Reflections….

Of 3 good years....

The year was 2012. It was a tough decision to make. I always wanted to do an MBA. But after my engineering, I had started to work and hence this was always in the backburner. I also wanted to do a course that was well recognized and hence satellite programs were not an option. Technical reasons apart, I seriously doubted by perseverance skills. People who know me from my engineering days would vouch for that. For me it was never a problem of skill or ability but more of going through the grind for a long period was a problem, the basic requirement for any good professional course.  Thanks to the encouragement of my wife, I decided to give it a shot. Selecting the college was a no brainer for me. Any institute other than a A level institute was not even in the consideration set. Being located in Jamshedpur as part of my work, XLRI was the only option. Since satellite programs were out of the question, the only course to pursue was the 3 year evening post graduate diploma program. The 3 years in the program, to say the least, was a roller coaster ride. I went through successes, failures, joy, jubilation, frustration, anger, sadness, stress and many more. Lets just put it this way, it was the whole platter. Was it really worth it? I really do think so. Was it the academics that I learnt or was it beyond that? I think it was way beyond. Academics is surely something that you will learn but the learnings beyond the academics was what i felt, atleast for me the real learnings. Let me just pen down a few

Time Management

I was the classic student always. Even after 10+ years of working, I was the classic student. If student syndrome was a problem for students, it held on to me even after my engineering days. I was the classic "P" in MBTI. The perceiver, who like to wait till the very last moment. While all of this sounds very nice, the fact was that I was plain lazy. I would not like to get up from the couch unless my ass catches fire. I had no option but to change. After starting my course, my typical day looks like this. Wake up at 5:30AM, play tennis from 0600 hrs to 0730 hrs. Back home and quickly eat something and run to office. Work from 0830hrs to 1745 hrs. Drive to XLRI and classes from 1830hrs to 2140hrs. Reach back home, quickly eat something and in bed by 2300hrs. The assignments, reports etc were additions to this. This was my routine for 3 years,  6 days a week. While this may sound crazy, there were 75 of us doing it and another 2 batches of 75 each. I realized that it was not at all difficult, provided you plan it well.

Waking up half an hour late meant disaster, sitting idle on a weekend meant disaster. This course just took the "P" in me for a ride to Chinatown and back.

I also realized that time management is not just about scheduling things, but also about prioritization, delegation and communication. You have to submit an assignment at 1800hrs and your boss needs a presentation at 1700hrs and both was told to you in the morning. Which one will you do? Or would you do both. This is where prioritization comes in, the ability to delegate comes in and the skill to communicate in advance of what is possible and not comes. All of us are reluctant delegators.  A lot of it has to do with what we are culturally. We as a culture like to yield power. Look around, you will find people trying to yield and hang on to power. Delegation means, that you have to transfer some of that powers to someone else. You have to share information and knowledge that you think gives you power to someone else. This from a mindset perspective is not easy. Every working professional will go through this dilemma at one stage or the other in their careers. But the good leaders, are the ones who get it right. It was when I was  pushed to the wall, that I understood the power of delegation.

People think delegation is pushing the job down, to your subordinates. While this is one of the forms of delegation, this course also taught me how to delegate to your peers and in many cases to your bosses too. This is where the ability to inspire comes. Come to think of it, the only way to make someone give in their 100% for you is through inspiration only. No salaries would, no carrot and stick would. How did Arvind Kejriwal make working professionals earning 5 figure salaries to quit and join him with? The answer is inspiration. You can inspire someone only when you display behaviors that inspire. Do you practice what you preach? Do you have a good value system? Are you honest, trust worthy, fair? If you are, people tend to get inspired and work for you. Delegation at any level will work only if you are able to inspire. Can you get your batch mate to do the assignment for your group that you committed that you will do because you are stuck with work?  Can you make your boss make that presentation himself as you are busy with your assignment? This is when you are a good delegator and not when you shove it to a hapless subordinate

The importance of Give and Take

I realized while delegating, inspiring etc, the importance of the phrase "Give and Take". Ever wondered why it is not the other way round? "Take and give". Because it does not work that way. You have to give something to get something in return. People even misinterpret this. People think that give and take has to be in the same time frame, otherwise they lose out. For example, if you want someone to do something for you,  take him out for a dinner. How silly can that be? It is not only silly, it looks plain sleazy. The key is to give first and without the take part. When you are in a position to give, give as much as you can.  Dont worry about when you can get it back. Fact is sooner or later you will. It may not even be from the same person, but someone else. The fact is people observe you far more closely than you think. Your act of giving is not only watched by the recipient of that act, but a whole host of others too.

In the initial days of the course, I used to take a lot of interest in doing the presentations, group assignments etc and used to do it on behalf of the team since I had the bandwidth then. During the latter stages of the course, people used to help me back, not necessarily the same people whom I have helped. That is the way it goes. Give and take works, but not in the way we think normally. Delegation at peer level and above works in the same philosophy. Be ready to be delegated by your boss and colleagues, help them, you will have an army of people inspired to be delegated by you.

The "Experience" and Perseverance

I began this article by mentioning about the doubts that I had about persevering for 3 years to complete this course. I had these doubts from my previous experiences as a student and the struggle it was. But through this course, I realized my problem was not that of perseverance but that of the environment and the experience that you go through. What is this experience? It is the whole package that makes the time spent at any place, be it work, college or home, memorable or detestful. In pure Organizational Design parleys, it is called as the culture of the place.

I realized that perseverance in XLRI was not a problem at all due to its fantastic culture. Our education system encourages us to be conformists. It starts from school days, where deviations from the norms is considered to be a sin. It continues to college where anything that is not the norm is dealt with severe resistance. My biggest problem from my school days has been conformance. I find it very difficuilt to follow something blindly, until it makes sense to me. Attending classes that is of no interest to me, or listening to professors who cannot add any value made absolutely no sense to me

But XLRI is one place where I found a significant difference to this. There is very little emphasis given to being a conformist and to be bounded by boundaries. The discussions in the classes, the freedom given to students to think independently, the maturity of the professors in these matters is to say the least, very welcoming. It is this experience that makes this institute what it is. I would certainly go out and talk about this fantastic place, but may not talk about some of the other places where I have studied.  The difference is the experience. The size of the buildings does not matter, the wi fi does not matter, the library does not matter, if this experience is not there. It is the culture that frees up people to use all the knowledge, experience and infrastructure on campus to excel. Spending 3 years in such a fantastic culture, despite the pressures of academics becomes a pleasure. And what makes this culture? It is people. In fact it is all people, the administrators, the faculty, the students, the guards, Daddu and many many invisible and unseen people. I fondly remember the warmth of the security guards to begin with

I realize this is true even for organizations. What makes employees stay long in an organization is the culture. No gyms, salaries, holiday tickets, chauffeur driven cars, state of the art buildings can make an employee stick to the organization if the culture is not there. And it is people starting from top to the bottom that makes the culture. For me the definition of a good culture is a place where one can just be himself and does not have to pretend. Cummins is one such organization where working has been a pleasure and not a stress.

Managing Stress

A lot of people mistake my earlier said perseverance issue to inability to handle stress and pressure. I hope that I was able to explain the connect between "experience" and perseverance. I have realized that while trying to manage stress it is very important to understand the reason behind the stress. Many a times, people dont even understand the reasons behind the stress and try to attack it. No yoga, no religion would help if you don’t understand the cause of stress. And many a times, people think stress and pressure are the same things. Fact is that they are not. You may be in pressure to meet an impending deadline, but that may not be stress, and that you maybe doing nothing at this moment but under a lot of stress

I had mentioned earlier of my daily work routine for the past 3 years, starting from 5:30 in the morning to 11 in the night. Any outsider would think it as a highly stressed life. But let me tell you, I was never under stress. I may have got tired, but was not under stress. I used to play, which was my passion, I was working in an organization that had a fantastic culture, and was studying in an institute that also had a fantastic culture. There was no stress. I was enjoying it. Of course there was the pressure of deadlines, exams, performance at work etc, but they were not stresses. They were just pressures and I always enjoyed a challenge or two.

However, imagine I was doing only one of the main 3 routine activities that I mentioned earlier. Lets say that I was only working, but in an organization that had a terrible work culture. Lets assume that the work place had terrible politics, that every step might be a landmine waiting to explode, lets assume people are generally suspicious of each other there. And believe me, I have worked in such places too. Lets say since I do nothing else, I work for 8 hrs and back home early at 5PM every day. For me, this is stress. Being in a place where I cannot be myself and must be guarded everytime, faced with all insecurities at all times, surely is stress. I would any day trade this kind of a life to a jam packed 18 hour day, but in the right environment

Performing under pressure

While performing under pressure was a daily task in this 3 year endeavor, I learnt about how to perform under pressure outside the academics of XLRI. I ll have to bring in our fond XLRI - IIM C meet here. Being part of the winning tennis team for 2 years, i realized the meaning of performing under extreme pressure, first by a failure and then learning from that failure to a win. In 2014, even though we won the team tennis , I lost the men’s singles match to a player whom I thought was not better than me. I was angry, felt humiliated and frustrated. On hindsight, when I looked at it, that match had nothing to do with skill or ability or talent. It had everything to do with my ability to handle pressure. The first thing that you forget when under pressure is your ability to think logically. This is where muscle memory comes into play. This is why the more you practice, the more equipped you become to handle pressure as muscle memory takes over. I learnt this big lesson. While I have played a lot of tennis, I was woefully short of match practice and also that I did not think logically under pressure. It took almost a year to work on this and come back the next year and win. The key to performance under pressure is to have the experience of 'being there done that' and the ability to take a step back and think. I ll never forget the sledging, especially the one in Malayalam in the 2nd year. To be in the midst of such pressure and be in a zone of yourself is an art. This is true even in the professional work place. While under pressure mangers forget to think logically and tend to take decisions, in many cases stupid ones, in the heat of the moment. The trick is the ability not to get sucked into the situation, but to take a step back,  think through and then decide. Needless to say it comes from experience. I have read somewhere, that whenever you have to take a major decision, either professionally or in life in general, always sleep over it, if you can afford to. A good nights rest allows logical thinking while keeping the emotions in check

The Importance of "Loved Ones"

R Gopalakrishnan in his book "When the Penny Drops" said that the most bluntest and honest feedback that you can ever get is from your loved ones. While one may look around for feedback in office, from friends and may get it too, it may not be the correct one, as it is always given considering the social norms. Loved ones may be your parents, spouse, some special friends etc. This is because, this is the only set of people who is going to stick by you through heaven and hell and hence will have the courage and conviction to give you the most honest feedback. They are the ones who genuinely wants you to get better every day as they are in it for the long haul with you

For me, my family was the pillar of strength which allowed me to go through and complete this course. For 3 years, the entire responsibility of running the family was taken up by Cheryl (my wife). From buying groceries, to taking good care of the kid, to keeping alive our social commitments, including talking to our parents, planning holidays and much more, was completely done by her. Our son was also born during this period. While her name may not appear at the certificate that I get, she deserves a place in it too. In fact the whole family chipped in in ways that they could. Parents who ensured that I was not bothered with anything else, to them visiting us every now and much more pitching in.

Come to think if it. When you suddenly start with something like this, for the extra time that you spend in the college, the time at work cannot decrease. You are paid salary not for attending classes but for delivering results. The only place hence, where the time spent can decrease is the time spent at home. This can become a hell, if the ones at home does not accept this fact. For me, luckily, I had a family who not only understood, but also went out of the way to support me to succeed. My son, was too young to understand all of this, except that his dad disappears time to time

The inverse relationship between Ego and Competence

Ever wondered what makes people to behave with ego? I have always wondered what drives people to behave in the way they do and even take stupid decisions because of their ego. I was never able to understand this one

But through the course of the 3 years at XLRI, I realized that ego and your competence levels have inverse relationship with each other. In other words, the more an authority you are on your subject, the lesser of an ego you will carry with yourself. I have made this observation from some of the great and brilliant professors at XLRI. Professors like  Pingali Venugopal and Rajiv Misra are known experts of their respective areas not just in XLRI but across the country and globally. They carry around themselves with absolutely no ego. People at such levels of competence normally have no ego. The reason: they are not there to prove anything to anyone. What excites them is when they transfer that knowledge to someone and also when they are challenged intellectually. In their classes, conformance does not carry marks. Getting attendance may not carry marks but your ability to take part in good intellectual debates may, vomiting out theoretical concepts may not, but your ability to use those concepts in a practical situation will.

This is so true in organizations too. The egoistic ones that you come across are the ones who lack the skills. The only way to hide the incompetence is to build a wall of ego. Rather than focus on building the skills and striving to become experts they create a fortress of ego which not only makes them behave irrationally, but put them in a situation where they can’t ask for help as they have shut themselves from their colleagues who can help. Hence, they themselves deprive themselves a chance to become good at something. The result, they try to hold on to whatever they know, try not to share any of it with anyone and in a way, desperately attempt to prolong the inevitable. But the inevitable happens every time. I have seen it far too many times. They will make themselves useless over a period of time. The pattern and the result is the same always.

Unfortunately, in the Indian context, a large number of our middle managers fall into this category. This is the reason why, in the Indian organizations, a lot of the politics, ego clashes and so on happens at this level. I am not saying that other countries are immune to these problems, but I see it more prevalent here. I am not expert to find out the reasons for, it may be our mindset of conformance, or our culture of paternal relationships that exists in Indian organizations even today. Whatever be it, I can surely say that it is not good for the organization. The problem is large enough when we have a lot of mid managers who fits into this category, but the larger issue is when these ones gets promoted to the senior management. This is where it starts affecting the culture of organizations. Fiefdoms and power centers hence starts getting creating within the organization, as the primary intent is not excellence, but that of protecting ones terrain. Good organizations manage this smartly by ensuring that this lot does not move up further.    

The real meaning of Team Work

What is team work? The image that comes to most of the minds is the picture of smartly dressed man and women, in a corporate board room, discussing and debating things, till they reach the Eureka moment. This happens in Indian corporate organizations also. The naturally argumentative Indians, in the name of team work, gets into endless meetings, discussing everything relevant and irrelevant and no concrete actions. The results, countless hours of productivity lost and umpteen cups of coffee drunk.

During the 3 years at XLRI, I understood the real meaning of team work. It was never taught as a lesson, but was literally forced upon us due to our circumstances. Since most of us were working professionals, time was always the constraining factor. Especially in group activities like projects and seminars this was a big factor. There was no question of meeting for countless hours, debating etc. In fact, this was the route we tried in our first couple of group assignments, and by the end of it, we burnt our fingers well enough to realize that this will not work. For any group activity the plan was simple. Individuals in the team decide, who will do what, and get it done. On the day of the submission, meet once, the individuals explain their part to the others, and final consolidation happens.

For me this is the real meaning of team work. Team work means, breaking down the project into tasks, make individuals responsible for the tasks. The role of the leader of the groups is to equip the team members with whatever they need to complete the tasks. The other job of the team leaders is to ensure that the big picture is not lost while the tasks are being carried out by individuals. It is that simple. It does not require, hours of meetings, and discussions on all issues under the sun. I am not trying to discount the importance of meetings. All what I am trying to say, is meetings are not an indication of team work, in fact it can be counter productive

Passion and Drive to Succeed

Let me go back to my favourite part of my 3 years at XLRI. The XLRI – IIM C meet. For the first time in many years, XLRI won for 2 consecutive years. While this may look to not a big achievement, lets look at the numbers. XLRI always had a smaller student community when compared to its rivals. This is because of the differences in the batch size and the courses on offer. Hence the pool to get the talent to play in these events is smaller for XLRI. I have interacted closely with the XLRI teams of the last couple of years. And the difference I find in them is passion. Passion and drive to succeed in fact are synonymous with each other.  It is the passion that helps to break the systemic barriers, be it the smaller talent pool, or anything else. It is the passion that makes people do unbelievable things. The sheer passion exhibited by this group of students was plain incredible. The passion that drove them to success

Look at all the sporting greats. The only factor that differentiates them with the rest is passion. Look at Roger Federer. While he may have loads of talent, he may not be the only talented tennis player around. In fact there may be many who might have had more talent but have not achieved any of what he did. He definitely is not the most muscular man in the tour. He is not the fastest around. What makes him apart from the rest. It is his passion for the game. It is that passion that drives him to success, it is that passion that pushes him to play at the highest levels at the age of 33, it is the passion that takes him to court for practice even today after almost 20 years in the tour. The truly great ones are all driven by passion

The real meaning of Diversity

I have heard the word diversity given a lot of importance in todays organizations. Many organizations preach that they are the best in diversity and taunt best practices to prove their point. Very few organizations, from atleast the ones that I have worked in practice diversity in its true spirit. Cummins again is a good example.

What is diversity? The moment the word gets spoken, what comes to a lot of peoples minds is gender diversity. Is diversity only gender? Is having a good male to female ratio a good indication of diversity? If so, all IT companies are good places as far as diversity goes. The fact is gender ratio numbers are not even indicative of diversity. Diversity has a far reaching definition that goes far beyond gender into geography, religion, age, caste and many more.

The real issue in fact is not the numbers. The real measure of diversity is culture. In fact, what our founding fathers mentioned in our constitution which is part of our fundamental right as per the constitution is the real meaning of diversity. Right to equality of the Indian constitution says: Which includes equality before law, prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, gender or place of birth, and equality of opportunity in matters of employment, abolition of untouchability and abolition of titles.

Going by this definition, how many organizations truly are places which promote diversity. They may have great male to female ratio, but what about opportunities? Is women given the same opportunities to grow as their male counter parts? Have a look at the gender ratio in the middle and top management, the story begins to emerge. Does the organization has a bias towards a religion, caste or language? Does the organization have a redressal mechanism that the employees truly believe in? Almost all organization has a grievance mechanism but how many of them has a believability attached to it? Needless to say, very few organizations practice diversity

XLRI is one place where I have seen real diversity in practice. Where you are from, what gender you are, what religion you practice does not matter. What matter is only merit. This extends beyond academics to non-academics. In fact diversity gets celebrated in a unique way and the institute supports it. I fondly remember the Keraxi dinner, with Appam and Stew hosted by Keralites to the entire student and teacher community. Similiarly all other states host their own dinners, not for their own lot, but for the whole campus. Diversity gets celebrated here. I have never heard a girl student in XLRI say that I cannot do something as it is meant for men only. Everything is open for everyone. That is the true meaning of diversity, when equal opportunity exists for everyone.

Conclusion

I feel that students passing out from colleges like XLRI are sought out in the industry because they tend to bring to the table, things which are far beyond academics. I realized through the last 3 years, that great institutions make this possible for students by offering avenues that goes way beyond academics. Academic skill in todays world where information is widely available can be learnt even if these great institutions does not exist. But what gets really taught in the campus that goes far beyond normal academics cannot be taught be everyone and only truly great institutions can.