• I used to hate math. Not because of any great reasons but that the teachers, later professors never explained the application of mathematics. The context was missing to appreciate its beauty. Why did I need a quadratic equation? Why do I need to understand calculus? These were some of the questions that went unanswered.

Today, after many years I still struggle to concentrate in a math class. Though I know much more of math than I knew when I was in school or undergraduate college, I still cannot claim to understand the usefulness of each theorem. I hate math when it is not provided with context. I asked the professor to provide the context. He asked me to be a bit more patient till we reach calculus by when it should be evident on the usefulness and business application of math. I surely have that much of patience.

• ISB has coffee/tea vending machines at some corners. You can have your coffee/tea by using a “five rupee coin”. It accepts nothing but a five rupee coin. This morning an old visiting professor was disillusioned after he failed to have his coffee with two and one rupee coins with him. A few of us had had such experience of not being able to have coffee despite having five rupees but not having a five rupee coin. Now I guess all coffee lovers can be spotted with such coin in their person. I will wait for all new things that ISB campus and education will make me do.

• I was sick of seeing myself and people around in formal attire. It is a refreshing change to see people in informal wear. The informal dressing goes with what happens in the campus. Informal atmosphere. No fetters. There is a book called Sartor Resartus by Thomas Carlyle in which he writes about the philosophy of dressing. What you wear to an extent influences what you (can) think. Nakedness and self-watching are an effective way to purge ‘ego’.

• I used to hate math. Not because of any great reasons but that the teachers, later professors never explained the application of mathematics. The context was missing to appreciate its beauty. Why did I need a quadratic equation? Why do I need to understand calculus? These were some of the questions that went unanswered.

Today, after many years I still struggle to concentrate in a math class. Though I know much more of math than I knew when I was in school or undergraduate college, I still cannot claim to understand the usefulness of each theorem. I hate math when it is not provided with context. I asked the professor to provide the context. He asked me to be a bit more patient till we reach calculus by when it should be evident on the usefulness and business application of math. I surely have that much of patience.

• ISB has coffee/tea vending machines at some corners. You can have your coffee/tea by using a “five rupee coin”. It accepts nothing but a five rupee coin. This morning an old visiting professor was disillusioned after he failed to have his coffee with two and one rupee coins with him. A few of us had had such experience of not being able to have coffee despite having five rupees but not having a five rupee coin. Now I guess all coffee lovers can be spotted with such coin in their person. I will wait for all new things that ISB campus and education will make me do.

• I was sick of seeing myself and people around in formal attire. It is a refreshing change to see people in informal wear. The informal dressing goes with what happens in the campus. Informal atmosphere. No fetters. There is a book called Sartor Resartus by Thomas Carlyle in which he writes about the philosophy of dressing. What you wear to an extent influences what you (can) think. Nakedness and self-watching are an effective way to purge ‘ego’.

• During my work-ex, I attended a lot of training programs. A lot of them did not mean anything to me, because some were not good and some were too boring. Most of them had no purpose. Good thing about these training programs was the employers paid for them. I got free lunch, coffee, tea & snacks all the time. The accommodation usually was good. One or two of the training programs I took my wife along.

Today I sat in a proper ‘classroom’ after a long long time. This time I ‘chose’ to sit. I paid for it. I sat there with a purpose – to get my MBA degree. The downside was I did not get any free coffee, tea & snacks. How were the classes? These are just pre-term classes. I would rate them good. Not out of the world. I eagerly await the start of the first term, which is when we will get a chance to be taught by the who’s who of the world of management education.

• As I had written in the Naked Ape blog, people are religiously following the principle explained by Desmond Morris. People move in small groups. Once the group is large enough (say not more than 10), it typically tends to become closed.

• I keep saying hello/hi to other students who walk by. I don’t know their names. It is just out of courtesy that I/all keep doing it. Many of them are quite tired saying hello/hi and getting to introduce themselves and getting to know others. Beyond a point, man is a-social.

• Library is open from 8 am to 2 am. Café is open till 12 midnight. Pretty Cool.

• Internet speeds are at 100 Mbps. This is also pretty damn cool.

• Technology usage is maximized here. I realize that I am technologically challenged. Improving skills to use the common software applications is now on my priority.

• Bankers are a very lowly represented community here. Good for me.

• The resources/tasks available are much more than what one can manage. One learns the basic management lesson of ‘prioritizing’ without ever being given any gyan on the same.

• I bumped into my school chum. We studied together about 17 years ago. Add to it, he is a part of our study group of six people. Call this coincidence; world is a small place. Whatever.

Home @ ISB: We have now moved both physically and mentally to ISB. This will remain our Home for the next 12 months. I hope to be able to make best use of the resources here to improve myself. Let me see how far I will go on the ‘improvement meter’.

Lost in the crowd: People say two is company; three is crowd. What do you say when there are about 320 people. I have never in my life been amongst so many people. My first reaction to this – I am lost.

LRC: The learning resource centre (read library) at ISB is simply quite amazing. It could not get better. I have access to plethora of database and information (all e-access). It is important not to get lost and lose focus. Read what is important and relevant.

Recreation: This is a good place. There is a variety of offerings from swimming pool to squash court. I will have to figure out what I can or need to do here. Will I be able to learn swimming here at least?

Laptop: is now an integral part of my being. You can rarely spot me with this and me separated.

Wi-fi: ISB is a wi-fi spot. Cool. I have asked Airtel to disconnect my GPRS connection.

No need to go to gym: From my experience during the last two days, I can say that I am going to walk at least 3-4 kilometers a day in the campus. Moving from one building to another is pretty long. Add the weight of laptop to it. I really don’t have to go to the gym to burn calories.

PS: Too early to write about people here. Since there are many of them, it will be a while before I know the names, types and my-types. But rest assured, there are a lot of types which as a student of human behavior I will be glad to observe and report.

What I want from my one year @ ISB

– New perspectives on life
– Better organisation and management capabilities
– Ability to handle complex data for decision-making
– Be among top ten percentile in terms of grades
– A few good friends
– Last but not least, an MBA degree to be able to proudly say that I am an MBA. And that from ISB.

What I don’t want to lose

– Ability to make intuition based decisions
– Lateral thinking
– Ability to be as comfortable with an office boy as much as the ability to befriend senior people
– My old friends and contacts
– My appetite for risk taking (usually with MBA degree, people become risk averse)
– My commitment for my long-term personal goals (balance of physical, mental, social and spiritual aspects of life)

Where and how far I will go in life will now depend solely on how much I am willing to slog the next one year.

Come tomorrow and my life will never be the same again.

Post Scriptum:

My Corporate Banking teammates hosted a dinner for me this evening. It is a great feeling to be wanted even when you don’t belong to the organisation. It is not sure if we all will ever work together again. But such token of affection and regard go a long way in proving that life is much more than task-oriented. These small things surely make life worth living. This is to all my teammates.

• Finally, my last day at HDFC Bank. I am as much sad leaving this organisation, as I am happy about joining ISB. But as everything has a first time, everything has a last time too.

• The placement report of ISB was quite enthusing. USD 181k dint enthuse me as much as the report that some of the students went at Director, COO level. I always believed in one thing. Money chases good positions. Hence, chase good positions. Not money.

• Two days and I will move to the campus. I revisited my “to do” list. I can give myself a pat on the back for being relatively organised.

• One thing all people moving to Hyderabad from cooler places of the world should factor in to improve their performance is handling the summer of Hyderabad. The sun is blazing as though it would never get an opportunity again. You cannot complain that I dint warn.

• Hyderabad has come up with quite a few/good Café Coffee Day Centres. One such good café is in Jubilee Hills, relatively close to ISB. I was at this café today. This is the most happening place in Hyderabad. Exclude 10D, B&C, Liquids and Touch – the famous lounge bars of Hyderabad.

• I sat in front of the TV well beyond the stipulated time to watch “Sex and the City” for perhaps the last time before I get placed at ISB. It dint happen. Any idea why those single, enterprising, and famous women ditched me?

• I can understand the difficulty of the people who are moving from various places to relocate to ISB. Managing to transfer the luggage, getting used to the climate of a new city, leaving behind a well-set life. Not easy at all.

• Fee of INR 15 lac, Opportunity cost of INR 15 lac, 10 KMs of road journey, a car full of luggage, my wife, my thinking, and my ambition. This is all my journey to ISB is about. ISB, here I come.

Diversity is about different thoughts, different habits, different backgrounds, different skills, different knowledge, different degrees, etc. We usually get along with people who think as we do or at least have the ability to change himself / herself to the way we see things. A wife and husband can live a long life together because they start to think and become alike. Usually diversity is something we don’t see in every day life.

This is because ‘context’ is an important and powerful enabler of the way we think. Put people from diverse backgrounds into a common system, it is likely that in a year or a couple of years’ time, all of them will think more or less alike. Hence our friends, our colleagues, our family members all more or less have a similar way of thinking. Our contexts are same. Hence similar ways of thinking.

Consequently, what a b-school can ensure is that at entry stage, there is enough diversity in the school. It picks up people from various backgrounds with different degrees, different work experience, different opinions, etc. It hopes that the school becomes a melting pot of ideas and thoughts. This will happen, no doubt. But, as the time goes, all the students will start thinking alike. The common context of the location, assignments, tests, stress of performance, placements, et al will define the way all students think. Since these are going to be common, it is quite likely all the students will start thinking alike. This will peak just before the placement time. Once the placements are over and when the students start thinking about the new jobs and the new places they are going to work at, thoughts again will move in different directions.

The power of the immediate context to influence the way of thinking cannot be overstated.

Enter the week, when I would move to the campus to become a student after aeons. During the last few weeks since I got the call from ISB, in spite of my best efforts I have succumbed to Parkinson’s Law. As I shopped for the prescribed books and after seeing and feeling the size of each of these books, apart from feeling a scare, I realised that the only way to keep abreast of these books and the learning and gyan that all the Profs would impart, is to have supreme control over Time.

All get only 24 hours a day. No point cribbing about having only that much. I am not too sure what I will do/will have to do these 24 hours, but I guess I more or less know what I will not do / will not have to do these 24 hours. Let me see what emerges.

1. No TV (I will save 2 hours of time)
2. No talking on cell phone (save 2 hours)
3. No driving to the office and back (save about 30 minutes)
4. No office (save about 8 hours)
5. No general reading (save about 2 hours)

These total to about 14.5 hours. That’s a good amount of time!

I know there will be classes, library visits, group work, and a lot of study. Now I also know for sure I have these 14.5 hours, which I can put to effective use.

I will have control over Time by not necessarily doing certain things; but by not doing / not having to do certain other things.

My boss was on his bi-monthly trip to Hyderabad to meet clients.

The first statement he made when I met him at the airport was, ‘next time I come I will not see this familiar face’. We met some existing clients and new ones. He gave a farewell dinner for me. He bought a book for me. Last two days, we had a ball of a time discussing intellectual stuff, cracking jokes and discussing business.

All along one thing that was underlying was my feeling that I won’t be working for him any longer. I am sure he also had a similar feeling. In fact he was quite expressive and said in so many words that the entire team including he are going to miss me. It was moment of elation juxtaposed with sadness.

In my long years of experience, I haven’t seen a boss like him and haven’t seen a ‘complete man’ like him. Our relationship was bordering more on friendship than on boss-subordinate level.

I realised that I was working more for my boss than for the organisation. If I did not have MBA plans and if my boss were moving from this organisation it was highly likely that I would also move with him. Also, if chance occasions I would be glad to work with him again.

I don’t intend to give up this relationship. If it is not in the form of boss, I would definitely like to continue to have him as my friend and mentor.

If MBA degree were necessary for success then we would not have had Sam Waltons, Bill Gates and Dhirubhais of the world. If MBA degree were to guarantee success then all people with MBA degrees should have been successful.

However, that is not the case. Then what is it that makes successful people.

It is people who buy goods and services
It is people who sell goods and services
It is people who are our colleagues
It is people who are our bosses
It is people who are our competitors
It is people who are our family and friends

World is made of people.

The ability to deal with and relate to people is the most important differentiating factor. People ability is the key to success.

When you are a boss, the ability to pick up the right kind of team
When you are a strategist, the ability to pierce into the plans of the competition
When you are a salesperson, the ability to read the pulse of the customer
When you are a colleague, the ability to collaborate to effect synergies
When you are a friend, the ability to listen and empathize

It is critical to be able to operate at various levels depending on whom you are dealing with. Be a people person.

Post Scriptum:
1. An MBA degree is an additional tool in the hands of an already smart person.
2. Success is a relative term. Here the reference is to the meaning, which is generally agreed upon.