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By Book Or By Crook

The other day Kevin Arnold wondered what his father did and his mother said "Daddy is a manager." Now that is as good as telling my good friend, the neighbourhood chaiwallah, that I solve 24th order differential equations for a living. In fact if my father told me he was a manager, it would be as vague for me even today. Thank you Baba for being the "humble Professor". What is a manager? Isn't it all about managing people, relationships, perspectives, thought leadership and teamwork? I believe many of us (if not all) will agree that it is. How then should management be taught? There I go with my questions again!

As I have mentioned before and also promise to repeat many times over, every time life at XLRI gets close to the doldrums of regular B-school business, the students and/or the administration infuse in it a tinge of excitement. And what have you in life if you have not excitement! What can be better than a curriculum which lifts itself out of dullsville and enters the realm of fun. Learn team dynamics and crisis management as you raft across the Dimna reservoir, repose faith in your abilities as you rappel down a wall face - there is no better way to learn than an on-the face, in-the-water experience.

The disadvantages of XLRI's being located in the city of Jamshedpur are mentioned and discussed quite often. However, the advantages make for better discussion. Being close to a Tata company is one such advanatge. So you can very well understand what being in Tatanagar would mean. The Tatas, I have noticed, courtesy to being a Jamshedpur lad, are the frontrunners in corporate social responsibility. TISCO, for example, "also makes steel". In the meanwhile they establish beautiful and exemplary townships, care for the underpriviledged and provide schools and colleges like ours with resources we deem necessary for our growth and learning.

A few weeks back, the Tata Steel Adventure Foundation and XLRI School of Management collaborated to introduce a new and compulsory course for the students of the latter. Students were bussed off to a remote Santhal area on the banks of the Dimna lake. We, the Class of 2007, were taught to put up tents next to grazing goats, to dig our trenches to avoid rain, to take orders from the knowledgable and a whole lot of other things. Making a raft from tyre tubes, bamboo sticks and coconut ropes is an easy thing we learnt. What turned out to be tough (and impossible for those who got stuck in fishing nets) was to row the hellish invention to and fro the lake (boating needs skill I tell you!). And it is at times like these that one learns most - one person on the raft gives up rowing and homeward turns the floating miracle! Then there is confusion and mayhem as the ropes loosen, the tyres distance and in some unfortunate cases the raft turns into several pieces of floating litter. No better place to learn what life has to teach than this!

Then there is the issue of corporate social responsibility. This is something that one can be made to realize. But why wait till we're corporates, someone here wondered. So the curriculum expanded a step further. Several NGOs (some again from the Tatas) joined hands with our school and we packed bags to go live a night or two with the Santhals of Jharkhand. We went, fought with darnkess, mosquitos and possibly contaminated water to come back with learnings. Fortunately we had energetic NGO workers, great weather and the simple village folk on our side. The battle was won with ease.

Case studies, projects and questionnaires are excellent modes of education. But they cannot better what life can teach you even as you bat your eyelids. Luthans cannot tell us what our raft taught us and a whole course in Social Responsibility will not help us fathom what the tribal women of Kolebira need. I call for more of this - more of such out-under-the-open-sky modes in our school and also more schools to adopt these modes. Only then will India get best-equipped managers and Bharat get more responsible citizens!

Freedom of Everything

Competition is said to be the "whetstone" of success. Some of us seemingly have it encoded in every red blood cell possible. I think it is undeniable that in the arena of businesses a competitive spirit will keep us alive and kicking corporate butts.

But should competition have no bounds? Is it healthy and spirited under all circumstances? Would you wrestle with your siblings in order to determine control of the TV remote and expect your parents to cheer from the sidelines? If the answer that echoes unequivocally inside your head is a 'no' then ask yourself where you draw your line. When exactly does it stop being sporty and start spewing animus?

I have asked too many questions and hence thrown too many challenges to the reader. I think I am crossing my own little line here. The time is ripe to send in the balm of a few answers. To agree or not is the reader's choice.

In sport as in life it is impossible to play secluded. The veritable complexity of life lies in that we must consider many things before we decide on anything. So during a game or a competition or in any situation that spurs the Tyson within, pause for a while and decide your priorities. Are the need and the desire to win paramount? Or are you playing to build relationships too? Are you playing for ‘world-peace’ or to take the opposition out ‘piece-by-piece’? There I go again with my questions!

In the past week, we the Class of 2007 were the organizers, players and audience to a large number of cultural and sporting events. Sometimes as players we fought with a seemingly ‘devious’ opposition or an ‘unfair’ umpire/referee. At others, we exasperated when the opposition created mountains out of molehills or protested against the chair’s decision. There was loud cheering and jeering amidst high tension games and competitions and then there was also the round of appreciation after a good performance. At both ends, I the Nero of the Laidback, was at the receiving end for not spotting unfair play and also for not protesting vociferously enough. But the point, my dear (and soon to be dearer) batch mates, is that I wasn’t playing to win at ANY cost. On my list, making friends in my new college is primal. Winning was of course important, but not at the cost of spilling bad blood over a lush green (albeit cheese-holed) football field. What victory would be satisfying if the opposition came not and congratulated me for a good game? None I say, especially when the opposition comprises of those that can soon be friends.

One question I get repeatedly thrown at me is whether IIT culture is about excessive drinking, smoking pot and the amazing metamorphosis of studious geeks into molesting miscreants once a few pegs are down. Once and for all, the answers is no, it is not. What is surprising to me, another seven point someone from one of the IITs, is that people should have such an impression. IIT culture is so much more about hard work and the desire to produce the best at all times. More about that later. So will my alleged "IIT Culture" percolate with me into these precincts? Of course it will. We all have come from different corners of our country with a baggage of assumptions, cutlures and perceptions. Here we will mix, match, sieve out and keep the best of all. With beautiful traditions set by generations of XLers before us and the assimilations from the new ones, only good can happen to XLRI.

Shutting out anything is an extreme step. We cannot and should not shut out competition. Neither should we throttle the seeds of friendships just to win a football game (for instance). We cannot shut out cultures either – simply because we carried these cultures into XLRI with us. Now we must depend on the good senses of a community to sieve out the bad and assimilate the good of it all. Let us all be free and fair, in our judgments, aspirations, choices and relationships. Ah, what a wonderful world it will be then!

Born to XL

At the break of June Jamshedpur is a rather lousy place to be in. The sun beats down mercilessly on a rather listless and brown-baked Jharkhand town. Smiles dry up from all faces just like the wells and lakes all around. It was in the midst of such aridity that I, the emperor of frowns arrived in XLRI. And like a sheltered middle-East oasis it opened its gates to me with unassuming emotion. The desert of knit brows ended with the auto rickshaw driver who got me here. Inside, waiting to be discovered and then enjoyed was a treasure trove of smiles, greetings and introductions. In spite of the sweat and grime there still remains many a reason to warm up to others.

A week later, the usual monsoon date crossed with room to spare, and we are still sweating and looking skyward in hapless prayer. The delay in rains and the intolerable humidity seem to be the Devil’s only aides in preventing us from creating our own small heaven here.

The prep course has been a revelation. It has proved to be not just a whirlwind of finances, math, OB and many other whatnots. In its unrelenting package is included several sporting and cultural events, lectures on values and self analysis and of course good-humored inter-group competitiveness. A week back a bunch of truants assembled here unguarded and unprotected. Seven days hence we are still ‘home alone’. Though we miss our guardians-in-absentia, we haven’t quite brought the house down like Macaulay Culkin. To put it modestly, we are fitting in quite well and assuming a culture we have only heard or read about.

The lecture on ‘values’ was noteworthy. After all wasn’t ethics something Fr.Thana taught way back in high school? What does it have to do with the world of slit-throat greenback-hungry professionals for who there is no free lunch? However the very intent of apprising neophytes like us with ethics in the corporate field is noble. Unfortunately the means did not toe the high line set by the ends. The discussion drifted towards Indian philosophy, the atma, the Hindu way of life etc. Though the lecture was thoroughly informative and the deliverer full of knowledge, the session left most in the audience disillusioned and cynical rather than satisfied and illuminated. Probably emphasizing on a manager’s perspective would have been more fulfilling.

A week is down and several questions are doing the rounds on the JLT Lawns these days. How is ragging going to be? Will we sleep as little for the next 2 years? When will it rain? Don’t the cafeterias open beyond midnight? Are there books for everyone in the library? Did you understand all that was taught in ‘quant’ today? When do the IIMC Jokas arrive here?

The answers to these questions and the many others I haven’t mentioned are too cumbersome and subjective to opinion. These are the days to ignore questions, avoid introspection and live every zimzamming moment to the fullest. To every question posed annoyingly to you, answer with a “what shall be, shall be” and throw in a “carpe diem” for the questioner’s peace.