challenging my skills sets, but I am also getting opportunities to know what I didn't knew before.

Consulting vs. Industry: Is it a valid debate?

2007-10-11T11:37:00.000+01:00

While studying for my MBA @ Cranfield, I had tried securing roles in Consulting sector. The desire was fuelled from the self-belief that a consulting role should be a logical progression following my long industry stint. After all, consultants are problem solvers for the industry - so my industry experience would hold me in good stead. Right?

Wrong! Well, at least that is what my experience during the job hunt told me. A consultant looks for a consultant (almost always) even if in my view it is not correct!

Three months into a consulting career after 15 years in the industry - that's where I stand today. And I thought it would be a good idea to actually do a stock-take and look back over my shoulder.

The very fact that I managed a foray into management consulting does confirm that industry experience is relevant. I still cannot imagine a case where I as a client in industry would be happy if approached by a 25-26 year old consultant who has never had his hands dirty "doing" things. Industry experience lends credibility to a consultant. It also coaches you to be able to see solutions while wearing the cap of a realist. And above all, it equips you with the interpersonal skills (or at least the awareness about it). Whether it is organisational politics, power games, superior - subordinate management or hierarchical nuances - it is the industry experience that will teach you all this.

What did the industry stint not offer me that the consulting sector is!
A couple of things so far:
- The variety of assignments; across diverse industries, different sets of problems to be resolved, exposure to functions / challenges that I had not worked on before
- Skill to look at things from a macro level before a need to do a deep-dive in details
- Critical skill to communicate more from less, especially when writing a PowerPoint deck
- Conflict management - unlike industry, the teams you would work here do not have a hierarchy to assist you when needed; everyone is a peer
- Unlearn and relearn - as you move from assignment to assignment, not only are you cross pollinating your knowledge, you would also be unlearning and relearning continuously.

In a nutshell, I'd say that the debate, if it exists, is itself flawed. I would still stick to my belief that industry experience is a must for consulting career (vice-versa not true). And I would agree that consulting experience takes you on that "extra" marathon of learning curve. Let's see how my journey unfolds.

Tomatoes and Complexity!

2007-09-17T16:07:00.000+01:00

Most of us walk into a superstore and buy groceries. Many of us men, do it in a very structured manner (as we claim) - keep the list given to us in front, see the first item, go to the aisle, pick up the stuff; then to the next item and so on. In the act, what have we missed?

So far in my life, while shopping in the above manner, I missed a key point worthy of every one's observation. Why does a superstore have 10-12 variants of tomatoes!! (and tomatoes here are just one example). I mean, does a customer really care and actually want that kind of choice??

While it may appear as a mundane observation to guys in the City, to me as an executive in Supply Chain / Operations, the very thought hits very hard on the head and makes me go dizzy. That is an enormous quantum of complexity being added by the business......without realizing it! You bet the Product / Brand Manager of the retail chain might even have a key objective for his / her appraisal as "How many SKU's were launched during the year!"

"With what impact / at what cost?" will never appear in his / her appraisal.

While at Cranfield, I had participated in the L'Oreal Strat challenge. While our team did not make much success, another team from our Class (Nobu, Alexis, Anthony) had won from UK. At a later day, I understood from them that a key reason of their success was clarity of product portfolio. They did not do any brand extensions nor did they try to pitch a product at every price point in the market. Keep it simple - was their strategy.

How good are you at avoiding complexity in your business? Take a look within your organization and you might spot something similar to the tomatoes in superstore.

Are you being served?

2007-08-22T18:11:00.000+01:00

Those who come from my generation would remember the sitcom with the subject title. Those who have not seen / heard about it are suggested to definitely check out a few episodes. However, the take away from those episodes should be more than just humour / laughter.

"Customer service" is a word often forgotten by those who provide it but always remembered by those who experience it. And every one of us on the face of the globe play both roles every now and then.

During the last few weeks, I was visiting US for official work. Over a weekend, I met up with my brother in law and a friend of his and we went out for a dinner. Just as we were being served with the dishes we'd ordered, my b-i-l reminded himself aloud that he did not like potato chips as an accompaniment. He had in fact, forgotten to request the waitress to change it to mashed potatoes. He called the lady and requested if he could get mashed potatoes instead.

In a matter of minutes, she was back with mashed potatoes and served it with a genuine smile. The chips stayed on our table. And that set me thinking and talking about customer service.

This post, by the way, is not an attempt to glorify US or put it in comparison to other countries. It is simply my reflections on the subject and the views are entirely my own.

Assuming customer service comes at a cost, what could have been the incremental cost to the restaurant from the act of this waitress? (Trust a finance guy to ask a question about money first!!) ----- a few US cents (potato + fuel to cook + some minutes of walking time), right!
Against this cost, what did the lady and the restaurant earn? A life long customer perhaps! Or at least positive word of mouth .....of 3 customers, not just 1.

I bet in many countries / cities across the world (maybe even in US itself), had it been the same situation, the waiter(ess) would have first said, "Why did you not order correct the first time?" or "I am afraid it will cost you extra!" or perhaps not said anything, just done it...but with a scoff or a scornful look or cursed mutterings.

As suppliers of goods or services, we do it all so often - forget the customer; just treat it as a "momentary transaction". No matter what an MBA teaches you, unless applied in practice, it is useless.....just good enough to be in books.

Think about it!

The Inverse Pyramid

2007-08-14T02:45:00.000+01:00

After having worked in the industry for good 15 years, last month I started afresh - this time in management consulting sector. While I undergo induction / on-boarding, last week I was called for supporting a team working on an assignment in Retail sector. No, I am not discussing their assignment here nor the client. Instead, I share an insight which perhaps no book will ever capture. I chose the same words what my colleague Andy called it - the Inverse Pyramid.

When we walked in the HQ of this major retail player, we found it to be absolutely basic, frills-free, low profile office. It did not come across as the HQ of a global multi-billion player and this set us talking. This firm believes in the fact that their customers who walk into their stores across the country are their reason for existence. And it shows. Very simply - the focus is on the stores - it is the stores which need the best of look and feel; not the HQ.

This made me think - not just UK, even in India I have seen few retail players who have plush, hip HQ's but almost basic (if not down trodden) retail stores. It is as if the retail stores exist for the HQ rather than the other way around. All attempts to cut costs began with the stores while the management, sitting in their ivory towers, spent money to get those latest laptops and mobile instruments, constantly spend on reorganising work stations and layouts, flying around in business class for even short haul trips, etc. The list goes on.

This leading UK retailer has, perhaps the swankiest of stores which give a feel-good factor to anyone walking in. I am sure it keeps bringing back repeat, loyal customers - who are the focus. This is the inverse pyramid - where the organisation exists for its customers; an organisation who would rather invest their funds on its customers than its own management team / HQ.

I hope someone is listening.

How good is your Reputation!

2007-07-09T11:47:00.000+01:00

How many amongst us mortals realise that even we have a "Reputation"? Or perhaps lack a reputation?

In my pre Cranfield MBA career, I was working with an American MNC which had "Reputation" as one of its key imperatives. At times, I used to wonder, "How relevant is that?" A few years from then, today, I would perhaps exclaim, "What an irrelevant question is that?" Reputation is sacrosanct and THE KEY imperative - whether you are an individual or an organisation; a business school or even a country!

Recently, I read something on lines of "you are what your Google search says!" and something more about "Digital dirt". I was tempted to Google myself and I did. Thankfully, I did not find any dirt! Well, I for one, would not wish to claim, "I am famous even when I am infamous!"

I understand many recruiting managers now do the Google on candidates. One would have never imagined that one would have to operate as one's own PR Manager :-). That's how times change.

Well, make sure your reputation speaks what you want it to. Manage yourself better!

Changing your orbit!

2007-06-05T16:17:00.000+01:00

The CEO at an organisation I worked before had mentioned one day, "You should keep changing your orbit every few years!"

My interpretaton of his view was (perhaps not agreed to universally) that one should not stay in an organisation or in a role for a very long time. Besides, making you complacent, it tends to rust you as well. Staying at one place also breeds self doubt or fear of your ability to survive if you change anything. I could relate this interpretation with many examples that I had seen and continue to witness in my corporate life. It is so easy to enter that vicious cycle - avoiding change, leading to eroded self confidence which feeds back into avoiding change.

Well, I have continued to try and change my orbits. Post Cranfield MBA, I had joined the Supply Chain services sector. I've called it a day here and am getting into an industry which will perhaps bring together the knowledge and experience of all previous stints so far. Like always, it is upto me to make the most of it. Much of the locus of control is within, as I believe.

View from outside

2007-05-10T09:43:00.000+01:00

How often do we consciously invite a view from the outside? Do I know what I don't know?

It was with these thoughts in mind that I had agreed to have a Project management practitioner join us. The subject was the plant where a major automation project installation and commissioning is in progress.

The day and the inputs proved far too valuable to us. Not only did his probing questions help us know what we didn't knew, it reinforced the point that every now and then one should get a view from a fresh pair of eyes. Whether it was about center-lining the machine or understanding how the vendor had managed his relationship with his sub contractors! The inputs pointed towards the axiom (translated) "it's dark beneath the candle that lights!"

However, what doesn't get captured here is that it takes courage to ask for a view from the outside. So many times, one can see organisations throwing good money after bad, just because some decision makers refuse to pause and do a stock check or receive a view from the outside with an open mind. I guess pride and self image takes control over sanity and wisdom.

At least I took another step forward!

The year in a flash........

2007-04-05T17:51:00.000+01:00

Lifelong learning! That is how Cranfield MBA is described. While it has not been too far away in the past when I was on campus, so many incidents continue to happen in work life which take me back to the courses and lessons that I was absorbing in the class room. It was one such situation some weeks ago when I experienced the MBA year coming back in a flash.

The scene: a meeting room with at least 6 nationalities sitting around a table
Representing: a supplier and its client (myself included)
Objective: Future business relationship with the supplier

I won't bore you with the mundane contents of the meeting itself. However, practically every second minute, I was going back to the MBA days. The flash back was reminding of diversity and global cultures and Steve Carver jumping up and down and speaking excitedly in an animated manner, "I'm your client! I'm your client!"

It was intriguing to see that so many MBA's forget simple things so easily. That room had at least 4 MBA's. Yet the realities that stared in my face included:
- tossing off a business card given by the supplier onto the table
- talking / interrupting while another person spoke
- forcefully waffling
- preconcieved biases and closed minds
- and above all, the timing of the meeting.

If one had decided in advance not to continue the relationship with the vendor in future, how do you expect that supplier to remain motivated and committed to the existing projects that are still in execution stage!! No marks for guessing what the outcome of that meeting would lead to on the running projects. Time delay; cost over run; quality downfall - in other words, a recipe for disaster.

Three hours later I was still clueless what the meeting was achieving. All I could think about was the negative impact this discussion will have on my project. X months later, when I will sit down to explain why the project did not achieve the success criteria, I am sure no one will agree that this very uncalled-for meeting had its share of influence.

Common sense is indeed, not so common.

Hindsight is a beautiful thing

2007-02-17T19:40:00.000Z

No pun intended guys :-)

So many times in your life, you are reminded of instances from the past and you suddenly exclaim, "Eureka! Thats makes sense now!". It is this hindsight that I refer to. As someone said, "every decision is right or wrong....only in hindsight."

I've been working in industry for over 14 years now, but something that I consistently see is the inability of most managers to separate the personality from the position. Myself included ......... sometimes. Or would it be better to say, "it is the manager's unwillingness to do so"?

One of my previous line managers back in India had helped me understand this and it remains rooted in my approach at work place. I am not the chair I hold! Therefore, when I speak, write or discuss, I am the vehicle for that position. Equally my audience are people occupying different positions and the onus is on me to ensure that I (the position) addresses to Them (the position). For some, this may sound complicated or absurd and I guess it is just the way I am spelling it out.

I share this because I see examples galore where the personalities take control of the positions and in turn sow the seed of communication issues / clashes.

Trust me chaps, following this unwritten law of management isn't easy. I guess no MBA course would teach this. It comes with experience and hindsight.

The trouble with mindsets!

2007-01-28T10:19:00.000Z

Do I know if I have a mindset? Of course, I do; like everyone else. But I don't realise it; like everyone else. I don't know if this is a generalisation, but what the heck! This is my voice and my blog after all.
This will be a long post. May you have the patience to go through it with an open mind! Amen!

Some months ago, I was headhunted for a European role in a large American MNC. The consultant was damn confident (like they always are when speaking to you). During my interaction with him, I realised that suddenly my Indian experience of 13 years was being recognised.

Circa early 2005
When I began my job hunt during Cranfield MBA, the feedback that I received 95% of the times was on the lines, "You have a very strong CV and blue chip experience! But you don't have UK experience!" And my journey to the prospective job used to end there.

I give complete credit to Prof David Butcher - Director at Cranfield SOM. When I met him, he asked on why did I accept such an opinion. His guidance was, "Challenge this mindset!". And I did. What does "UK experience" mean? How does it differ from my Indian experience? If my 13 years with German, British, Indian and American MNC's on Indian soil wasn't enough, what would be? Could someone make a list of those organisations that operate globally but are yet to step in the Indian markets? From Ford & Toyota to Phillips & Nestle to Reuters, Unilever and P&G. Who's missing?
Needless to mention, I never got welcome faces when I politely contested their mindsets. After all, it is not easy to be told that you're wrong.

Circa mid 2005
I am on Business week MBA forums. An American, MBA alumni of a renowned school in UK makes mockery of the spoken English of the Chinese ambassador who addressed an audience in London. I asked him, "How should he expect the Chinese audience to react if and when he addresses them in their language?" No comments came back. That was another mindset.

Circa January 2007
The headhunter has called back expressing regret from the client. Reason? "I do not have European experience"!! Interesting! Very interesting indeed! The ghosts continue to haunt. Anyways. It hasn't impacted me in any way as I continue to enjoy my current role. But the experience of such a mindset was quite intriguing.

Circa 2009 (and this could very much be for real)
International citizens are flocking for a career in India. At an organisation, I am in the selectors chair. I receive the CV of a European (for e.g.). I reject the candidate. Why? Because s/he does not have "Indian experience"!

Of course, I won't do that. Else how would I demonstrate a different mindset from the rest? There are a variety of tools to help you understand your personality types, etc. Does anybody know of a tool that helps one to "check one's mindset"?

Leaders - Born or Made!

2007-01-14T12:17:00.000Z

Classic and perhaps an endless debate!

I do not know if the management community has concluded anything on this! But it was interesting to read an interview of Prof. Andrew Kakabadse, Deputy-Director at Cranfield School of Management. I was fortunate enough to attend a few sessions of Prof. Kakabadse during the Cranfield MBA.

I share here a couple of his quotes:
"The worst aspects of leadership came from younger managers, especially those who were well educated, and intellectually very bright. They tended to make the worst decisions because they turned strategic concerns into operational concerns. They want to make an impact within eighteen to twenty-four months before they move on - the business, the profitability looks good, but have they actually invested in the long-term effectiveness of the brand? The answer is no. What we noted is that middle, i.e. younger managers tended to look at operational costs and operational gains, i.e. short-term costs and gains, rather than opportunity gains or costs, the impact of which takes longer to realize. "

"From a survey in which I have been involved, covering 8,000 organizations across 14 countries, the overall finding is that leadership qualities are all learned."

As I introspect, I remember studying a few electives on Leadership. I believe that while the theory is good, whether you are indeed a leader or not depends on what you practice. And whether you practice Leadership or not depends on the choices you make. No one taught me Leadership during my 13 years of corporate career in India prior to MBA. No one is teaching it to me now after the MBA. But what you don't practice, remains nowhere. I learnt the most of it on-the-job! How?

By observing my supervisors and other managers around me! Learning and adopting their practices which I found good! Ensuring that I avoid the mistakes I saw them making! And I continue to use this tactic even today. If the proof of the pudding is in the eating, my career till date has at least confirmed that this practice works.

Is there a better way to learn or become a leader? I am very interested to find out. And I'll save the desire to see a simple, plain English definition of Leadership for another day.

What does it take to wake you up!!

2006-11-24T13:59:00.000Z

Interesting! Very interesting indeed!

Just a couple of weeks ago, on my flight to Italy, I was reading a book on Global cultures and trying to get to know something about Italians. After all, I was enroute to meet a supplier and was expecting some areas to negotiate upon. As I was reading, I was reminded of the Global Leadreship elective during Cranfield MBA.
While I remained conscious of "stereotypes", the reading was indeed very interesting. Armed with some basics, I was watchful of what I saw during my two day stay and even applied a couple of learnings from the book. After all, cultural senstivity isn't just meant for books.

The book had ignited enough fire in me to check out what it said about India. So while it used the Italian Opera to explain about Italy, India was explained through the Dance of Shiva. I must admit, I wasn't as convinced. However, this is not what I wanted to highlight here.

During this trip, it occurred to me that I do not hear about or see this "cultural senstivity" in Britishers or Europeans. But then I can't blame them. I myself never felt any cultural sensitivity while in India - perhaps the most varied multi cultural society in the world. And I was asking myself - "Sandeep, you never realised that you were amonsgt Bengali's, Punjabi's and Pandit's while you were in India! Then why this talk about this cultural sensitivity now?" And the only answer I could think of was "Well, I am awake now!"

Reality check ........ statistically speaking!!

2006-10-20T13:18:00.000+01:00

Phew! I've just finished my Six Sigma Green Belt training. Besides a heavy file to carry back, I also have a heavy head. Not because of the training, but due to the guilt I am experiencing. Only if I had paid more attention to the Term 1 SDS course at Cranfield MBA!! While Minitab is a saving grace :-), I still feel disappointed with myself.

I was reminded of the Statistical Decision Science course taught by Bob and Sean and how quickly most of us wanted to get over it. Chi-square, p-value and what not!

The green belt training was kind of a realiy check on Cranfield MBA and I am convinced that the course in the curriculum was not out of place. Six Sigma is simple, structured, logic and common sense that depends on "data". And if I need to get my belt certification, then I better be sure of my data and its "accuracy and precision".

Well, my proposed project is on eliminating the variation in productivity across shifts at one of the sites I manage in Operations. So last night, I kick started on my data analysis through Minitab to practice my newly acquired skills on Six Sigma. It remains to be seen what I make out of my data and the project. It also makes me think seriously that Cranfield MBA (or any MBA for that matter) should focus on Six Sigma and Lean manufacturing as a core part of the curriculum. The tool lends more credibility to change management skills than simple glib talk. Amen!

Change management is thy name!

2006-08-28T19:19:00.000+01:00

Ever since we're born, we proceed on the journey called "life" - with the destination being just one. It was strange to suddenly remind myself of this undisputable fact while on a train from Midlands to back home sometime last week. Many a times, I am either catching up with my work or sleeping or reading a book. This time it was watching the facade of life go by from the window of the fast moving train.
I watched outside, enjoying the variety of life, its hues, the silence around me and yet the disturbance inside me kept knocking its knuckles every now and then. I was disturbed; quite disturbed and felt like an ocean - calm from outside; turbulence inside. I face frustrating moments in work when I see educated, professional, qualified people around me indulging in acts which I classify as "mistakes". I wondered why!!

During my journey, I was remembering Dr. Joe Jaina and his elective on Practical Change Management which I had chosen during MBA. It was a fun session and yet an enlightening one. I could still see myself playing the role of a difficult staffer to the external change management consultant Antonio - who had admitted later that he was losing his temper with my animated attitude :-)
It was not without reason why I was remembering that session. The lessons were screaming our loud in my mind - "Remember, it is people whom you are dealing with!!" Why don't managers see it?? I wondered why!

I have been a witness to how managers carry the baggage of past and form views / opinions about people and most importantly, assume that such views / opinions are correct! So many times I am tempted to ask them, "Are you sure you are correct? Or are you just being stubborn?" But of course, such a question would not go down well with them. Nor I could tell them, "Don't clutch onto the past too tightly! You shall find your hands full to embrace the future!"

In the pursuit of short term successes, so often we forget simple things about life. That it is a long journey; that you need to be kind to others; everyone is waging a hard battle like you are! That when you want to change - more than the situation, you are trying to change people. And that education, knowledge and wisdom are not the same things.

With a tear in my eye....for Shay!!

2006-08-26T14:35:00.000+01:00

To those who are willing to read this post.....it has nothing to do with Cranfield MBA!! However, read on if you wish. It came to me today through a forwarded email.

** Would you have made the same choice? **
At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves learning disabled children,the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question: "When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?"
The audience was stilled by the query. The father continued. "I believe,that when a child like Shay, physically and mentally handicapped comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes, in the way other people treat that child."Then he told the following story:
Shay and his father had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked,"Do you think they'll let me play?" Shay's father knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but the father also understood that if his son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps. Shay's father approached one of the boys on the field and asked if Shay could play, not expecting much. The boy looked around for guidance and said, "We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning."
Shay struggled over to the team's bench put on a team shirt with a broad smile and his Father had a small tear in his eye and warmth in his heart. The boys saw the father's joy at his son being accepted. In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as his father waved to him from the stands. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat. At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game? Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat.

Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible 'cause Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball. However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing the other team putting winning aside for this moment in Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least be able to make contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher. The game would now be over, but the pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game. Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the head of the first baseman, out of reach of all team mates.
Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, "Shay, run to first! Run to first!" Never in his life had Shay ever ran that far but made it to first base. He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled. Everyone yelled, "Run to second, run to second!" Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to second base. By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball, the smallest guy on their team, who had a chance to be the hero for his team for the first time. He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher's intentions and he too intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman's head. Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home. All were screaming, "Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay" Shay reached third base, the opposing shortstop ran to help him and turned him in the direction of third base, and shouted, "Run to third! Shay, run to third" As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams and those watching were on their feet were screaming, "Shay, run home! Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the "grand slam" and won the game for his team.

That day, said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world. Shay didn't make it to another summer and died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making his Father so happy and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!

AND, NOW A LITTLE FOOTNOTE TO THIS STORY: We all send thousands of jokes through the e-mail without a second thought, but when it comes to sending messages about life choices, people think twice about sharing. The crude, vulgar, and often obscene pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion about decency is too often suppressed in our schools and workplaces. If you're thinking about forwarding this message,chances are that you're probably sorting out the people on your address list that aren't the "appropriate" ones to receive this type of message. Well, the person who sent you this believes that we all can make a difference. We all have thousands of opportunities every single day to help realize the "natural order of things." So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people present us with a choice: Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity or do we pass up that opportunity to brighten the day of those with us the least able, and leave the world a little bit colder in the process?

A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats it's least fortunate amongst them. So if anyone amongst you ever, ever get a chance to meet someone like Shay, try to do what the team and audience did!

Re-introduction!!

2006-08-17T14:37:00.000+01:00

Many of you may be curious to know "Who is this guy?".......Well! here I am on the streets of London under the Big Ben.......from the eyes of a Nigerian caricature specialist!

Else check this out!

Was it worth!!

2006-03-28T17:45:00.000+01:00

Many thousands of pounds poorer, a year older, definitely fitter and above all a whole lot wiser!! That is how I would sum up the outcome of my MBA in 2004-05. Of course, add to this the backdrop of a roller coaster, pressure cooker environment and Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest. Well, may be not the last one, as no one dies.

Six months after I graduated and five months after I started work in UK, I look back with nostalgia. It was 2nd September 2005 and I still remember Maria and Rola dressed up in those frills, dancing on the re-lyricised songs of ABBA. It was not just a celebration of our completing the MBA; that night signified a whole lot more – the bonding, the camaraderie, the long journey we all had completed, the passion to do more than what we had ever done, and much more that no words can capture.

As I sit here, remembering that night and listening to ABBA singing “I have a dream”, I evaluate what happened to my dream; where do I stand today; was the decision worth it?

During these months at work, time and again I realise that it is difficult to put your finger at the ways you are better off after the MBA. While you study, you become a sponge; most of what you go through is being absorbed and no one can quantify the content. It is when you squeeze the sponge that you realise just how much it holds. When you think the sponge has gone dry, those with a stronger grip can get out those extra drops.

In more than one ways, I have surprised myself at times. Whether it is the application of the 3R’s principles of crisis management or demonstration of cultural sensitivity in verbal and written communication or even the ability to correctly identify the MBTI of those around you! It almost seems like magic at times and you can hear yourself whispering, “Wow Sandeep! That was good! John Glen will be proud of you!”

So you all who are currently getting cooked inside that pressure cooker, those who are stretching themselves beyond ones perceived capacities and those who are sitting by the fence, letting time slip by – make the most of it! Because it is worth it!

Life comes full circle!

2005-09-02T17:33:00.000+01:00

"No horse gets anywhere till he`s harnessed. No steam or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara ever turned anything into light or power until it was tunnelled. No life ever grows until it is focused, dedicated and disciplined." - Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878 - 1969)

Today was the last day of our MBA course. Like many other scurrying MBAs, I submitted my final pieces of work by 4 p.m. only to realise that life has come a full circle. Suddenly, I could feel a vacuum building inside of me. The feeling is yet to sink in for most of us, but I know it will start reflecting soon. The best way to face the inevitable feeling, at this stage was to avoid or ignore it.
That`s what most of us were doing later during the day and it was time to be at CMDC hall for the MBA farewell - Day 2. Around 7 p.m., the dinner has been served and the stage set. John Glen - our MBA Director - took over the stage. It was a momentous occasion for everyone, especially those who won the prizes. Well done, Mark Holmes (UK), Bibhas Roy (India), Andrew Cox (UK) and Charlie Sincock (UK). The team of the year prize went to the MBA Football squad - though it was a surprise for some, the logic of selection went much beyond the numbers of wins in matches or achievements. It was more about the camaraderie and sportsmanship rather than the ratio of wins / losses. Kudos to the selection committee for looking beyond the obvious and in the process teaching us some more lessons even on the last day of the MBA course.

Of course, as Cranfield MBAs we have learnt to surprise everyone and today was no different. It was another cycle of life coming a full circle when the days of Orientation week were relived by a host of performances by many of us. On popular demand, the MC kicked the evening off by inviting Tom and the drummers. In case some of you remember reading my musings from September / October last year, Tom had led a team of Red streamers (me included) on a similar performance.

What followed was a rejuvenated show of skills of the MBA`s - be it mimickers of David Myddelton facing the Swedish group ABBA, or a gorgeous, all-women troupe of tap-dancers, or international women dancing with Indian men for a Bollywood number, the (almost) Full Monty, or the MBA Band, and many more performances. Each one of the performances was so engaging - all of us actually forgot that this was a "farewell to MBA" event.

Well, life has come full circle. This day last year, I had started off from India to step into an unchartered world and prepare myself for a life changing experience. And today, I write my last piece for the Cranfield MBA diary. I guess the feeling of "it is over!" has still not sunk in and as I pack my bags to move on into the next innings of my life, I struggle to identify how have I changed. No doubt I have changed and so has every one of the rest of the 125. Most of these changes will remain subtle and will surface over the coming years in our lives. Cranfield has helped us grow into focused, dedicated and disciplined human beings.

On behalf of Cranfield MBA Class of 2005 batch, I wish all of you well. Hope some of you have already taken the decision to be here as part of the next batch. And those who haven`t! Don`t miss this opportunity.

The world is a stage!

2005-09-01T17:27:00.000+01:00

And we all are performers and our lives are the script. We all play our part to the fullest. However, this evening, we performed our mega play by staging William Shakespeare`s "A Midsummer Night`s Dream"………

After a full dress rehearsal the previous evening on the cricket pitch near dusk, we are all charged up and raring to go. And today was the mega day, especially for some like me, who had never ever participated or performed on stage like this. The full cast and crew were in their places by 6 p.m. and the changing room was bustling with excitement, anxiety, revelry and a whole lot of banter. When many guys dress up as girls, the twisted conversations leave little room for the imagination. As each actress / actor got ready, out s/he went in the safe hands of the make up artists. The stage was set with the "sight screens" from cricket grounds being used to hide the case away.

Once Prof. David Myddelton completed his valedictory speech, the lights faded away and music started playing. It was time. The audience was provided with handouts on the cast and the story of the play before hand.

An hour and fifteen minutes later, the standing ovation was terrific. Whether it was Titania (Becky) and Oberon (Jean-Pierre), Hermia (Tom) and Lysander (Amol) or Puck (Neale) and Nick Bottom (Ian) - each of us received a thunderous applause from the audience strength of over a 100. Of course, there were loads of funny moments during the play - Neale`s son calling for him when he saw his daddy on stage, or Tom dressed as Hermia losing his (sorry "her") wig.

As the Director of School - Michael Osbaldeston - wrote in his invite to everyone, this is the first time any MBA batch has done such an act, literally. Tomorrow is the last day of our MBA in terms of any courses. As we continue to stage some more performances in the "Farewell to MBA", we all hope that the future Cranfield MBA batches will continue to create unprecedented records and keep reinforcing the stamp of the quality of managers that Cranfield produces.

Memorabilia from Cranfield MBA Class of 2004/05

2005-08-26T11:45:00.000+01:00

It is out! 60 superb pages of photo's, write-up's, fun and full of memories from the year that comes to an end in a couple of days.
Over the last many months now, 7 MBA students and 2 partners had been working hard on this year book, ably led by Joanna. The creative execution was in the reins of Maqui, who is a graphics designer and the partner of Alexis. Amongst ourselves, we had divided the work on various parts of the yearbook. I was actively playing the role of a "snooping" photographer, a writer and a crossword creator. Other members too played their share of some very valuable and creative role. The best part was to have the MBA partners on our team. Emma and Maqui were the voices of the partners and ensured that we go beyond the MBA perspective to capture moments / events of partners as well.
It was difficult for most of us to schedule this add-on work and the fortnightly meetings weren't an easy affair, especially if you have a go-getter woman leader of the team. Joanna ensured that each of us remain on our toes to do our best while providing all possible support. So none of us had to worry on the liaison with the printers, legal / copyright issues, costing, etc. Joanna had taken care of it all.
It was an interesting and a valuable learning experience. We were giving shape to a new thing; we had to decide what it would look like, what it would contain and who will do what. This yearbook is possibly the most loved assignment that I have worked on during the MBA. The quality of the work is seen to be believed but the praises we have received from the fellow MBA's is just phenomenal.
As we pack our bags and prepare ourselves to leave this place called Cranfield, almost all of us would be happy to confess - "I did what I came here for! I have learnt many lessons of life; I have stretched myself beyond my capacity and I leave this place as a better manager and above all, an even better human being!"
For our team, the satisfaction is of having created a memorabilia that many of us would love to show to our grand children, when we sit their rocking on the rocking chair and remembering these sweet days at Cranfield.

Nostalgia hits me!!

2005-08-21T11:45:00.000+01:00

What? The year is almost over? But why? Why so soon?
So many questions….so much discomfort…..but all inevitable. I must admit today was a sad day for me. Or rather I should say sad yet happy in a way.
This evening we had an informal get together with the Pre MBA students for the next MBA batch of 2005/06. While talking to them, I had difficulty remembering those days when I had arrived at Cranfield. The year just whizzed away, I guess. And here they are - a new set of to-be-MBA's who would start their MBA journey as we are about to end.
They had so much to ask, we had so much to share and two hours flew away. I felt sad, as time and again, I was hit by the feeling, "….I don't want to leave Cranfield!" But I guess time stops for no one. It didn't stop for those students who had welcomed us into Cranfield last year and it won't stop for us either.
The happy feeling was from the fact that I was meeting so may new people, a few even recognizing me because of my musings on this portal as well as for the other documents that some of us had prepared for them.
I remember the quote by George Eliot - "It is never too late to be what you might have been". So soon enough, we would be handing over the mantle to the incoming batch and all 126 of us would be embarking on our respective journeys, making a success of what we want to achieve and of course, remember the days at Cranfield with nostalgia and fun as well.

The dream of MBA's

2005-08-15T11:44:00.000+01:00

26 MBA students have come together on a project….possibly the biggest project in the history of Cranfield MBA…..a project that started almost a month ago and will culminate in the lasts day of the MBA.
It is a project which is very unique. All of us have been divided into teams with a few students directing these small teams. Every member has been assigned a role and these directors are now working together with these numerous teams to ensure that the output is quality and surpasses all expectations. It is a project that will have to be presented before the entire MBA batch, their partners and families as well as faculty. Lastly, it is a project that will be assessed, but not in marks.
Have I gained your full attention now?? Ok….I now let the cat out of the bag.
The project is the production of William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" to be staged on 1st September 2005 in the school. The costume's have been tried and are now final. Every evening, the various scenes of the play are being rehearsed. I too have a small and comic role - that of Flute, who plays the female character Thisbe as well.
To orient ourselves with the play, the movie on this play was screened for the benefit of all before the practice began.
Besides the most famous question doing the rounds in Cranfield - "Have you found a job?", the next most famous questions are - "Howz your play practice coming up? Which character are you playing?" It is turning out to be a great experience, especially for me who has to practice speaking in a female voice as well.

I'm humbled!

2005-07-27T12:53:00.000+01:00

As months pass by, I get this feeling over and over again. Cranfield MBA's have this knack to surprise me time after time. The lectures on Economic Perspectives of Globalisation (EPG) over the past few days have made me feel humbled by the knowledge mine that surrounds me. Not just the faculty - John, Sean, Steve, it is also students like Lily (China), Bence (Hungary), Jonathan (Britain), Sola (Nigeria), Nana (Ghana), Antonio (Uruguay) and so many more. These budding senior managers are no less economists and seem to know almost everything.

If someone was to ask me about the Property law about India, I would be clueless. But so many of my class fellows know so much - not just about the field they worked in, but also about the economy of their own country and even other nations. And it is not just knowledge on economics.

Imagine sustaining your commitment to your employer who sponsored you for his MBA. So during daytime we see some folks attending lectures, writing reports, joining team meetings. We also hear about them working at night on their office assignment. Next day they are again there in lectures. The capacity to take so much just amazes me.

Then there are students like Joanna (Britain) who plays all games and works so hard - whether it is playing for Cranfield University's volleyball team, organising charity auction, participating in marathons, arranging the oh-so-famous nude calendar (again for charity) and now leading the Fun yearbook project - amazing capacity.

This is also the bottom line message for all - you need to scrape the surface to see the real strength of those around you. Some may take weeks, some may take months and some others may simply miss to see it throughout the year. And this is a message I will take away in my workplace after the MBA again.

The honeymoon is still on!

2005-07-02T17:49:00.000+01:00

Away from the maddening world of lectures, assignments, reports, etc. today we celebrated the first wedding anniversary of two Indian couples.

Imagine coming over to study full time just within months of getting married! Well, that is exactly what happened to Rajeev and Amol. They both had got married in late June last year and within months had to add another full time job (of being a student) to their status of being full time husbands.

So to make their first anniversary special, the rest of us had spared them on their actual anniversary days and decided to get together this evening, celebrate and enjoy. The two still-newly-married-couples were spared of any tasks and the rest of us called the shots, deciding who cooks what. It was a small gathering of 6 couples including Rajeev and Amol. And of course some couples (whom we call as post graduates) were also there with their kids making shrieking noises none of us could translate or understand.

With chole, aaloo, poorie's, raita, lemon rice and sweet dish (all Indian dishes), it was a sumptuous evening. The air was filled with Indian music and our loud voices cracking jokes at each other, and specially making the special-couples dance to our tunes. In the MBA, while all of us make friends with students from other nationalities, the fact that you are amidst your fellow countrymen (and women) keeps reminding you of your own roots. A look at the attire the special couple wore reminded us of the colourful event a wedding is back home. And Amol, Radha, Shweta and Rajeev made it even more memorable by wearing the same dress that they wore on their wedding day.

Brean to Bristol to Bath and home

2005-06-27T17:48:00.000+01:00

The day to start back for campus arrived soon. These days had passed by so quickly and made me feel rejuvenated and relaxed.
After cleaning up the caravan we started on our trip to Bristol city where Richard also had an engagement to fulfil. It was a beautiful drive and we soon saw the Bristol bridge.

Once we had dropped Richard off at his destination, we too parked our car and wandered off to see the city. John's familiarity with Bristol came in handy as he had worked here before. It was interesting to see his reactions on the changes that Bristol has seen ever since he moved away from this place. A commercially vibrant city, Bristol offered us peeks into its history as well as modern outlook.
Richard joined us soon enough and we moved on from Bristol to Bath. Unfortunately we reached a little late to catch the ever famous Roman baths in this city, we saw around the architecture and modernity blending in this tourist city, which not surprisingly, was an expensive place. The Roman baths are the best preserved spa's from the ancient world. We visited a church as well to offer our prayers and also absorb the beauty and calmness inside.

Bath is a marvellous city and a hot spot for tourism. It attracts an audience from almost all parts of the world and as we kept crossing some tourists talking excitedly, we were guessing on the language those people spoke. The city possessed not only marvellous architecture, it also had bright hues of flowers all around. At many points, we would find ourselves stopping and enjoying the pristine beauty of flower beds. We had wandered away without any plans and were happy that Bath is a small city with no fear of loosing your way.

Conscious of our plans to reach back Cranfield famous in time, we then started back, bringing with us memories of all the beautiful sights that we saw.

Ah! Sunday morning in a Caravan!

2005-06-26T17:47:00.000+01:00

The interest in Wimbledon had died! Caravan experience had taken over my senses. And John added a salty flavour to it by taking out the canoes from under the caravan.

For someone who does not know swimming, it was a scary thought. But the fact that we all had taken the courageous decision to quit jobs and pursue MBA in UK, motivated me to try my hand at canoeing. With lift jacket strapped around, I was given the beginners lessons by John. And in I went, pushed by John, while Richard laughed away to my shouts and soon could be seen sleeping on the rocks, basking under the sun. Little did I realize that John had a hidden agenda - get me to taste the salt. And once I was in slightly deeper waters, enjoying the confidence of John's proximity, I was toppled over - much to John's amusement and my shrieks. Of course I wasn't scared! (hope you believe it!)

After this experience, it was time again for my tasty omelettes in breakfast. The plan for the day was to do some sight seeing and go to nearby town and see around. We enjoyed the games and specially the "crazy golf" course. John also showed us around the place, a few bits of history and background, etc. The we set back to the caravan as the sun started on its descent.
Back home in our caravan, we chatted away well into past midnight.

Caravan Calling - Day 2

2005-06-25T17:46:00.000+01:00

The day of the big rugby match - All Blacks versus Lions. John, Richard and I were off at 7 am in search of a pub that was screening the game live. And we found one soon enough to occupy our chairs. I must admit that I was glued to the screen and could sense the disappointment amongst audience on Lions performance.
We were back in the caravan and by now our stomachs had started grumbling. It was time for a quick breakfast and this humble chef offered to make "tasty omelettes" - we had brought the necessary ingredients last night - trust Cranfield MBA's to plan perfectly! Since I will get added publicity by this posting, let me share that John, Richard and Karen were licking their fingers and had two rounds of omelettes. Of course, one's wife is one's biggest critic and wouldn't support my culinary skills at all. So Divya acted as the balancing force by refraining from appreciating my skills in kitchen. Poor me!
Quick plans were made for the day with Richard "The eternal walker" and John chalking out a long walk in the greens.
It was a good long walk up the mountain and a fabulous view or the sea around.
After a couple of hours, we were back to the starting point and then decided to walk on the sands with low tide having taken away the waters away into the sea. The beach is great for kite flying and sand yachting, and more civilised activities like sandcastle building, paddling and swimming.

In the evening hours after watching tennis again, we were out to the local pubs. One of the pubs was hosting a live show by a singing band and hit the dance floor.
Only when our feet refused to support us any further did we budge and came back to the comfortable confines of the caravan.

Caravan calling - Day 1

2005-06-24T17:45:00.000+01:00

Term 3 over. Term 4 about to start. A few holidays in between. Who would miss this opportunity! And so we went to stay in a caravan on the sea shore.
John McIntyre (Britain) had the keys of his caravan on Brean Sands, a sea shore near Bristol and 5 of us bundled off in two cars in the evening hours.
The caravan is located at Brean Sands, on a seven mile stretch of sandy beach stretching from the seaside resort of Burnham-on-Sea, to the National Trust headland of Brean Down. On a clear day you can see the Welsh and Devonshire coastlines in the distance.
We reached in the late evening hours after a long meandering drive. Scores of caravans stood in pitch dark with an occasional street lamp showing us the way. Yet, when we arrived, I could see the high tide. The area has one of the highest tidal ranges in the world (the tide frequently laps against the sea wall just in front of the caravan). Settling in was easy and I was astonished to see the caravan to be fully equipped with everything. TV, microwave, comfy sofas, kitchen……you name it, it was there!
With Wimbledon on, it was difficult to move away from the TV but we forced ourselves to go for a simple dinner of fish and chips. But plans were on for tomorrow. We were sure to have a "whale" of a time.

World Class Leaders, World Class Teams

2005-06-24T17:43:00.000+01:00

This was a special session conducted by Prof Andrew Kakabadse in which he shared his critical findings from the research work on leadership covering transformational, transactional and visionary leadership. Interestingly, this session was outside the scope of any core or elective course and was organised by three MBA students.
The session revolved around a case study written by Prof Kakabadse for a workshop that he conducted with a top tier financial services organisation. It was a true case study about a manufacturing company and the concoction of issues that it faced - ranging from internal politics to lobbying of factions, organizational structure and lexicon, what a consultant faces which can easily be termed as hostility, the paradoxes that exist in corporate and so on.
This was only the second time that our batch was experiencing the class of Prof Kakabadse, but like the first time, he overawed us all. With his suave class of teaching, he led us through the understanding of the case. The first half involved us breaking into groups to propose our thoughts on what the new organisation structure could be. After the few voluntary presentations of some groups, Prof Kakabadse then shared what happened in reality, who the real client was, what developments took place and where it stands today. The objective was not whether any group got it right; the idea was to explain to us what all dynamic are at play typically for an organisation and specially for the consultant.
Every time Prof Kakabadse comes to lecture us on a case, I have always had this uncanny feeling that the consultant in the case study was him. It is astonishing to note that his explanations come across as so powerful that it seems he knew every heartbeat of the consultant.
While we strive to become world class leaders and world class teams, it is sure that faculty such as Prof Kakabadse is definitely World Class.

My first consulting assignment

2005-06-20T17:44:00.000+01:00

Business check up (BCH) is a core course that concluded today with our presentation to the client. I capture the up's and down's of my debut consulting assignment.
I had become part of a new team in the first week of May 2005. Mark (Britain), Lily (China), Yandi (Indonesia), Chris (Scotland) and Miah (Britain / Honk Kong) were the other members of yet another culturally diverse team. We had chosen the project with a niche recruitment agency in UK.
On 4th May, we had an alumni from last year join us together with the client with whom they had done their project. Both, the alum and the client had shared their experiences with us and how this is a brilliant opportunity for Cranfield students to work on a small but live project.
Our team soon enough agreed for Yandi taking the role of team lead. We also chose to keep a single point of contact with the client and faculty in the form of Yandi. Our teams proactive approach helped us as by this day we had already scheduled an appointment with the Managing Director of the firm and on 5th afternoon, three of us set off to meet him. The meeting that lasted well over two hours told us a couple of things - the client had a very expectation from us and his view of the scope was much larger than what we had thought.
This was a crucial point for us, given that we had to work on this project in just 6 weeks while survive the grind of our respective electives, submit reports, et al. In our first debriefing meeting with the rest of the team, we decided to talk to our faculty and get the scope sorted out as there was no way we could have done what the client expected from us. Strangely, we were learning quickly and importantly the first lessons of consulting - know and agree to the scope before embarking on anything. The added aspect was that t was us who had to talk to the client and not the faculty to get this sorted out. Thankfully, Yandi's past consulting experience came to the rescue and we were on our journey soon. The scope was to do a complete business check up for the agency and propose a market entry into a new segment of recruitment.
We divided the functions into pairs of two - Miah and I took up Operations, Chris and Mark took up HR, Lily and Yandi worked on Finance. We also concluded that this market has a substantial overlap of Operations with Marketing and hence the latter would be worked upon collectively.
So during these 6 weeks, each of us were working on analysing information, penning down our thoughts, interviewing the MD and his employees, conducting research with clients and candidates, number crunching on excel files and of course making power point presentations. Adding to our woes was that we had to prepare a draft report and a presentation to the faculty just after 4 weeks of start. No marks for guessing - it was a part of our assessment. This also meant getting together one late night, book a room in the SOM and rehearse for the presentation.
Like the way the past 10 months have vanished, these 6 weeks also winded by and it was this day when the clients came in to be presented our formal report and presentation in front of the alumni. Just the way as a real consulting team would do and face the rebuttal from faculty and client. The only difference was that the consultants get paid for it in currency, we got paid in the form of learning.
We thought we did fairly well. After the presentation when we were chatting with the MD and his business partner, we found that they were testing us by playing devil's advocate role as well. Our proposals were in fact "bang on" with what they had in mind. We had received no hints about this from them.
So many times, I used to wonder - how come Cranfield students are down to earth souls unlike the typical image of MBA's that people have? Such exercises go on to reiterate that each of us have some unique strengths - we just need to explore a bit to uncover them.
A great experience! A great team! And of course, a great client too!

Global leadership and cultural sensitivity

2005-05-27T15:55:00.000+01:00

It is Day 2 of the elective and I write this post during the lunch break. It continues to get better…..
In this first half day I have had enough learning to write this posting. We saw a video of a team of 8 international managers in a multicultural team travelling to Botswana in Africa on an assignment. Interestingly the mix of these managers was quite typical of an international surrounding. The team comprised of 4 managers from commercial sector such as Unilever, HP, BP and the other 4 were from public sector such as British Red Cross and British Council. The part 2 of the video then gave an analysis of their adventure and the learning's that can be observed from this. Savour a few:
- we need to face and manage ambiguity
- we all have our stereotypes
- we search for similarities which can be blinding
- there would be people in the team who will be working in their non-native language and it can become a major obstacle in sharing their thoughts
But the best part of the learning needs to be shared through a narration of what happened in one incident. Here goes:
The team was out in the city and one project being evaluated was the building of a bus stop in a village. Here was this task orientated international manager who was interviewing some senior members in the society and he asked, "Why do you need this bus stop?" This question was translated into their native language by an interpreter and the answer was relayed back to this manager.
Ok. The incident is over. So what was so specific about this question, you may wonder. It was a perfectly legitimate question. After all, aren't we taught to ask the right questions before giving solutions?
So, here comes the learning specifically relevant to an international, global manager: While the senior member did answer the question, he was grossly offended.
While interacting with people from another culture, the reaction to you way of approaching the assignment can be quite a shocker. What the manager did not realize was that he was talking to a person who belonged to a society that possibly was more "relationship orientated" than "task orientated". And in a relationship orientated culture, you don't start asking task orientated questions!
It would have been more effective if this manager could have squatted on the floor, patted the pet dog of this native, asked him about the rain that poured yesterday or something. In other words, before you approach the task, approach the person.
Many readers may react to this with "What nonsense!!" But before you react, stop yourself and think again. That is exactly what a global manager and leader is expected to be aware of. Is this not the true example of what cultural sensitivity means?
On an ending quote, another point struck me this morning. We all refer to the South East Asia as "Far East". But it is far from where????

What on Earth is happening!!!

2005-05-18T15:55:00.000+01:00

Whosoever told me that Term 3 would be lighter than the first two was simply playing a joke on me. Agreed that we choose our electives; also agreed that some electives are just two day affairs. But easy? No way!
Suddenly, we all have become experts at using outlook calendar. Not only are we juggling with our respective lectures, we are all spread around in different teams for different electives and trying to work on respective assignments. And add to all this chaos the full time job of searching for a job.
While I am going through the pains, you can only imagine my schedule of Term 3. Let me share a sample picture. To begin with, I am lucky enough to be involved in just two teams currently. One is a six member team working on the Business Check Up project and the other is a seven member team working on the group report for Being a Director (BAD). And none of the other members in thee two teams are the same. Add to this a list of my individual assignments - report on Supply Chain Management, log book on Personal Awareness, readings for the lecture on Business Law tomorrow, preparation for the Strategy exam next week and loads of stuff to read for my independent project with Unilever. And today evening I accepted another important assignment along with yet another completely new team of 7. An assignment which will continue till end July and is not part of the MBA course; an assignment where I and a few other volunteers will try to capture our memories of Cranfield into a life long memento.
I think I AM CRAZY.
But the strange part is that I am consciously taking such decisions. I am stretching myself to the hilt. Why?
Simple reason - this year happens only once for me. It is the safest environment to test myself. I am not competing with anyone else except myself. So even if I fumble, I will still learn. I am trying to unfold myself and find out my own abilities and limitations. And I am also beginning to dread the day when I will have to leave this place that I am madly in love with.

What is good about BAD?

2005-05-03T21:03:00.000+01:00

Confused? Here is a peek into an elective that ran for over two days and gave learning's that will last for well….decades at least.
The elective was Being a Director (BAD) and Murray Steele - Senior Lecturer in Strategic Management was steering it. My guess is that almost all MBA's, with just a few exceptions, aspire to become a director in a firm at some point of time in future. Think again! Was the message I received from this elective. Not that being a director is a bad thing, it is just that most students like me tend to miss out on the not so known aspects about the life of a Director. The objective of this elective was exactly that - show us the real face of such a role.
The elective was introduced to us in what I called an "evening show" - starting at 1830 hours. This Day 1 started with a quick introduction by Murray Steele and then inviting the guest speaker for the evening, Mr Paul Lee - Associate Director with Hermes UK. His session covered the Board governance, remuneration and a few other aspects about Directorship. We were also introduced to Higgs Review - the corporate governance code. On Day 2 we discussed a case study on Corporate Governance and the principles applicable. In the second half of the day we had another guest speaker - Mr Stephen Kimbell - partner in one of the best legal firms and corporate deal arrangers. This case revolved around a real example in which Stephen was personally involved. It was a very unusual case involving many angles to the story that like many others I became highly engrossed in absorbing the information that was coming our way. The case covered the legal aspects of being a director. This session and the case continued on Day 3 morning.
The first half of Day 3 also covered exit strategies and due diligence. It was as if the entire class had been thinking about the fascinating case that involved a millionaire and his Thai mistress who did shady deals. There were questions galore for Stephen to answer to. After this thoroughly enjoyable session, we were joined by a Cranfield alum - Thomas Lane (MBA 1997). Thomas is a turnaround professional who conducts financial and operational restructuring to stabilise businesses and help them improve performance. His session too, was an intriguing session and gave lots of insights. I am sure a few of us even started thinking this as a potential career, specially where such a profession is in its nascent stages.
The last session of the day and the course was taken by Murray which covered removing directors and the roles and responsibilities of Non executive directors.
The elective ended with a very appreciative class of students asking for more. This truly, was a top class course and now we have to work in self selected teams to write a group report to be submitted within next 4 weeks.

As close to reality as it can be!

2005-04-21T21:02:00.000+01:00

The posting captures my experience of the mock interview with an external interviewer in a real life simulation.

It is 10:00 am as I walk into the room. The camera starts whizzing. Everything I say and do will be recorded. This is my mock interview but I could see hardly anything superficial about it.

Careers services at Cranfield organizes mock interviews for volunteer students each year. The setting is formal and a student is required to send in the CV and covering letter together with the details of job that one has applied for. This gives the context of the interview to the panel.

As I walk into the room, I introduce myself to Mr Simon Lugg (external) and Peter Fennah (Careers). Once I have taken the hot seat, the interview begins with all possible questions I could have imagined .....and a few more that I didn't think about. I could gauge from the questions from Simon that he had studied my documents quite well and was asking subtle questions too. Some were focusing on personality, few others on competencies.

40 minutes went by and when I was asked to put forward any questions that I may have, I knew it was coming to an end. I was then given a 15 minutes break during which I was to answer a questionnaire on how I think I did in the interview on a host of areas, etc. During this time, Simon and Peter too worked on recording their assessment about how I fared.

I rejoined them back for the feedback session. First I had to share my views about my own assessment. Then the panelists shared their views on what I did right and what I could have done better. I was also to receive copies of their assessment sheets later on.

The interview was nothing less than what I would experience in reality. It helped me understand the areas I could focus on to leverage my strengths as well as those points which I need to work upon and do better. On their part, both Simon and Peter were absolutely professional in their role and very constructive in their approach. I am sure this exercise will hold me and other students in good stead.

The passion of Strategy

2005-04-20T21:02:00.000+01:00

Today we thoroughly enjoyed the lecture in Managing Strategy & Strategic change. I share a brief narration of what went in this session.
The case study revolved around what and how of an acquisition of Rowntree by Nestle. So far, we hadn't had three sessions in a row in either of the first two terms and I was a bit worried on whether I would be able to sustain my concentration in the subject. Believe me - I was in for a sweet surprise.
Having done our share of reading the night before, most of us were engaging in the class discussion. And when the fast moving Dr Richard Schoenberg takes the session, your eyes will continue to roll around the class - catching him speaking as well as the slideshow on screen.
I guess there is something about the subject of Strategy - everyone gets hooked onto it. Partly because it is a much touted word around in every corporate but more because it brings together ones understanding of all functions and aspects about business. And as the course title suggested, it was an extension of the strategy that we had studied in term 2. Here we were focusing on strategy and the change involved around strategic implementation.
All through the session that lasted well over three hours, with two quick stretch breaks, it was as if a movie was rolling in front of my eyes. I could feel that I see the board members of Nestle talking about how to negotiate with Rowntree, the predator player who was also gunning for the target and the heated yet controlled discussion over the table, the officials walking away to another room for internal consultation ……..
Then we were informed about how the real incident happened and the subsequent developments for all players involved. It was truly an engrossing session. The end of the session was an anti climax. Out came bag from under the table of Dr Schoenberg and he said, "Well, how can a session where one talks of Nestle and Rowntree be complete without Kitkat!" And there were dozens of Kitkat chocolates for all of us. The applause for Dr Schoenberg was thunderous and we kept on clapping while nibbling at those chocolates. What a session it was!!

Why do organizations fail?

2005-04-19T21:01:00.000+01:00

Two days of Supply chain management course leave us wide eyed with simple, insightful reasons why organizations are missing the picture about requirements for their future success.
Prof Martin Christopher, a name to reckon with in Supply chain management, is the Director of the Cranfield Centre for Logistics and SCM. The course was kicked off by him two sessions till lunch time on day 1. From the evolution of the supply chain concept to how it impacts shareholder value and further to what is an agile supply chain and why it is crucial - loads of stuff to absorb.
As a professional who worked for over 8 years in this function in the industry, I was in for many surprises on what all things some of my previous organizations wer doing wrong. In their focus to achieve efficiency, they were sacrificing agility. So while they did succeed in "reducing costs", the business they lost out on was rarely measured.
In the second half of day 1, we had Dr Richard Wilding with a very engaging and entertaining presentation on Time compression in logistics and we would remember his demonstration of "I" and "T" shaped people. The last session had Melvyn Peters taking us through the Global supply chains and the experience about Marks & Spencer.
We had Prof Christopher back with us for the first two sessions on Day 2 with the focus on connecting supply chain with the markets and understanding the case on Unichema. The day wound up with Mike Bernon presenting another very engaging topic on the interface between manufacturing and supply chain. There was a very interesting point about how organizations create complexity because of variety. Come to think of it - does a consumer really care whether the toilet paper is pink or peach in colour? The message gets conveyed easily, I guess.
It was a fabulous experience being taught by the best of faculty on this course. Cranfield is famous for its SCM capabilities and it reflected in the quality of teaching and sessions. Well, now I have to sit down and write by individual assignment......so see you soon.

The blood of an entrepreneur

2005-04-13T21:00:00.000+01:00

The week will see a core course start and finish - Business Start Up (BSU).
Cranfield MBA has generated entrepreneurs and this course is the first step in that direction. It provides one with an opportunity to produce an outline of a business plan for a new venture. It is a highly experiential series of sessions. The output is an interim presentation of the business plan and the completion of a written business plan in another four weeks.
The BSU course simulates as realistically as possible what it is like to start a business. But rather than text book theory being dished out in the sessions, it involves "live experience" talking. So far we have had speakers like Ms Lara Morgan - the gladiaterix of Pacific Direct, Paddy Radcliffe (Cranfield MBA 2004) and his "snowbone" , Naz Chaudhary (Cranfield MBA 2001) and his Real Burger World. Tomorrow we meet Rod Younger (Cranfield MBA 1995) with his MBA-Direct and Harry Clarke (Cranfield MBA 1992) with his Cobalt Telephone Technologies.
Our team picked up the venture of setting a New world wine store in London. Though no one in our team intends pursuing the entrepreneurial path, the learning has been more than just understanding how to make a business plan. And specially for me. Despite being an entrepreneur's son and having entrepreneur friends', I never ventured in this line. The course is telling me many things - what motivates an entrepreneur and yet what s/he should need to do or look at. Cash flow, for example, can be more important than profits. Not surprisingly, the survival rate in entrepreneurial world is not too appealing.
But I realize that the blood of an entrepreneur is different - it survives and thrives on enthusiasm, drive and motivation. It is amply evident in our batch too. While some teams are going through the motions of this course, a few are dead-serious. Be it an innovative product such as concrete shelter for refugees or a plain concept of fast-food chain in China. The passion to do it is conspicuous.
The next year MBA course has been changed to take this "compulsory" bit away and instead it has been put into the Entrepreneurial themed track, which is a good move.
The coming Friday shall see all the teams present their ventures to the faculty and I need to go back to do my bit of the work.

Till we meet again……….

2005-04-10T20:59:00.000+01:00

As we bid goodbye to Sally, Carl and Murthy, we realize that we have made our first friends outside of Cranfield.
Time had flown by and our departure from Brynmawr was close. On the breakfast table, we could see a tired Carl - he had been up most time studying and working. Our curious minds were still at work and we asked him - "What is Wales famous for?" Prompt came the reply - Rugby and churches. No introduction is needed for Rugby - the national game of Wales. The second part of his answer was an interesting one. Historically, Wales had the a very high density of churches as compared to its population.
A few other famous things about Wales are the red dragon on its flag, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Catherine-Zeta Jones, Jackie Collins and Shirley Bassey. But the most revealing point is that Sir George Everest - the famous traveller and explorer was Welsh. If the name rings a bell, it is because the world's highest peak is named after him.
It was time to catch our coach back and we bid goodbye to Carl, Sally and Murthy. In a matter of two nights and a day, we felt very close to Carl and Sally. We never realized when our apprehensions of staying with a stranger family had converted into a feeling of bonding. We took a promise from Carl and Sally that whenever time permits, they would visit our home at Cranfield.
For most part of the day, Divya and I continued talking about our stay at our HOST. It is an experience we will cherish during our lifetime. We look forward to meeting such a nice couple again, soon.

Our day in Wales!

2005-04-09T14:43:00.000+01:00

The day was exciting and outdoors as Sally and Murthy took us around the place. It was a day full of learning about Wales, its history, the coal mines and Christianity.
After a wonderful, sound sleep we were ready in the morning hours at the breakfast table. Starting with thanks giving, which we experienced for the first time in U.K., we had cereals and breads. Sally and Carl had decided our plan for the day and off we went. The day started with a trip to the Pwll Mawr: Amgueddfa Lofaol Genedlaethol Cmyru. No, this in no garbled script. It is an interesting fact to know, specially for the international readers, that Wales has its own Welsh language and a completely different script. Translated it means "Big Pit - the national mining museum of Wales".
One may wonder - "of all the places, we went to a mining museum??" Yes, we did. And trust me - it was a delightful experience. Not that we came out all black with charcoal dust or anything. But we did come out with a realization of how difficult those days must have been. Our discovery of the time when coal was king was done by descending 300 feet (90 metres) into the underground workings of Big Pit where we experienced the hidden world of the Welsh miner. We saw their locker rooms (see pic img_311.jpg), their tools, saw mill, mortar mill, the blacksmith shop. One of the caretakers got us talking and he took great pains to show us around with detailed and vivid explanations of every thing. As if hit by nostalgia, he even showed the picture of a protesting parade in yesteryears in which his great-grandfather had participated. We saw and read about the many mines that were closed during 1980's. It was an odd feeling too, to see the vast land outside full of coal but withering away while there is scarcity of such resources in some other countries. That is an irony of our world, I guess.
The last bit of our trip to the museum was amazing. It started with a video movie of the life of a miner and we were navigated into tunnels through cameras to see the development of a miner's world. With simple technology used fabulously, we experienced the sound of dynamite blasts, heavy machinery movement and thundering noise - just the way a miner would have experienced daily.
Our second stop after the museum was Tretower court & castle. These monuments of inspirational heritage date back to the 13th century. The castle was built to control a strategic route through the Black Mountains. By the 15th century it was abandoned in favour of a new building to the east. The Court is a handsome stone manor house, which must have served as a very desirable domestic residence in its times. The galleried courtyard is entered through a stone gatehouse, something which would remind one of the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge.
During lunch we chatted like excited children, asking questions after questions to Sally and Murthy. They answered with such patience that for a few moments I was wondering if they are doctors or historians. They knew so much without being Welsh - Sally comes from Midlands and Murthy from India. After lunch, Sally took us on a long drive across the mountains into the Welsh city where we visited the Church. There again, Divya and I explored the history of Catholics and Protestants, the beliefs and ideologies, etc.
We also went around town to the two biggest water reservoirs we would have ever seen. With lush green environs around, budding flowers and quite, serene surroundings, I felt completely fresh. So easily I had forgotten about the intensive days at Cranfield. There was no sign of tiredness or anxiety about a project. It was a rejuvenating experience. And of course, we had our share of adventure when Sally had to speed across to the other end of town because Divya had forgotten her purse at the restaurant where we had lunch. It was 4:50 and the restaurant was to close at 5:00. We reached at 5:01, just in time before the staff was about to pull down their shutters.
Back home, we shared our day with Carl, who unfortunately was confined to his books due to an approaching exam. I was thrilled to realize that it is complete a sane thing to study at our age. Here was Carl - working on his assignments while doing a full time job too. Divya and I are far too lucky that way.
The evening got stretched close to mid night as Sally showed us her family albums and pictures - including her childhood and medical school days, her wedding and then their trip to India. We had to force ourselves to retire to bed, knowing that tomorrow it would be time to bid goodbye.

How green is my valley!!!

2005-04-08T14:42:00.000+01:00

This Friday, Divya and I embarked on our maiden visit to a British family through the HOST programme. I share the experience we had over three days (and diary postings) - our last weekend of vacations, before Term 3 begins.

HOST is a voluntary organization that is a platform for international students to taste a sample of life for a British citizen. Students are free to send in a request to stay in the region of their preference and the volunteers from HOST make their best efforts to match the students' requirements with the families who have volunteered to invite or host such students. For more details, you are invited to check out the website at www.hostuk.org.uk

Just after noon time this day, we took our coach for Birmingham where we stop over and change the coach for our onward journey to a small town called Brynmawr in Gwent, Glamorgan. Through the HOST programme, our request had been accepted and we were invited to stay over with a Doctor-couple family - Drs. Carl and Sally Venn.

While the journey to Birmingham was confined to the motorway, our real journey began when we took the Birmingham-Brynmawr sector on the second coach. After all, we were entering Wales - an area that was once an independent country before it merged into U.K.

With undulating terrain, we soon knew what "paradise" meant. Daffodils blooming all over and cattle grazing across vast lands; we asked each other - "how would it be when summer is here!!!!" During this journey, I also realized that the colour "green" is an incomplete word without appropriate prefixes. So it has to be bright green, dull green, brown green, greyish green, light green, dark green .......(phew) I feel at a loss of words to capture the subtle shades of greenery that we saw.

As the coach glided along the road, we couldn't help but smile and savour the joy of natural beauty. As we continue to see more of the country, we keep saying to ourselves - how beautiful is this country!!! If only people could stop talking about the weather, they would see much more than they do. They will realize how green is their valley!

We arrived at the coach station in Brynmawr in the evening and were received by Carl. It is a small town and we walked over to their magnificent house nearby. We were in for a pleasant surprise soon enough. Carl and Sally had also invited a very close Indian family friend Dr Murthy to stay over with them. Drs. Carl, Sally and Murthy turned out to be such nice people that all our apprehensions about going to a "stranger family" were washed away. They were such a considerate couple that a vegetarian meal had been prepared for us.

Soon, we had become very comfortable with them and had opened up with our barrage of questions. We were surprised to know that Sally and Carl had actually spent over a year in a remote village in India in 1990's - involving themselves with work on development alongwith an NGO. The attachment with India reflected in their house too - with beautiful hand made paintings adorning the walls.

Little did we realize that it was close to midnight - we had been chatting with a couple who were strangers just a few hours ago and had become good friends instantly. Sally had also planned out the options for the next day - what we could see or do.

I knew then - the valley remains green because of good and friendly human beings such as Drs Venn.

Diversity with a difference

2005-04-03T14:40:00.000+01:00

Divya, Varinder and I joined the Walker's Club members to visit Cumbria - the Lake District area this weekend for a fun filled trip to one of the most beautiful parts of the country.
Cumbria is a county in the North West of England, boasting some of the most beautiful scenery in the United Kingdom. It contains the Lake District National Park and is also home to England's longest lake, Windermere (17 kilometres in length). The region was popularized in the early 19th Century by the 'Lake Poets' (Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey).

The trip was organized by the Walker's club as part of training for the upcoming 5 peak challenge. We joined in partly because of the interest in walking but more because of the opportunity to see the often praised scenic beauty of Lake district. Though it was not the best of times to visit Lake District, the weather forecast was giving us much reason to cheer. So we packed our bags and started on our trip in the school's mini-bus on Friday afternoon. We were twelve of us and what an interesting bunch it was - 3 of us - the MBA students, Oleg (MSc Logistics), Partha (PhD student- School of management) and his wife Sanyukta, Charles and Lee (MSc students - School of Engineering), Hannah and Charlie (PhD students - School of industrial and manufacturing sciences), Robert (MSc student - School of industrial and manufacturing sciences) and Martin (Post doctoral researcher - School of Engineering). Robert is one of the challengers in the 5 peak challenge where he will have to scale five different peaks in the UK within 72 hours.

Lee was the organizer and his forces background came to the fore when he drove the minibus to reach Ambleside in less than 4 hours. A slight drizzle welcomed us as we walked into the backpackers hostel to settle in. Over a cup of steaming tea, Lee briefed us like a typical commander leading a troupe - the map on the table, 12 heads surrounding the table, peering over the map and tracing the finger of Lee on the walk they intended to do. The area was calling us and soon enough we all went out for a quiet walk into the town - window shopping, buying fish and chips and settled inside a pub for a couple of drinks. Unfortunately for few of us, we did not have the proper walking gear and were advised not to take the difficult walk that Lee and team were planning for. So we took alternate directions about possible walks.

Next morning post breakfast at 8, it was time to move. So while the troupe of Lee and five others went on their plan of the 12 mile walk, we chose to take up a low-level walk and soon enough were hit the road. With the map in hand, we navigated our way to a bevy of places - Wordworth's house, Grasmere lake. Our journey took us through metalled roads, grass paths and rough terrain. True to its reputation, we found Lake district to be a fabulous place of pristine beauty. We savoured the mesmerizing view all through our walk and realized that natural beauty can never be captured in camera.

We were back in the rooms by evening time and little did we realize then that we had walked almost 7 miles. But there was not a trace of tiredness. It was time to cook dinner for our group. Varinder had volunteered to play the role of chief chef to cook chicken and rice for all and we had carried all the ingredients with us from Cranfield. As always, the aroma of the curry and rice had soon filled up the kitchen and we could see twinkling eyes of other guests in the hostel eyeing our curry dish. Lee and team had also arrived back. The dinner was truly a feast.

Next morning, while a few of us decided to stay back at the hostel to recover from their tiredness, we chose to go down to Windermere and Bowness bay. After a walk around the city centre, we settled in at the bay dock where cruises on the lake start. Instead of taking a cruise, we loved the idea of just sitting next to the lake watching the ducks and swans move in close, eager to be fed. With those white swans around you and wind blowing in your face, it was as if the clock had stopped ticking. There couldn't have been a better way to rejuvenate your energies for upcoming term 3.

The best part of the trip was the opportunity to meet so many students from other schools in the Cranfield University. Whether it was a long chat about MBA students in general, or about proving that all MBA students are not the same or even sharing the learning's from Personal and Communication skills (PCS) - one could find a topic of discussion so easily. It also gave me a much wanted opportunity to understand a little bit about the other courses in the university and appreciate the diversity on campus. The diversity of not just the kind of people, but also about how rich Cranfield university is in terms of the courses and also of the astounding reputation is has in other fields such as aviation, etc.

So my message to all readers - if you arrive at Cranfield, ensure that you break any self imposed barriers and cross over to meet people from other schools - only then you will understand the meaning of diversity with a difference.

United colours of Holi

2005-03-26T14:38:00.000Z

Indians celebrate the festival of colours - Holi - on campus

Holi is a festival of India that is celebrated with colours. The festival marks the start of harvesting of crops. On a parallel note, it is also a festival of friendship - when people forget their past differences and meet and greet each other by applying colours to each other.
It was an unexpected plan - Amol and Radha beat us to be the first ones. We had planned that we would colour them first as it was their maiden Holi after marriage. From our apartment, the next target was Rajeev and Shweta - who also celebrated their first Holi after marriage. Then the journey began. From Rajeev's place to Bala, to Himanshu, Kartik, Subhash, Arvind and to Tejas's house. It was like a caravan which kept increasing in size with all of us applying colours to each other every now and then, trying to create patterns on the faces that looked clean. As if not satisfied with this, Varinder and Jeeva was also roped in and they got their share of colours.

The festival took an international turn when Kaifeng (China), Ian (Britain) and Alex (Peru) were joined in. Greg (France) was excused as his dad was walking with him but Veronica's (Mexico) jogging turned into a sprint as Jeeva tried to leave traces of our festival upon her. Better luck next time, Jeeva!
For the benefit of those who may still be groping with what this festival is all about, here is an excerpt:

Holi is the most colourful festival of the Hindus and falls on the Full moon day in the month of Phalgun according to the Hindu Calendar which is the month of March as per the Gregorian Calendar. This Holi festival has many elements of primitive and prolific rites and reveries that have defied civilisation and prudery. During the three days of this festival, particularly the whole country, towns, cities and villages - go gay with merry makers, streets, parks and public places are crowded with people, daubed in diverse colours, looking funny and ridiculous. Children and youngsters vie with each other in being original and use fast and sticky colours. It is all a mirthful abandon for them.

On the eve of Holi, huge bonfires are lit with logs of wood, basketful of cowdung cakes, ghee, honey and the new crop brought fresh from the fields. When the fire leaps up in high and strong flames all those present, walk around the bonfire seven times, pray and invoke the blessings of Agnidev. Women prepare delicious sweets and put in the bonfire as "Naivedya" to Agnidev. When the fire lies down, water is splashed on the embers and the ash from the extinguished fire is applied on the forehead by everyone. Some of the ash is preserved in the house all through the year to apply to the foreheads of children as an effective remedy against any impending evil.
This festival of Holi - a festival of myriad colours, of gaiety, of friendships and re-unions all over the country. Thus Holy is certainly a vital part of our Indian life and culture in which religion still is a living force.

Intermission

2005-03-23T21:48:00.000Z

It is time for a breather as we break for a two week vacation. The MBA trip will restart soon and this break will be a much needed energy booster.
It seems only yesterday when we met in September 2004 for the Pre MBA and embarked upon a journey we thought is very long. Little did we realize then that we would be biting our own words. Long? The journey so far has seemed like a flash of lightening. Poof! And here we are six months later, looking back with awe - did I really cover that distance so far! Wasn't it just a few weeks ago when I had met 125 other students durng the orientation week? Wasn't it only last month when we had written those 5 exams in 3 days? And of course it was only today that we completed another 4 exams in 3 days!
Term 2 is over and with it a few other things also come to an end. Only to give way to begin some other things like job search, projects, new electives and new teams. Looking forward, September 2005 seems so far, yet so near. After all, Cranfield MBA does seem like a 3-hour Bollywood movie wherein the entire life story of the hero - from birth to youth to family and so on is covered convincingly.
But as of now, I better catch up with my sleep that has eluded me for so long and also enjoy my share of popcorns that one longs for during intermission.

Reality bites

2005-03-17T21:48:00.000Z

We got bitten - severely - by the hounding press reporters. Today's assessed press conference left us realizing what the phrase "resting on past glory" means.

What can be worse than waking up early morning, get dressed in business suits, be at the school reception at 8:30 am to pick up a case for Press conference, run through it, face the press and then criticize ourselves at 10:00 am? Yes, nothing else can truly be worse than this.

We were given a real life case from the health sector in UK and we worked our way through the team discussion and division of roles during the 60 minutes. At 9:30 am it was time to face the music, literally. After the initial statement is delivered by the Chief Executive of the board, if the press asks you on why is the press conference called, I call it a googly. Because at that moment, I suddenly lost my thought process and was left thinking, "this is a trap, this is a trap". And soon enough, we all realized that Christian Wards (New Zealand), a doctor in real life, who was playing the role of Chief Executive had got stuck in a maze of tough questions. One thing lead to another and our performance and control on the proceedings kept sliding down. We had muddled up. Adding oil to fire was my mistake on a factual information that I had totally missed reading in the case given to us. Clearly, we were under prepared. And the doctor couldn't have resurrected us alone.

The clock kept ticking away and my heart beat gave full company by synchronizing itself. With a pulse rate of 60 per minute, you can easily imagine what must be happening to my mind. Things were even tougher this time compared to those practice sessions - the panel was nastier and even bigger in strength this time. We were facing five cannons today.

Time over. Feedback session began and as expected we had much to hear from them. Top piece of advise to us- we forgot who our customers are; we also were found inadequate on the use of 3R's principle: Regret, Reason and Remedy.

As we trudged out of the TV studio towards our syndicate area, I was sure one of my team members would have wanted to kick me for my faux pas. I too wanted to do something similar to another team member. But of course, none of us did any such thing. After all, it was a collective responsibility. Now a few hours later, I am coming to terms with our performance and am looking at the lessons of a lifetime. I even wonder whether corporates prepare their executives for facing such situations. Good that Cranfield is preparing me to face crisis.

With today's Press conference, the core course of Presentation and Communication Skills (PCS) comes to an end. Keeping aside the assessments, PCS is the most enjoyable, relevant and learning course that one can experience. It is sad that we won't have more of PCS during Terms 3 and 4. While I will definitely miss PCS, I intend using the learning's not only in the remaining part of the MBA, but also during my lifetime.

Time for hot seats again!

2005-03-08T21:47:00.000Z

I never though this could ever happen.....but it is a reality and difficult to fathom. I only have 24 hours in a day and it is just not enough.

Exams are round the corner. 4 exams in 3 days next week starting Monday. And a host of submissions have been happening during the past few weeks (a clear sign has been the fewer number of diary postings this month). We have had two WAC's, E-Business group presentation, PCS Press conference and Strategy presentation. We also had to firm up our Business Start-up idea for next term. On the heels are E-Business individual report and Strategy group report. Most of us are trying to find projects too. Some of the students are appearing for job interviews as well. And of course, lectures, team meetings and revisions (if any time is left) also need to be managed.
At times, my heart sinks from the mere feeling of "so much to do, so little time". And we have covered six months of our MBA.

We are going through the last of our lectures this week. We had our last session on Macroeconomics with Prof Joe Nellis. It was a wonderful session that encapsulated the entire term into one complete picture. I am going to miss his sessions and above all, his banter with our sports rep Ed Lamb (British).

I am just back after attending the last tutorial on Financial Management with Prof David Myddelton. I find David one of rarest of Professors in the field of Finance who has a classic sense of humour. He is an icon and an authority on the subject.

We recently received back our FIN WAC's assessed by him and another professor. Alongwith our assessed WAC's, we also got a 6 page typed out hard hitting feedback on our works. Some teams got individual feedback too, over and above this common one. What has surprised me is not the content of the feedback, but the fact that the faculty invested so much time and energy, first in marking our WAC's and then preparing such an elaborate feedback for us.

So it is now time to test ourselves again and sit in those hot seats next week. If only I could change something about the days and the hours available.............

Over and done with!

2005-03-07T21:46:00.000Z

Ahhhhhh! A sense of relaxed feeling washed all over us this weekend. We have bid goodbye to Written Assessment of a Case (WAC).

Two WACs in a fortnight are a difficult pill to take and our batch gulped the second WAC down our throat this week. Financial Management and Macroeconomics were lassoed this weekend by Red and Green streams. The two WACs are quite similar and yet contrasting to each other. While both involve a lot of numbers, it is the approach that is unique to each subject. While both involve "science", there is a big element of "art" too. But while one is looking at a firm and a specific problem, the other is looking at a country as a whole and even beyond. The outcome is nearly the same - not in terms of content but the way it is presented.

An interesting observation from the four WACs across the two terms has been a reinforcement of reality - your past can come to haunt you. So when you are here to learn, stash away your stereotypes and learning's - approach each task with a fresh, open mind.

So, we had situations where qualified accountants floundered in the Accounting and Financial Management WACs. We also had students with Economics background fumbling in the Microeconomics WAC. And why? Because understanding or knowing your subject is as important as presenting it. While it is not about formatting your report with glossy colour, etc., it is more about keeping in mind what your reader would need. Isn't that true about real corporate life? Many of us make business cases for strategic proposals and when they are turned down or rejected, we crib and shout, "Why does s/he not understand what I mean?"
Well, no marks for guessing who is on the wrong!

So, while all of us enjoy the feeling "WACs are over and done with", in my heart I know, we all will miss it too in the next two terms. I am conscious that post Cranfield MBA, someone just might ask me, "Give me three things that you took away from Cranfield MBA".

I know the top item in my list - WAC!!!!!

I need help!

2005-03-02T21:46:00.000Z

Fi Ivin – an expert in Image management – addressed us this evening and shared some eye-opening points that need due attention.
While we all know of corporate branding, today’s session was with a difference – it was about Personal Branding. Cranfield Careers had rolled out a competition a few weeks ago inviting students to apply with a portfolio of their pictures. One student each (male and female) were to be selected by the image consultant and a free consulting day was on the offer.
The evening started with Fi explaining the importance of managing your external personality and what critical difference it can make to one's career. While I listened to her, I was reminded of a quote I read somewhere:
“I’m sick of hearing that beauty is only skin-deep. That’s deep enough! What do you want - a n adorable pancreas??????” - Anonymous
But the message is subtle – we need to not just have content in terms of knowledge, hard and soft skills; we also need to know how we appear to the world. And it is not without reason – after all, do we not get impressed by well dressed, clean and neat personalities? Do we feel like interacting with someone who is shabby or untidy or has long, dirty nails? My choice would be same as that of anyone else.
If one works on one's image, the transformation can be a revolution. We saw this is the "before and after" images of a few individuals on screen. Then to reinforce this reality, we were introduced to Neil and Hillary - the winners of the competition. They appeared before us in the transformed status. Using their personal examples, Fi explained the importance of the right shade of colours for our attire and how it can enhance your personality. Her explaination also included the appropriateness of shoes, tie and even the cut of ones jacket. It was quite a thought provoking experience.
To end it all, we all were asked to answer a questionnaire where we had to tick off our choices from a list of 15. Anyone who had less than 8 ticks, needed help. It is needless to mention how many ticks I had.......

The Daffodil Principle

2005-03-01T21:45:00.000Z

Several times my daughter had telephoned, "Mother, you must come and see the daffodils before they are over." Finally, I promised, reluctantly. I'd driven only a few miles when the road was covered with wet, gray fog. As I slowly executed the hazardous mountain turns, I was praying to reach the turn-off. When I finally walked into Carolyn's house, I said, "Forget the daffodils, Carolyn! There is nothing that I want to see bad enough to drive another inch in this weather!"
"I'll drive," Carolyn offered. In a few minutes, we were back on the Rim-of- the-World road heading over the top of the mountain.
We parked in a small parking lot adjoining a little stone church. I saw a pine needle covered path, and an inconspicuous, hand lettered sign "Daffodil Garden." I followed Carolyn down the path. Then we turned a corner. It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it down every crevice and over every rise. Even in the mist, the mountainside was radiant, clothed in massive drifts and waterfalls of daffodils. A charming path wound through the garden with several resting stations, with Victorian wooden benches and great tubs of tulips. It didn't matter that the sun wasn't shining. Five acres of flowers!
"But who?" I asked Carolyn. "Just one woman," Carolyn answered. "That's her home." On the patio we saw a poster. "Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking" was the headline. The first answer was simple. "50,000 bulbs." The second was, "One at a time, by one woman, two hands, two feet, and very little brain." The third was, "Began in 1970."
There it was. The Daffodil Principle. For me it was a life changing experience. I thought of this woman, who, more than thirty five years before, had begun one bulb at a time to bring beauty and joy to an obscure mountain top. No shortcuts, loving the slow process of planting. She had changed her world. Her daffodil garden taught me about learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time, learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time.
"It makes me sad in a way," I admitted. "What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five years ago and worked away at it all those years. My wise daughter responded, "Start today."

This article is reproduced from a mail that I received from an ex-colleague. It inspired me for many reasons. Like many other students on the MBA course, I have wondered many-a-times:
“Have I been able to extract the best so far?” “It is already mid-way in the programme, have I lost out on the past five months?”
The answer is plain and simple – what is not important is what you have gained so far, what is more important is what you CAN gain starting now!

A fever called Toyshop

2005-02-21T20:26:00.000Z

A course we are studying in term 2 - E-Business – has been hogging the focus of all MBA students for the past many weeks. Today was the culmination of the long hours invested by each of us.

Toyshop – a fictitious company - formed the backdrop of our group assignment. It involved a presentation to the Toyshop management (read: Cranfield prof’s) with the recommendations of how to make Toyshop healthy and competitive. It was like a case in strategic consulting with the emphasis on Information Systems and its deployment.

Like many other teams, we also had been practicing and timing our rehearsals for this day over the last many days. Well, soon enough, the day had arrived as we could see many teams moving around dressed to kill. After all, you don’t get a second chance.

Our team trooped in the room and settled in our seats. Quick introduction and we were informed that the presentation should not be more than 20 minutes. And there it was – the first unexpected thing – our timings had shown us that we need 27 minutes for the presentation. Now we had to think on our toes and signal each other where to cut and squeeze in the complete presentation without rushing. With faster heart beats, we saw each of us, speaking slightly faster than what we had practiced while five pair of eyes kept glancing at their watches.

We managed this first challenge with just-in-time results. 19 minutes 57 seconds.

Time for section II of our assessment – individual questions round with no help from other team members. This meant that we know each bit of the case and our proposals. Two rounds of questions to each of us followed. This was an interesting experience – while we were presenting our proposals, I could see the management buried in the paper copies of our presentation. I was wondering – are these Professors listening? Why do seem so disinterested?

My doubts were washed away when the questions were cannoned at us. They were not only listening, but picked up specific phrases form what we had voiced and were not on the paper presentation. Spooky, I guess, but that’s why they are the world class faculty at Cranfield.

Soon enough our question session ended and we trooped out. Eager eyes, raised brows and pleading looks met us in the forum just outside the room. And I was unsure what to say – how did we do? Well, only time will tell.

The Master showed his class

2005-02-14T20:26:00.000Z

There could not have been a better way to enjoy the Valentine’s Day. It was The Hobday Masterclass – very aptly titled. Cranfield MBA’s enjoyed their day with the Master.

As part of the Presentation and Communication Skills (PCS), it was the day with Peter Hobday – one of Britain’s best known broadcasters. He has been the top presenter on early morning radio programme “Today” for many years. This programme has been a required listening for politicians, businessmen and other opinion formers.

Every year, Peter spends a day with Cranfield MBA students, talking about the media. And instead of a monologue, the students face the anchor of Today in a live, recorded 3 minute interview. Only the students who face Peter can vouch for how long these 3 minutes can turn out to be.
Our batch had been shown a few video recordings of previous years where Peter was seeing displaying his skills are literally “cornering” students. The idea, though, is quite meaningful and objective. Just like the press conference, where a team met the journalists on television, here you meet the journalist alone.

Quite a few of us had volunteered to be in the hot seat. And some of us did a great job surviving his skills of laying down traps and catching your own words. Ammar Waqqaf (Syria) gave the audience something to cheer with his passionate views on how US invasion of Iraq was wrong. Ian McDougall (Britain) talked about Manchester United, Hillary Fitzgerald (Britain) talked in favour of ban on fox hunting and Richard Caseley (Britain) established that the Australian cricket team is the best. I too had volunteered and got interviewed on benefits of joint (extended) families.

Oh! How can I forget to mention that some lecturer’s were also roped in to get drilled on various issues. This was, obviously, the best part for us students – to see our professors being grilled by Peter. It was a great exercise.

We then had four volunteers being asked to face the media as the ones who are announcing the sacking of 500 workers in a factory. They too, were interviewed “live”. The key learning of this exercise was “managing the message”.

The highlight of the day was Steve Carver being asked to take the hot seat and a topic was given by Neale Johnson (Britain) who also donated a good amount to the Cranfield Charity for the upcoming London Marathon. Steve was asked to defend the views of legalising marriage of homosexuals in UK. Being a natural as he is, Steve sailed through the grilling interview by Peter.

While these sessions are simulations rather than reality, I am absolutely sure that the lessons have been ingrained in our minds on how to manage the media. Of course, practice makes one even better.

Things are getting hotter

2005-02-09T20:25:00.000Z

No, it is not the climate that I am referring to. Today is a day that will now happen quite often. The day was packed with action on “careers” – the buzz word for any MBA student midway in the programme.

In the morning half, we had a 90 minute session by the Partner of a recruitment consultancy firm on what and how of career search. And who did he turn out to be? No marks for guessing – an alumni of Cranfield MBA 1991 batch – Guy Beresford. Through anecdotal narration, he shared the common faux pas that a student can commit. He shared tips such as “you are not an MBA, you are a business professional with a MBA” and also suggested a few insights into CV building and interview techniques. We also got to know some details about the hot sectors and also that we need to be prepared for questions such as “What three things did you get out of the Cranfield MBA?”

His sessions shed light on a head hunters’ perspective on job hunting and career management and this session was quite useful.

The evening of this day saw the last of alumni nights. We had quite a few alumni turning up to address our batch and share their experiences post Cranfield. In fact such is the commitment of Canfield alumni that one MBA came direct from the international airport, having arrived back from USA. To her, meeting us was more important than the jet-lag she was feeling. The points that these alumni share are invaluable and help us understand many lessons which are “real”.

The job hunting season shall start soon and it will be time to apply these learning’s in our lives.

It was along day………

2005-02-07T20:24:00.000Z

Today was a long day with classes from 1345 till 1920 hours. But the good thing was that we had two guest speakers addressing our streams, and nothing better than to see a successful alumnus coming over to address us.

In our E-Business lecture, the European Director of Information Strategy from a global recruitment services company addressed us. He is an MBA from Cranfield and a wonderful presenter. He presented on how their organization integrated Information Systems with the overall strategy of the firm. I could visualize my past experiences and relate with what he had to share.

The second guest speaker of the day was the Director – HR from British Gas. Together with the Senior Manager from the organization, he presented the challenges faced in HR and also rbought out some of the myths about HR as a function.

All in all, it was a thought provoking day.

A weekend away to Peak District

2005-02-04T20:25:00.000Z

While the English weather may be a good object of criticism across the world, seven students take a weekend break away to Peak District and enjoy the weather and scenic beauty of the country.

Friday afternoon, we left the campus to drive down to Castleton in Peak District. We put up in the youth hostel and stay put for the night after a fabulous meal at a local pub.

At 1000 hours on Saturday morning our “walking men” - Richard Caseley and Ian Morley (both British) led us on a trek of approximately 5 miles. It was a debut trek for Divya and I and it was worth the effort. We went on a long walk across a well trodden path and reached a height of over 1500 feet (thanks to Ian’s GPS equipment) with the temperature close to 4 degree C and a wind chill of another 5 degrees. The greenery and calm will remain deeply etched in our memories and the long stretches of cattle farms will keep calling us.

We were back to our shelter spots by afternoon. After lunch, we played many indoor games – cards, jenga, air hockey and also watched Wales beat England in rugby on television. With tired legs giving way, it was an early retiring to bed.

Next morning – Sunday – we went to the deepest cavern in Castleton. After we had stepped down 105 steps below the ground level, we were taken on a boat journey inside the cavern. Matt – our guide and a university student – was an amazing host. With his fantastic sense of humour, he kept us involved in the entire journey and back, explaining to us the history of miners who used to work in those caverns.

Once we had checked out from the hostel, we drove across to the reservoir in Castleton. It is possible the largest man made reservoir in UK and a beautiful place. On our way back to campus, we stopped at Blackwell where we did a lot of window shopping, enjoying the hustle bustle of a Sunday in the market. After a typical English tea, it was time to start back.

It was a great break and a rejuvenating one – given that from now on, the MBA journey gets uphill and tougher. The WAC’s are approaching but I am still reeling under the beautiful memories of Peak District.

The bad news is …………

2005-02-01T20:24:00.000Z

Ever experienced how a car feels like when you put the fourth gear direct from the first gear? That is what I am experiencing in week 4 of Term 2. Suddenly the lull is over and the storm is looming large. In the midst of all this, I have to deliver bad news. Nothing can be worse than this.

This afternoon, it was like a hurricane. 1245 hours – the lectures get over. Neil Marshall (Britain) our stream representative takes over to share some information. The clock ticks on. At 1258 hours, I and my team start to panic. In the middle of Neil’s sentence, we get up from our chairs and lift our bags to rush out. His complaining voice drowns behind us. I find myself rushing to the TV studio – I thought I was flying. 1300 hours – our appointed time slot - we reach the studio and enter to meet Paul and Hannah – the actors who will be with us for the next 90 minutes in the presentation and Communication Skills (PCS) tutorial. The tutorial is on “how to give bad news”!

Flashback to last Friday – Steve Carver had taught us that there are times when MBA’s have to keep aside their logical hats and use their hearts and emotions. And giving bad news is never logical.

While Steve’s voice was echoing in my mind, in my rush, I had completely forgotten what my role was. Last afternoon, we had split up the three role plays amongst the six of us. As we sat down in the studio, we were informed that only three of us would be doing the role plays. It was Becky, I and Dennis – in that order.

Becky had to fire her employee. The camera whirred and Paul became the employee to be at the receiving end. I had difficulty remembering that he is an actor – it was for real. Becky did her role well. 15 minutes had passed by and I was sitting there watching the drama. It was then time for feedback to Becky – posture, eye contact, questioning skills, listening skills, etc. etc.

I was next and in the role as the MD of a company I had to tell Jo – the character played by Hannah – that she had been passed over for a new position in the company. This was adding to the many firsts at Cranfield in my life. As Jo walks into the room, I find myself getting nervous. I was on camera, my performance getting recorded. And soon enough, I had mentioned the bad news to Jo. As I begin to explain the reasons of the decision to Jo, I see tears in her eyes and my lips go dry. Thank God I was seated.
I continue on, trying to keep away the logic and instead use empathy to soften the blow. I had no clue how I was doing. 15 minutes were over.

Feedback time – I was staring at Hannah – was she acting? Gosh, the tears were real. In my shaken up broken words, I goofed up, stating something like “….tears in her ears……..” and everyone was rolling away with laughter. Except for this, I had faired well enough. But got a few pointers from the tutors where I need to improve.

In the last role play for our team, it was time for Dennis to give bad news for indiscipline. He did a good job. There were a few observations from our tutors on how can he improve, what verbal cues he missed, etc.

As I walked out the door with my team, I was wondering it was just last Friday when we saw the video on how to give bad news. Today, I found myself using some of the points I observed then. Can learning happen so fast? It can and it does happen. The technique of teaching is what makes it happen. I am sure if I had read all this in theory from a book, after 3 days, I would have even forgotten who the author was. But these are lessons of a lifetime……….and no one will ever forget them.

I am afraid I have bad news!

2005-01-27T20:23:00.000Z

The Presentation and Communication Skills (PCS) juggernaut continues. As if the press conference practice wasn’t enough during the week, we have another piece of personal development coming up next week. This involves how to give bad news.

Today evening our Blue stream representative Neil Marshall (Britain) arranged for screening a 45 minute video. This video is a taster of what lies ahead of us during next week. This next week’s exercise on building our softer skills revolves around how to give bad news. We saw the video anchored by the person who most likely, shall be with us next week (will not share his identity as of now). There were three kinds of situations involving communication of bad news. While many of us would have undergone academic education on how to communicate bad news in written form, here it will be on a face-to-face situation with real actors.

This diary posting is just to build up your curiosity. I am restraining myself to share greater details now itself. So while we wait with baited breath for the close encounters of the “bad” kind, you all keep guessing what is this all about.

Investment bankers kill “Fluffy” - the puppy!

2005-01-25T20:22:00.000Z

Our asset management co. has invested in a Life sciences firm that has identified an age defying cream that is being tested on animals. The press is hounding on our AMC and this crisis has to be addressed by us - the board. It was our turn today to be a part of the “kill rate” for the journalists.

We gathered together at 0830 hours this morning to pick up the case assigned to our team. A thick bunch of red coloured papers came out of the sealed envelope that set the backdrop to our Press conference practice today. Our session was due to start at 0930 hours. We had exactly one hour to discuss and prepare ourselves, including assign our roles, attempt a dry run and consider possible bombshells that may get dropped on us. It was our turn to be on the firing line.

As we walked into the TV studio and took our seats, we saw the camera’s starting to whirr and the observing team seated with ear-to-ear grins on their faces. It was their turn to have the last laugh at our cost. We could see “nasty” Nigel, “deadly” Des and “stinging” Steve ready to take their slings at us.

Christian Ward (New Zealand) as the Chairman of the board started with a brief address to the press and then we started taking questions from the press. It was as if the journalists were sitting there bottled up and were let loose on us. Their bombardment started with “where is fluffy?”, “You have killed fluffy!”, “Do you have any pets?” ………… and we were caught off guard. I had not expected such a hostile start but life is not kind. We kept referring to our pre decided position as an investment bank, but the journalists kept coming back on us. One question wasn’t completed when another question shot off from their bows. Suddenly I saw myself on the TV screen behind the journalists …. and I felt my mouth go dry. A question had been put to me. I regained my voice and found myself listening to my answer. They shifted focus to Olivier (France) and he lost his voice. The barrage of questions then again changed gears to move onto Becky (Britain), Dennis (Hong Kong), Chris (Scotland) and back to Christian.

We did not notice that over 18 minutes had gone by. And then it came to a close. None of us could think whether it was truly over or not. The observing team was laughing away while I could not even bring a smile to my lips. Many a times during the conference I had heard my heart beating so loudly, I thought the noise would get recorded in the video.
It was for real but just a practice session. Something tells me that the actual one scheduled for March will be more than this. But I am happy because I am learning.

Face the Press

2005-01-24T20:21:00.000Z

My first reaction was “wow”. This changed to “oh gosh” afterwards. And it was just a practice session. I am referring to the Press conference our team observed today.

Earlier in this month, we were introduced to the Press Conference sessions as part of Presentation & Communication Skills (PCS) course. This is a feature that possibly makes Cranfield distinct from many other schools of management. In this exercise, each team has to face a situation of crisis. The team has to become the board of a company that is facing a crisis – it could be an explosion in the factory with some casualties, issues of ethics for an investment bank or a tour operator board whose tourists are held captive by militants. The situation could be any possible kind we could imagine. In the session, our lecturer Steve Carver showed us a few video clips of similar sessions in the past. He also made a passing reference of the “kill rate” of the journalists as over 90%.

The task – face the press!
The philosophy behind this exercise is that once we restart our careers post Cranfield MBA, we will come across situations where we will have to encounter crisis and face the press / media. This is an area, where generally no one gets formally trained on. Hence, MBA is the best opportunity to experience such a situation and pick up lessons of a lifetime.

There are two parts to this assessment. The first part requires each team to observe another team while the latter are grilled by the journalists. Then we have to write up coverage of this press conference in two distinct kinds – a tabloid and a broadsheet newspaper. However, the coverage’s have to be contrasting to each other. In the second part, we are assessed on how we manage the press conference. This practice session is for the first part. We face the real onslaught of journalists in March.

Today we had to observe another team. The case involved a tour operating company facing a press conference because one their pack of tourists had been held hostages by militants. We as observers had no clue of the context and situation. Some of the journalists are actually journalists by profession. To add oil in fire, Steve Carver also joined in as the fourth journalist to add their firepower. A six member team facing a panel of four journalists! Wow!

The press conference lasted just under fifteen minutes as we watched with dried mouths. Charlie (Britain), Gautam (India), Carlos (Brazil), Tim (Britain), Himanshu (India) and Antonia (Britain) faced the bombardment of questions with courage from the fire spitting journalists. For even fleeting seconds, I never felt it to be a practice session. It was as good (or bad) as real. The classy journalists were picking up every word the board said; twisting it exactly the way we see on television. From being called mercenaries to getting personal on their backgrounds, the journalists left nothing un-stoned. After all, for them it is a story and their profession. They even gave a twist to the press conference when one journalist suddenly went away and brought back the news of all tourists as “dead”. This was completely unbelievable.

After the session, they journalists gave a quick feedback to the “victims” – sharing what they did right and where they need to improve. Even a grin is enough for the journalists to capture as part of the headlines.

As we walked out of the TV studio, I could hear myself speaking “oh gosh!”

The celebration of Cranfield’s International day continues

2005-01-18T20:20:00.000Z

Day 2 of the International week celebrations was here and it was a much awaited day, especially for me. Today we were presenting India amongst other Asian countries.

For almost a month now, I had been actively working on the Indian presentation for the International week. I lost count of how many times I had changed the contents of our presentation. I also lost count of how many hours and days I was investing in the build up to the special day. With ideas galore, it was a tough task picking up the theme for the presentation. I had to ensure that our presentation did not cross the designated 15 minutes. There was so much to tell, so much to share, but so little time.

Nevertheless, after a bit of brainstorming, we closed down on a theme that was distinct. Divya and I had also been working out the plan of Indian taster also. The trouble with being famous is that you lose out on novelty and we were facing similar challenge on which Indian snack to offer. We then were firmed up the option of “bhel puri” – a snack that was unique and not yet experienced at Cranfield MBA.

The evening of Day 2 was buzzing more than Day 1 – students in other courses had also joined in this evening to enjoy the International week celebrations and the Forum was full. Excited voices of students were mixed with the sounds of children running around.

The evening began with the presentation of China, with Kaifeng Zhang playing the anchor’s role to perfection. All the Chinese students – Lily, Lin, Warren, Dennis and Kaifeng were dressed n traditional Chinese attire, which looked so pretty that my guess is they will receive orders for supply from the MBA students soon. With China hogging the limelight in the global arena for its galloping rate of growth, Kaifeng took us through a journey into China with many video clips. Their presentation showcased their culture, cuisines, famous cities and places worth visiting and even included a small quiz on China. The prizes were memento’s that comprised traditional hand made ornamental, designed show pieces. The Chinese presentation ended on a very gracious note with they offering a few traditional gift items in charity – the collections would be sent to support the Tsunami relief work. Soon after their presentation, these gift items were lapped up by the audience.

Our presentation on India was next. We started with a movie clip of a dance sequence from a famous Bollywood movie – the idea was to get the audience hooked up - it worked. Divya took the stage by introducing India and relating it to the dance sequence. She went on to introduce some lesser known wonders of India – Ajanta-Elora caves, Sun Konark Temple, Jantar Mantar, Temples of Khajuraho and Golden Temple. Of course no introduction to India can be complete without the Taj Mahal. Seema took over to introduce the most expensive and luxurious train in the world – Palace on Wheels. Our guess was right – the world (our audience, that is) had never been introduced to these aspects about India. The high point was the introduction to Auroville town-ship in Pondicherry – a place where people from over 35 countries stay together. It is an international town in itself and most Indians are also unaware about it.

Seema then handed over the floor to me and I then disclosed the five passions of India – religion, politics, food, movies and cricket – to the audience. In the back of my mind, I was conscious of the learning’s from our Presentation and Communication Skills (PCS) course. But at the moment as big as this one – I forgot some of my lines and instead, ended up speaking much of extempore content. Luckily, the audience did not notice (I hope). Our presentation ended with music being played from the same dance sequence that we had started with.

Japan was next, but with a difference – Nobuhiro was accompanied by Andrew (British) and Bibhas (Indian). Andrew and Bibhas have spent quite a few years working in Japan and hence were representing Japan. Their presentation also shared much about the cuisines, towns and culture of Japan. Their presentation took an interesting turn when they handed over a newspaper sheet to each one in the audience. Nobu then guided the entire audience through a live step-by-step demonstration of Origami – the traditional art of paper-folding. The audience loved it, as is visible from the picture.

Yandi Irawan and his wife Myra then presented Indonesia. Despite the disaster that their country has faced recently, Yandi did not let such tragedy influence his presentation as he and Myra took us through the traditions and history of their country. They even demonstrated the method of wearing the traditional attire that the bride wears.

Syria and Lebanon were jointly presented by Ammar and his wife Hind and the brother-sister duo on MBA - Rola and Hazem Mikati. Like many others, we were astonished by the beauty of these countries. I mistook the initial video clips to be from some European country. These are amazing countries with beautiful, scenic places and equally beautiful people. It was also a revelation for many to hear about the rich history of Syria and Lebanon.

Peru was accommodated today due to certain administrative reasons and Alex Mita presented his country. He was dressed in very colourful attire and he even gave away some pieces of their traditional wool caps to the audience. We watched a fabulous video that introduced us to the wonderful land that Peru is. The presentation on a country famous for its passion for dance would have been incomplete without the audience being made to dance to Peruvian tunes. Alex also has a reputation for being a fantastic Latino dancer and he got every one to the floor to jig on the selected tunes.

It was a long evening and after the presentations, the crowd thronged to the tasters’. While everyone was relishing the dishes, I wondered – could I have ever, in my lifetime, got to know so much about so many countries? The theme “Connecting cultures” was bringing me closer to many other cultures that I had not experienced before. The learning at Cranfield is not restricted to classroom alone. The international week is a vehicle to one’s learning – so what if it is not management. This dimension of our learning will be remembered and cherished by all of us. Wherever we end up pursuing our careers after Cranfield, these experiences and events will help us relate to our new environments better.

International week - Day 1

2005-01-17T20:20:00.000Z

There are various attractions at Cranfield MBA. This year too, we celebrate the cultural diversity in the MBA batch with a four day International week which culminates with a Party on coming Thursday.

Volunteers from 19 countries decided to present about their cultures. All the African country representatives - Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, and others - chose to present a single show together. Over the past week, the diversity rep's were running around, making sure that each team of students were provided full support and help.

The evening began with Harry potter visiting Cranfield forum riding the broom stick - England & Scotland presented first, being the host country. With Tanya and Ian McDougall dressed in Scottish dresses and with Antonia and Marc speaking out dialogues from Macbeth, it was fun to hear about England / Scotland and know something about their culture.

Mattijas and his wife Maria presented "how to make a great fondue" - using it as a theme to share information about Switzerland. And surprise, surprise. They had prepared Fondue for the entire audience for the tasters’ event after the presentations.

Mikahil Damrin and his wife Natalia presented on Russia, taking us on a virtual trip to their country, sharing certain do's and dont's whenever we visit Russia. Mikhail is organizing the Russian trip later this year in May 2005. As per last estimates, over 40 students have registered for this excursion trip and Mikhail is working on the modalities to ensure the best of trips for us students.

We had Italy next with Roberto and Mattia presenting their country and towns. They were quite innovative in using animated characters including Astrix - to share with us the history and culture of their native place.

The last one of the day was Marieke, who presented on - The Netherlands. Interestingly, she too is organizing a two-day trip to Netherlands later this year.

With tasters from these countries offered to all, the crowd thronged the counters to savour the unique dishes. It was great fun and a fantastic break from the studies routine.

PMI.....continued

2005-01-14T20:19:00.000Z

I continue with the experience in PMI simulation from yesterday.

Coming back to your own team could be equally disorientating..... especially when you realize that much water has flown and there were some "outsiders" who had come to your project. I am afraid it is not a good feeling, but life is not kind either. And I guess this was a subtle message or learning that the professors wanted us to experience. Simple statement of such facts wouldn't have impacted us as much as experiencing it. And they had hit the nail on the head.

After some anxious moments of recouping, Becky and I got updated of what all had happened in our absence. They had received news from the client on change of scope. An activity had been added midway during execution and it fell on the critical path. So work could now proceed only after taking up this new task immediately. The client did offer a decent price for this task, though. But it meant increase in our execution time and we had no choice.

Soon enough, we erred again on crane allocation. There was no scope to recover from this slippage and we knew our performance would not be upto the mark. A look of disappointment was all over us ...but we had no one to blame. One may say, these were just slip-up’s. But when you evaluate the impact of such small slip up’s and realise that you may have lost over £50k of profits, it doesn’t remain small. Somewhere along the next rounds of decision making, I felt our enthusiasm sliding down. But despite the disappointment vivid on faces, we kept on persevering to ensure that no further errors happen.

The writing was on the wall, though. It set me thinking – how easy it is to just brush our errors away, thinking it to be just a simulation exercise. Would I have reacted in the same way if it was real life situation? I knew I wouldn’t and I was wondering what the project manager would go through. After all, in real life the buck stops at him / her. I was wondering how Becky would be feeling, what emotions she would be going through – but she did a great job of keeping her disappointment within and continued to lead the project, pepping us up.

While we finished our project over the next few decision rounds, we kept hearing sounds of cheers and claps from some other syndicate around. Some teams had already completed their warehouses and had found out their profit figures too. Some teams had made over £100k. A few others had goofed up too, like us, but differently.

The evening saw the batch get together in the lecture theatre for a briefing from the professors. They shared their perspective of the simulation and had some insightful views to offer. All in all, the simulation was a great way to learn Project Management. While the simulation is over, the work does not end there. We are now required to write an individual report per the brief made available. It is a very tough assignment since there are quite a few do’s and don’t’s on the way the report is expected to be written by the faculty. It is more than just a report capturing the “what happened” and “how it happened” kinds. The report goes beyond that, expecting us to include recommendations to the management on what better can be done, and much more.

You bet, I have much to write in it. The problem will be the word limit just like we face in a WAC.

The warehouse was built, finally!

2005-01-13T20:18:00.000Z

Phew! I was exhausted. PMI simulation was intense and my team survived. We made the warehouse. At the end, we had some profits too, but we barely scraped through. I capture the simulation experience through a sequential narration as well as learning’s derived from it.

The show was set - 21 teams competing against themselves. The challenge was to implement its plan to build a warehouse. Each team had its plan drawn out and roles defined for each of the six members. We too, were prepared, hopefully with our best laid plans. The syndicate area had been set up appropriately to facilitate the workflow movement and the entire partition wall was covered with white paper and grid lines capturing each week and task in a matrix form. Bright yellow and pink post-it notes with activity codes and invoicing reminders were kept ready last evening.

That was my first learning – when a project team works and one person records everything on a computer, only s/he knows what s/he had done. Is it known to the entire team responsible for project execution? No marks for guessing. A pictorial representation of the project speaks the same language and the Gantt chart on the partition board gave the same answer to each member of a team. Lesson one – use tools that are available to every one to feel involved in the project. A project plan should not be confined to the desktop of the Project Manager.

At 0845 hours, we were all smiling with the feeling “nothing can go wrong, we are prepared well”. And nothing did in the first few weeks. The way the simulation works is that each 15 minute time slot is treated as a week in the period of building a warehouse. From the second week onwards, we submit our decisions on various parameters – start of an activity, allocation of labour strength, purchase of consumables, cabins for labour accommodation, cranes, etc. depending upon what progress report we get. The entire simulation is run through the computer software developed by Cranfield’s Project management department. This software has many algorithms and even within each algorithm, different teams may get different results for same decisions.

To the simulation now – we started on an optimistic note with the first two weeks going on track as per our plan. Needless to mention, we were happy that our plan was working and were also aware that sooner or later we will have to face our first deviation from plan. It came sooner than we thought. One of the tasks was showing a delay in completion. It meant altering our plans for the subsequent weeks. The changes involved revising the labour, cranes and consumables. It also meant revising our cash flow requirements.

Lesson two – if you have done your planning right, you can face as well as adapt to the changed scenarios. No wonder that successful Project managers believe in considerable planning before commencing execution of the project.
Lesson three – Murphy’s law are a reality – if something is expected to change, it will. Projects included.

Soon, we committed our first mistake. We forgot to allocate the crane to the task it was hired for. As a result, the progress report showed no progress on that task. Clearly, it led to an increase of the project completion period by one week. It was not good news at all. Our safety mechanism had failed. Despite having planned for an audit mechanism before submission of action form, we had missed checking our own job.

And soon a surprise – I and our Project Manager Becky – were called away to the lecture room. Like us, two members from each team had been called for and sent on a “cultural exchange” to a different team in another stream. That was a killer move by the Professors – and it is quite realistic too. Isn’t it normal for a project member to get redeployed to another assignment? The exchange experience was phenomenal. From the very start, I had a feeling of being un-welcomed in the new team – after all, you do get passionate about your team and are resistant to change. Like them, I too felt out of place, not having a clue to their strategy or action plan. I was conscious of the fact that it has to be me who has to get into the groove and pick up what this team had chalked out.
And just when Becky and I had been able to develop comfort in this team, the cultural exchange was over. We were sent back to our original teams.

Biography of a Project Manager

2005-01-12T20:17:00.000Z

In today’s session of Project management Introduction (PMI), I was wondering how a biography of a Project manager would read like. Will be a comedy, a tragedy or a success story?

If you ask me, I would like to read all such biographies, especially if they are anecdotal. Just three days in a simulated environment of managing the smallest of small projects and I am beginning to lose my senses. At times, I found myself engrossed in the spreadsheet - I didn’t even realize that my team is talking to me. At other times, I was biting my nails, trying to find out alternate scenarios when a specific activity on the critical path gets delayed or is completed ahead of time. Worker accommodation, consumables, cranes, stock holding cost, overdraft, bank loan…..oh gosh! I am drowning.

By evening, I was quite tense. I am managing the consumables for my team. So my role involves keeping a tab on the progress of each task and ensuring that the respective consumables required for each task are available in just the right quantity at the right time. Each consumable is to be ordered as per the minimum order quantity and takes 2 weeks to be replenished. If we go out of stock on them, the complete project comes to a standstill. If we stock them in excess, we pay a huge charge on stock holding every week. I was chewing my own words.

Our dry run in the evening gave away all the weak spots in our plan. The only consolation was that I was not alone. Similar dilemma, if not worse, is being faced by Dennis and Olivier. They are managing financials. In the dry run, they almost forgot to bill the client for a completed activity. Managing cash flows, revenues, expenses and funds availability through an expensive overdraft or a cheap but conditional bank loan is not an easy task. And our mental setup is reflected in the way our syndicate area looks like. I get a mixed feeling when I look at that area – it looks pretty cute; it looks quite chaotic too. Is that how the room of a Project Manager looks like? I wondered.

We retired from today’s activities with just a bit of “hope” – the hope that our conservative approach will help us; the hope that none of us will miss out any critical task or action (but something tells me - it will happen!). After all, it is some consolation to hear that even if a team manages to make £1 profit, it would be a great achievement, given the past results of similar simulations at Cranfield. PMI is a tough subject and being a Project manager is a tough job and I am sure out there quite a few heads will nod when they hear this.

If you know any biography of a Project Manager – let me know. Else, after tomorrow’s simulation, I will be at least in a position to write short stories - on what it is like to be the member of a project. Wish us luck and watch out for tomorrow’s posting.

PMI continues

2005-01-11T20:17:00.000Z

A guy walked into a table and hurt himself. He was wearing his “stupid hat” and therefore, he sued the table manufacturer for damages. You bet, the manufacturer had not contemplated such a risk.

Strange way to begin a diary posting, isn’t it! Yet, in countries not too far away, it is a way of life.
So what do companies do? The answer is simple - they manage their risks.

This is what we discussed on day 2 of Project Management Introduction (PMI) course. Whether you consider all risks under PEST (for those lesser initiated – it stands for Political, Economic, Social, Technological) or some other definition. Risks are a part of life and “who cares, wins!” The secret of risk management is to remember – It is humans, and not entities, that cause risk. And project management is all about managing risks.

In the first session of the day, all the teams went into a deep-discussion mode. My team – Blue 3 – also went into a huddle; brainstorming about the possible risks that our warehouse project may encounter. In the second session, we worked on the methods of projecting expenses, revenue and cash flow. Soon enough I found it difficult enough to contain myself and together with Dennis and Olivier I starting working on the spreadsheets. Slowly, I was feeling heavy (and it is just Day 2 of Term 2) and found my concentration level at its peak. Numbers were coming to me easily except that deep down there was a fear lurking inside me – anything can happen in the implementation of the project work – we may run out of cash, any of the tasks may take longer than planned, labour may return back if they find their accommodation not ready, etc. etc. There were enough possibilities of the project going haywire.

Is that what a Project Manager faces in real life? How does he survive project after project? Every successful project manager deserves a noble prize. The questions were plenty.

The answer, surprisingly, came from John Algar – our professor and Director of Project Management team at Cranfield MBA. The secret of a project is to plan one task at a time. If you get that right, you can manage the project well. To this, I add one statement from my own understanding – Project management is the summation of sound planning, proper execution and teamwork. While Cranfield MBA will help me understand subtleties of planning and execution, what stands’ tall is the opportunity to experience team work.

It has just been two days when I became part of a new team, but it seems like a natural progression on a journey that should last a lifetime.

Crash course!

2005-01-10T20:15:00.000Z

This week I shall share a day by day account of how a core course becomes a crash course.

This morning, we started Term 2 with the core course of Project Management Introduction (PMI). The course revolves around working on a project involving the building of a warehouse. Between now and Thursday, we will be working on this course and will finally have a simulation exercise wherein we shall have to compete with the other 20 teams on course.

Oh, by the way, the “we” here is my new family. As an annual feature, each team and stream of Term 1 is reshuffled and new teams made. This enables one to experience a new environment and a new set of people. So my new Learning team and family have - Becky Drinkwater (Britain), Christian Ward (New Zealand), Olivier Alvarez (France), Chris Wyper (Scotland), Dennis Tsang (Hong Kong) and myself. Our team is an exact replica of the MBA batch with an average age of 31 and average work experience of 8 years. As part of the school’s plan, we get to know each other while at work on the PMI project and are not given time to think of settling in first. In real life also, one doesn’t get time to first settle in – one is required to hit the ground running and get to know his peers while running.

There was excitement in the air as the school reopened today after a good Christmas vacation. While I was on campus throughout, many of my colleagues had been travelling across continents. Their excited voices had much to share. And almost every one was happy to be back to school, enthusiastic about having regained their strength to take a dig at Term 2.

The day started with John Algar sharing the basic concepts of Project Management. And like any other astounding faculty of Cranfield, John made PMI such a simple sounding subject. His ability and skill to relate theory with practice and real life “personal” examples of live projects made the subject seem more interesting to even those who (wrongly) considered PMI as “dry”.

We got frequent breaks during the day long session, wherein we had to go back to our syndicate areas and discuss out our views / ideas on the brief. Our warehouse project has just a dozen activities, but in just a small exercise such as this, the learning is immense. I thought I had never been in Project Management but I was wrong. My last assignment as regional head of finance & commercial operations in India had involved setting up of franchisee owned retail operations and in a period stretching over four years, I had been involved in construction and setting up many warehouses. As I sat there in the lecture theatre, I was realizing that you don’t need highly sophisticated tools like MS Project, etc. to become a Project Manager. My team isn’t using one. Instead, what we are using is logic and a whole lot of planning. We have also decided that each of us will take up assignments that are not our respective functional expertise. We want to develop our multi functional skills and hence I volunteered not to pick up finance portfolio for the project. So while Olivier and Dennis will manage the entire financials of payables, receivables, banking and funding, I together with Chris and Christian will manage the procurement, labour and site work. Becky has been appointed as our Project Manager.

The lessons I learnt today were an amalgam of small pearls of wisdom that may seem miniscule but make a big difference to the success or failure for a project. I am sure this term will be more exciting, more fun and more demanding than the previous one. And I am also sure that the next three days will be very demanding and full of learning for me and others as well.

International week at Cranfield MBA

2005-01-05T20:16:00.000Z

As the holidays come to an end soon, I have hit the panic button. Every morning I remind myself – I have spoilt myself rotten and I need to set my calendar. There is a pile of activities to be completed. And included in this is the preparation for the International week at Cranfield MBA.

The international week is an annual affair and is celebrated in term 2. This time it is in the second week of the course and is celebrated with much fervour and fanfare. After all, not many schools can boast of diversity of MBA students as that of Cranfield. With over 60% international students, a week of celebrating diversity is an essential aspect.

Before the school closed for vacations after term 1, I was appointed to work on the presentation on India. Each country gets a 15 minute time slot in which the students have to show-case their country to the entire batch, partners and the faculty. During these vacations, I had been toying with a few ideas and collecting inputs from all Indians on campus. Sometimes, you do enjoy the benefit of having a sister in the market research field and I even sent off a few SOS messages to my sister back in India. I needed some items that I wanted to use in the presentation and had to get these items before the term 2 began. I was lucky enough to get her into action (much to her chagrin) and made her run around the streets of Delhi to find out the specific stuff which I wanted. I was double-lucky because Sameer (Indian) was visiting India during the vacations and kindly consented to carry the items back to school.

As I was working on the presentation, I realized that I am becoming my own critic and continued trashing my own ideas. I was also realizing how difficult it can be to describe your motherland in just 15 minutes. There is so much you can share about your country. But your perspective changes when you remind yourself of whom your audience is. So while India may still be occasionally referred to as a land of “snake charmers”, I wanted to share the fact with my audience that “yes, my country can charm anyone”. An equal if not stronger desire was to learn more about other countries. The international week will tell me much about many other countries – Switzerland, Russia, Italy, Lebanon, Indonesia, Japan, Peru, Greece, China, Denmark, France, Africa – just to name a few.

As the term begins, the challenge for me will be to strike a balance of studying PMI, that is covered in week 1 and preparing for the Indian presentation as well.

Ring out the old, ring in the new………..and stop that clock!

2005-01-01T20:14:00.000Z

I wish a very happy New Year to all readers.

This morning, as I woke up, nothing had really changed. It was bright and sunny out there and the clock had just ticked past 10 am. I had enjoyed the New Year party at Anthony’s place, playing party games, joking while having wine and champagne and apple juice. Another year crosses over and a new one begins.

It was just 12 days ago that we had seen the end of Term 1 and ……..what 12 days have gone. Only 9 left! And in pity (for myself) I plopped back in bed only to pull myself out of my cosy bed a few moments later. Much as I may want to laze around, there was work to do. I had to clean up the mess I had created in my room…..after all you do begin a new year with a resolution, don’t you? So what if the resolutions are forgotten within next few days.

By lunchtime, I was kind of awake, having completed my daily chores and forced myself to cook an omelette. Then I sat down to make a list of things I need to do for the coming week. In 5 minutes I had written down tasks that seemed to be requiring 5 weeks for completion. And that’s when I really woke up. Gosh! I had allowed time to slip by me for all these days while I was lazing around, addicted to net and movies on my laptop. All my plans of reviewing PMI, French lessons and finalizing electives had been on the back burner while I was recouping after term 1. I was even due for a hair cut. After all good habits take time to develop, but bad habits can set in so quickly. I was reminded of Prof. Richard K mentioning in the very early OB lectures – “………during the term break, most students would be off campus; those who are on campus would be mostly found sleeping……..” And we had just laughed that away, not realizing that it would eventually be proven true.

This is how time flies by at Cranfield. Four months ago, I had arrived here wondering how the next twelve months will be. I here am, having covered one-third of the journey. Have a covered some grounds? The answer is a definite “Yes”. For one, I came here with some stereotypes and they are fast disappearing. I am doing things I never imagined I could do. And above all, I am learning new lessons of life. But there is only one thing I can’t control or do much about – and that is Time.

I don’t want time to pass by so quickly. Some one stop that clock, please!!!!!!!

The Cranfield experience – my tribute to Term 1

2004-12-19T10:38:00.000Z

More than three months after I arrived at Cranfield, I take stock of what has become of me. I have changed in three months - if ever that is possible for a 35 year old. Some changes are more evident than others. Some can only be felt and are not visible to the outside world.

I am amongst the many students to be on campus with family, and it was a tough call. Divya and I were working with two big multinational organizations back in India and wanted to experience international exposure and re-skill ourselves. We chose Cranfield over any other options for a varied number of reasons –top ranked one year programme in UK, average age of students, small batch unlike the mass MBA manufacturing schools across in other continents, on-campus housing (believe me, it can be a very critical factor) and value for money. And above all, we got selected at the same school with Divya securing a fee-share scholarship too.

When you have grown up for so many years in the protected environment of a close knit small family, when you have never stepped beyond your shores and when you are shouldering the partial responsibility of running the household, a decision for a couple to come together and study together was a bold one. In hind sight, our decision surprises me too. I could do that! I know it is a sacrifice for every one in my extended family – even if it is for one year only.
My motivation for the Cranfield MBA was so high that I quit my senior management, seven-digit figure paying job to be here – one amongst the many. It was time to step outside for a while and explore something more.

“Our business in life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves -- to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterday by our today” - Stewart B. Johnson

That is what I came here for. To be amongst people who are absolutely capable, if not more, as you are. To set my benchmarks higher than what I have had so far. And test my wings to see how high I can fly. I am reminded of what I share with our orienteers – “fly as high as you can; the height you attain will show the strength of your wings” (anonymous). Unknowingly, it seemed to have applied on me as well.

And Cranfield MBA has done just that for me – changed my views about myself, broken my complex and given me tremendous amount of feedstock to reflect upon.

It has stretched me more than I ever did in my life so far – staying awake till past midnight with complete attention, gathering courage to play rugby amongst big built Europeans and yet finding time in the always-so-busy schedule of a Cranfield MBA to write such diary postings – I never knew I could do so much. Sometimes, I surprise myself too.

It has also exposed me to my own blind spots – faltering in an accounting case despite being an accountant by education, failing to adhere the team code of on-time arrival for team meetings when I considered myself to be the most disciplined person on earth, experiencing the sense of not having done justice to my learning team when I know I didn’t contribute much to the group SMS presentation. All these and more can really pull you down while raising the respect of your team members in your eyes. It is these five other saints who made me sail through Term 1 -Andrew, Charlie, Jumoke, Maria and Mahesh. You helped me learn the meaning of “inter-dependence”.

One may wonder – how different it really is in the corporate world. I think it is no different except in one way. The inter dependence exists. Out there, however, the sequence is reverse – we all try to get ahead, at the cost of others. Little do we realize that there is that big, real possibility of getting ahead - with the help of others around you?

Cranfield MBA Term 1 has forced me to make choices at a very personal level; like when to fight my corner and when to let something go. It has also shown me the importance of self-reflection. And as I sit back and remember the three months gone by, I know I have covered some distance. I know I am not very far away from the point when I convert this knowledge into action.

The dawn is near

2004-12-14T10:37:00.000Z

Four down. Every good thing has to end. I won’t say that exams are bad since they enable one to recover lost ground and do a stock check on one’s knowledge and understanding. As I walked out of the exam hall at 1605 hours, I could feel a wave of fresh air going through inside me. The feeling was of regaining confidence that all things come to an end, only to make one wiser, stronger and richer with experience.

When one views from a distance, three months is a long time. But when we lived through the three months, we were living by the hour and did not realize how much has been digested by our brain….till it is time to test ourselves. The exams are also doing the same thing – testing us in Strategic decision sciences and Operations management.

Just one more day and I’ll be free from studies (that’s wishful thinking) for a couple of weeks. Time is flying and will continue to fly away. It is for us to live through every minute, creating pleasant memories and moments to be cherished. Yes, the dawn is near.

There is a first time for everything in life

2004-12-13T10:36:00.000Z

Exam fever, like common cold, takes its own time getting over. And like any product life cycle, it climbs up steeply, showing an exponential increase in the initial phases.

Term 1 exams are typical of this trend. For the first time in my life, I wrote two exams in one day. To be precise, it was 0930 hours to 1600 hours, in which we wrote our exams on Economics and Marketing. I felt a mix of scary and amusing feelings. Scary because if you have to write an exam after more than six years with a pen rather than computer-based, the fingers not supporting the pen should not come as a surprise. But of course, no one had anticipated that even our fingers will show the law of diminishing marginal utility. The feeling of being amused was when during the exam I lifted my head up only to see an ocean of heads focusing on their desks while the clocked ticked by. 126 managers with an average age of 33 sitting in a classroom reminded me of my childhood days, when one used to move his / her head around looking for group support in case of difficulty. Not here. It is not about passing the MBA. It is about proving a point to your self – that I made the choice to leave a cushy, well paying, senior management job back in my country and come to Cranfield to pursue MBA.

So as the fever went up on the PLC-like curve, we moved from Economics to Marketing in the post lunch session. The fingers got numb…….and soon the clock struck 1600 hours. It was time to get up and move on to prepare for tomorrow.

Diversity – a different perspective

2004-12-09T10:37:00.000Z

In my learning team, there was ample diversity – 2 Brits, 2 Indians, a Columbian and a Nigerian, 2 women. But is diversity just the span of nationality or gender?

For our course assessment in Organizational Behaviour, each learning team had to write a QOIT group report of up to 2500 words. The first draft which Andrew prepared based on all individual inputs far exceeded the limit, touching almost 4000 words. We had so much to write. Over the past few days, we had been chopping away the text (with a heavy heart). And while my team was reading the draft of the report, we started talking on diversity and our learning’s.

To us, diversity had started carrying a new meaning. It transcended beyond the obvious – age, gender, profiles, background, nationalities, etc. The new dimensions were
- our Learning styles: theorists, activists, pragmatist and reflector
- our MBTI’s that manifested our personalities,
- our Belbin roles: shaper, plant, completer finisher, team worker, and so on
- our Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation – Behaviour or FIRO-B: expressed inclusion, expressed affection
- our Emotional intelligence and so on.

There was so much diversity in team. Had the word limit not been forced on us, we would have written on and on. Cranfield MBA has 60% international students from over 30 countries but this aspect of diversity gets subdued when viewed from the perspectives our team was sharing.

Looking back at my past, I realize that even though I worked in one country for 13 years, there also existed diversity. But then, I always viewed it as a diversity arising from the multi cultural backgrounds and education rather than anything else.

Cranfield has opened the eyes of my mind. Now wherever I go in the world, I shall remember that diversity is all around me…….it is only upon me to identify it.

The countdown has begun

2004-12-07T10:35:00.000Z

Slowly the feeling is sinking in……..burning eyes, sleepy faces, lost looks, tense brows. Yes, the exams are coming closer.

Over my long career, I had thought I have become immune to stress. Cranfield MBA is testing me exactly on this attribute and I have reasons to believe that my confidence is shaking. We continue with our classes till the coming Friday and write five exams in less than three days starting next Monday. That gives us just over 48 hours for revision of 3 months course for five subjects. Need I say more?

In the Marketing class today Moira gave away a few light-hearted surprise awards for the recently concluded SMS presentations. Mathew Neville (Britain) got the prize for making our professor dance to “chicken – tunes” (refer my earlier posting). He received a soft “chicken” toy as a replica to the Nando’s chicken that he and the group presented on. Charles Sincock (Britain) got the prize for the GI Joe who left some people heart-broken – he received a hand-made card showing a broken heart. Roy Masamba (Zimbabwe) received the foot-in-the-mouth prize for Porsche – and he received a dinky Porsche car. The satellite beaming of Warren Mei (China) received the Harry-Potter-time-turner award and the gift was a beautiful hour glass. And last but not the least, Andrew Cox (Britain) got the “best actor – tough customer” award. He received a small bronze oscar for his magnificent performance – in the class as well as in the presentation. She also gave away some books through lucky draw. So much for a wonderful Marketing professor.

As Moira stood there, wishing us good luck for the exams, the reality hit me – now I know why my eyes burn and people notice the blank look on my face - the countdown had begun.

Planning for your future

2004-12-01T10:35:00.000Z

On Cranfield MBA, you never lose sight of the future. Even if that future is just few terms away.

Our Term 1 exams are scheduled for 13th to 15th December 2004 followed by a three week winter break. Term 2 begins in January 2005 when we continue with core compulsory modules. The electives come into picture in Term 3. That appears so far away. But today, more than four months in advance, we had John Glen present the schedule and time-lines for selection of elective courses. Now this is what I call “Planning”.

Each elective course offered has a credit and we have to take up a combination of electives that add up to a given total. Exchange programmes with many schools across the world are also on offer. Each student has to understand what is being offered and then prioritize his / her selection. There are a few “tracks” (or specializations) also available.

The MBA will make us work even after Term 1 exams. We have already been given a thick folder for Project Management Introduction (PMI) and we are expected to study the contents during the Term break. We begin the next term with an intensive one week. This will involve a continuous schedule of five days when we work on a simulation exercise of building a warehouse. All this has to happen while we have a new Learning Team. So while we experience the forming- norming-storming-performing cycle of the new team, we also have to deliver. The New Year will begin with a new lesson for us – “corporate life does not give you time to settle down; you have to hit the ground running”.

I have to study and choose from a list of over 60 electives offered and carefully pick up around 12. The challenge is not just picking up a list but also to prioritize the selection. There are conditions attached in the entire process and I need to do the task well. So besides enhancing my knowledge base, I will now also learn how to customize my MBA.

The story begins to unfold

2004-11-30T10:33:00.000Z

I experienced a very strange feeling in the Marketing lecture today.

While discussing a case on Sears, Roebuck and Co. in the lecture today, something on the slide on screen caught my attention. It was a simple statement: “…….x% increase in associate satisfaction is related to a y% increase in customer loyalty, which in turn is associated with a z% increase in EBIT……” At that moment, I was hit by a thunderbolt of enlightenment. Is that true? Have they applied the tools of Statistics? Like Regression, for example? I was beginning to see where Strategic Decision Sciences (SDS) – another course in our Term 1 – was making its presence felt. In my career I had hardly seen the application of regression while many such claims were stated by me as well as other managers.

This brainwave opened up a chain of thoughts. My mind was running, the fastest ever during my days in Cranfield so far.

The lecturer continued, “…..confidence in this data was ….. computed 30% to 70% of its executive compensation from these measures….”

And my mind continued to speak to me, “THAT’S ECONOMICS!” And we studied this only yesterday, something under X-inefficiencies where the module mentioned that managers in companies do not maximise, they only try to achieve a satisfying level of performance that the shareholders desire.

Gosh! All of this does make sense after all. And it took me less than a split second to figure it out (although this second took a few weeks to come by).

This weird experience just wouldn’t stop. The next lecture was Accounting and we discussed a case study on Management Accounting. Somewhere I felt an eerie silence in the lecture room. But I could hear a noise overshadowing the silence. This was the “clickety-click, clickety-click” sound of our minds at work. A few moments later, there was a mention of how the manager of the company (in the case) had delivered a favourable variance against the budget and maybe, it was driven by performance incentives that the company could be giving to its managers. Again Economics floated back in my mind. Did this manager maximise profits or was he focussed on his incentive?

For one, MBA may not make me an expert in functional areas, but it does teach me how to ask the right questions. And I remembered the words of Dr John Mapes – the faculty who interviewed me during admission process – “we do not teach management, we teach how to manage!”

This intertwining of the various courses is the exact overarching objective of Cranfield MBA. And I am glad that I am beginning to catch the unfolding story. Much to my own surprise, I have proceeded much ahead from the prologue. And I had never realized this till now.

Two down, many more to go!

2004-11-27T10:32:00.000Z

In the last eight days Green, Blue and Red stream have had their second WACs – and this time it was on Accounting.

It is a very interesting phenomenon when WAC is in the air. The WAC-day is like a roller coaster ride. When one gets the WAC case at 1130 hours on the scheduled Friday, there are no visible expressions. Each team gets together to discuss their views, thoughts and doubts after the individual reading period of approximately 2 hours. The volunteers for the roles of the scribe, facilitator, devil’s advocate, etc. also get their individual reading done. Post lunch the stream gets together to have the stream dump. By this time, most students are unsure if they have cracked the WAC or not. So we all look forward to the stream dump.

Stream dump has every team coming up with a basic view of what they perceive the solution to be. The experts in the subject play the role of Devil’s advocates. The minutes are documented by another volunteer and these are share with the stream after the dump is over. Then the individuals are on their own. Pizzas wait for us at 1830 hours – these are organized by the other stream representatives. Then each of us head for our favourite places – for some it is the MIRC, for a few others it is the Computer Studio and for many others back home or room is the place to curl in.

The day is a typical depiction of a normal curve. The day progress and so do we – climbing up the curve with information, understanding and knowledge. But by the night falls, the downslide on the curve has happened without any cause. Am I on the right track? Do I understand this clearly? And a few more self doubts start creeping in. The last year orienteers’ had told us “It is normal.” But…….

By midnight the submissions begin. And it is an interesting fact finding mission for the next day – who was the first to submit his / her WAC?

Plop! In goes the WAC folder and when you sign that sheet at the security desk, you are suddenly overcome with a feeling of eternal bliss and joy. The WAC has been lassoed! The two for the Term 1 are down. Now we enjoy the break from WACs; till they come back in Term 2.

Do you manage your time or is time managing you?

2004-11-24T10:34:00.000Z

David Allen, California, USA - a guru in time management who has been called one of the world’s most influential thinkers on productivity and has been a keynote speaker and facilitator for many organizations. We had the pleasure to hear him this evening.

I had attended lectures and workshops on Time management earlier, but had not been able to extract useful take-away’s from such workshops. While I was unsure of what was in store today, my motivation to attend this workshop was purely personal. I have been facing severe time constraints during this Term 1 in Cranfield MBA. The fact that 125 others students also felt the same was no consolation. Something told me that I was going wrong some where. It is just a matter of identifying it.

Since I was an early bird to the lecture theatre, I got a free book - Getting things done - authored by David Allen. It was some incentive for reaching early and taking the front seat. The beginning was good.

The fast speaking David did not spend minutes on coming to the point. He was quick to capture the attention of all with some very insightful statements. In particular, he stressed upon having “focus” on what is the desired outcome and what is the next action. His bottom-line statement was – high performers know how to focus before crisis will make them do it.

The over an hour long session was not only meaningful but thought evoking too. Quite a few amongst us were left wondering “now why did I not think of that before”. Most techniques shared by David were not some mumbo-jumbo tricks or involved high-tech gadgets. They were based on the simple philosophy of discipline, commitment and engaging in action.

The session was very useful and gave me a wake up call. I think I also found the answer to my burning question that I had walked in with – where was I going wrong? I think I knew the answer as I walked out of the lecture room.

The most memorable day at Cranfield

2004-11-23T10:30:00.000Z

Imagine an old man with faded white hair wearing a long overcoat and a big hat, rocking in a rocking chair in the middle of the lecture room sipping Jack Daniels Tennessee whiskey! Or imagine a full chicken sticking out of the flip chart and menu cards kept on each seat. Or imagine the board of directors of Manchester United, Vodafone and Porsche addressing the questions from audience!

Is that difficult to imagine? Strange but true as it may sound, but all this actually happened. At Cranfield MBA, everything is possible. Whosoever suggested that MBA students cannot be creative was making a faux pas. Creativity was at its best today and shall continue for the next two days.

Strategic Marketing Success (SMS) is a part of assessment for the Marketing course. Each learning team has to select a product, brand or a company and study the success story behind it. The exercise involves first writing a 2500 word report and then presenting the story before the stream and lecturers. The stakes are high as this presentation also is considered for part of the assessment in Presentation and Communication Skills (PCS) course. Our team had got the report out of our way last week and it was now time for the d-day. Red stream had all 7 presentations scheduled for the day. Green and Blue follow tomorrow and day after.

After a suspenseful locked-out period of just 5 minutes (that seemed like an hour), the lecture room was opened and were allowed in by Red 1 team. They had made up the room up in a big way, creating the ambience of Nando's chicken - a chain in Milton Keynes. Their performance was brilliant and captured the essence of their recipe for success. With the full chicken stuck on the flip board, they shared the various P’s of marketing. And what more – they even had Moira Clark – our Professor of Marketing - dancing to their chicken-tunes.

Their presentation was followed by “Manchester United” and “Bang and Olufson”. Then it was time for our presentation on Jack Daniels. We had very little props being used – just a rocking chair and a bottle of whiskey. Andrew Cox (Britain) as Jack Daniels and Charles Sincock (Britain) as GI Joe gave scintillating performances. Despite a technical snag, our presentation drew a huge round of applause.

The next three presentations were on Porsche, Unilever Bestfoods China and Vodafone. Steve Carver – Professor of PCS – gave a brief feedback on key observations after each presentation. At the end, Steve and Moira then gave an overall feedback and summarized the presentations. The day will remain etched in my memory for the balance part of the year and thereafter. The day not only brought me closer to Marketing as a subject but also gave me valuable inputs on what makes a successful brand / product / company. Over the next two days, 14 more presentations shall be happening in Green and Blue streams. These include Google, Amul India, Harry Porter, eBay, Lord of the Rings and iTunes, just to name a few.

To be or not to be!

2004-11-22T10:29:00.000Z

Was that Shakespeare at Cranfield? No. This wasn’t Shakespeare or English literature.

It was the Annual “Euro debate” between two Cranfield SOM faculty - David Myddelton from Finance and Accounting department and Sean Rickard from Economics department. The topic was “Should UK be a part of European Union?”

This annual debate is a much sought after event and a great learning experience. The two most reckoned members of faculty in their respective fields come together to stage a debate on a topic that is a source of knowledge and information. Both the faculty members put forward their perspectives that are useful and relevant for our understanding, of the subject in specific and of an economy, in general.

The lecture room was packed to capacity and the aisles were also near full. The debate was structured in the form of a 15 minute individual presentation for both faculty members. They juxtaposed their knowledge with their wit and the audience loved every moment of it. This was followed by questions from the audience. The event went on for almost two hours. Though it was late evening the audience was feeling hungry. Except that the hunger was for more of the debate and question-answer session.

If one’s learning can go up by an exponential factor, this evening must have had that effect on everyone. It was for me, at least. In those two hours, I learnt what many others outside Cranfield may learn by investing days, weeks or even a few months.

Seasons first snow fall!

2004-11-19T10:28:00.000Z

Last night while working at home, a friend called me and said in a poker-voice, “come out, it is snowing”. I told him to stop playing jokes on me but he insisted. So to satisfy him, I looked out of the window and my eyes went wide open. IT WAS SNOWING. Shouting at the top of my voice, I ran down the stairs to catch the first snowfall at Cranfield. We danced in the falling snow like children, excitedly shouting and trying to catch the flakes in our hands.
I just could not contain my excitement. I called up many fellow students and like me, they were caught unawares.

Today morning, it was a beautiful sight (insert picture snow capped houses.jpg) White snow capped houses, cars, grass and trees looked so pretty and calm. For many like me, snow is a rarity and it is a treat to see the beauty of nature in its pristine form. The snow added charm to the already beautiful Cranfield campus that I am in love with.

Italy came to Cranfield

2004-11-17T08:08:00.000Z

Although the dotcom boom may be over, internet based operations are now integral to almost all retailing companies of any size. This session explored an Italian internet/home delivery service based in Milan. It showed the promise of the web-based “front end” of the service, and then contrasted this with the “low-tech” operations of the picking process behind the scenes. This case study presented some of the trade-offs to be addressed by these organisations, particularly looking at the cost of the “last mile logistics” inherent in home delivery.
During this session we were able to:
 Understand the need for a coherent customer service strategy in order to manage the key operational decisions in developing and managing an e-logistics strategy
 Practise our ability to analyse an operations management case and to present our findings and recommendations
 Identify the key elements of an e-logistics approach and to understand how front office (web pages) must be integrated with back office (order fulfilment) processes
I have worked in Operations for over 7 years and it was like creating a movie out of my past experience. In my opinion, a subject like Operations Management (OM) has to be taught through different interactive pedagogy rather than a “follow-the-text-book” method. The simulation exercise was a case in point and today’s lecture was another example. Adding flavour to the lecture was the subtle and not-so-subtle humour used by Alberto. He kept the class gunning for more with a few cheeky jokes as well – which was like an oasis for us students!