Pre-Terms done

As I blog after one of the better parties at ISB organized by Liquids(these bars come to ISB to conduct promotional events) some of us are also rejoicing the fact that pre-term courses are over and we are ready to get into Term 1. The pre-term experience was overall pretty good. I had enrolled myself for all three pre-terms of which I would say that quantitative methods was not really necessary. As a matter of fact I learnt new things only in the Accounting classes. The QM guy was actually good. He was touching a lot on philosophy and mathematics and it was quite an interesting fare. The stats guy made himself popular with the 'Boy meets Girl' problem, one that was well received by all the students. The accounts teacher taught us a lot of new concepts. I now know how to balance assets with liabilities and equity. Wow I have already started learning business. Core term 1 starts on monday and I have lots of pre-reading to do before class starts. I will start something productive tomorrow.

IIM results are out. AFAIK two from ISB have made it to IIMs also. One guy has decided to leave ISB and another has decided to stick on. Well personal requirements matter a lot here. My personal take is that if you have less than 3 years exp. go to IIM else stick to ISB.

The Three Islands

'The Three Islands' is a nice little game that was part of the 'Bind Unwind' team building exercise we had last week. The concept of the game was simple. A group of 30 odd people were split into three teams and were made to move to circles that were drawn on three ends of a small grassy area. Apparently as part of the game these circles were designated as islands and out of which two were sinking. The rest of the ground was supposed to be water. The three teams were then deliberately deprived some essential physical faculties. One team was totally blind folded, my team was deprived of any chance to speak (the dumb team) and the third team's members had their legs tied. Now the blind team was given small pieces of sponge which were the props that can be used to cross over to the island that will not sink. The blind team and our team(the dumb team) were secretly told that our islands were sinking. The lame team was only told that two islands were sinking, so they were not sure if their island was sinking. The whole group was then given one hour to get ourselves transported to the island that is not sinking. Sounds simple right. But what happened over the next one hour unraveled some really striking management fundae. Actually the fact that I was part of the dumb team helped me observe things much better. Ok, so here is what happened.

As would any logical team do, the lame team shouted out to the blind team and asked them if their island was sinking. The blinds said yes and we the dumbos were listening. Then the lames turned over and asked the dumbos if their island was sinking and the dumbos nodded "Yes". But the interesting thing is the blind guys could not see this and so they were not sure which other island was sinking. So now the lame team knew that they were in safe harbor and realized that only they can help the whole group achieve the team goal of getting rescued from sinking. So they called out the blind team to get one of them come over to the lame island placing the props sequentially and get saved. Then one of the lames can limp over to the dumb island and then the dumbos will get the rest of the blind guys saved.

Here is when an interesting twist happened. The blind team got a feeling that the lame guys were probably trying to deceive them. They started asking why the lame team wanted to help them when their own island was not sinking !!! What the heck can the lame guys answer for this??? The seeds of distrust were sown and the blind guys decided to come to the dumb island which was an impossible task based on the arrangement of the islands. We dumbers were totally at loss as we could not do anything to make the situation better. The one hour elapsed and the blind guys could manage nothing and essentially the entire group lost the game.

Thinking back on the game I could relate it precisely to any organisational set up. The blind guys were like the top management. They had what it needs to save the entire group(the props) but they were blinded from reality and had distrust running in their blood. The dumb team (which I was part of) was like the worker class. They have no voice and can do nothing to change the world. The lame team meanwhile is like the middle management of an organisation. They can see what is happening and can advise the top management what to do but they still are tied to their feet and can't really drive the change. They want to save the organisation but don't have the power to do. What a sad situation...

I was really amazed at how a simple game like this can teach such profound lessons. I'm really thankful to the alums and the external org. that helped in this team building session. Way to go ISB !

Career Options and self discovery

One of the better events that happened during the orientation week at ISB was the career perspectives forum. The forum was conducted in a panel discussion model and there were five panelists, all alums from ISB. The backgrounds of the panelists and the order in which they spoke are

1. Management Consultant
2. Investment Banker
3. IT Strategist
4. Marketing Professional
5. Entrepreneur.

The forum basically had two parts to it. First the speakers came up and talked about their profession which was followed by a moderated Q&A session. The first speaker was the management consultant. Due to the fact that he makes his living out of powerpoint presentations he decided to buck the trend and instead talk without a PPT to support. Management consulting in his words is the job of dealing with CXO level problems. Typical assignments range from 4 weeks up to 5-6 months. The diversity of the assignments and thrill of working with the top-management of clients obviously gives the career highs in this industry. On the flip side there is a heck lot of travel. Our speaker for instance flies out every monday morning to a client site and stays there till friday evening. After 5 years in the industry he dreads the sight of an aircraft and always keeps an air-sickness bag handy. To put in a nut-shell consulting is a thrilling career for one who wants the broader perspective, loves to solve other's problems and for one who is either not very family oriented or has a very supportive family which understands his career aspirations.

Next came the investment banker. True to his profession he looked very much emaciated. He called on to the finance honchos in our batch and beckoned them to investment banking. I-banking, as it is popularly known, is among the highest paying sectors and salaries to the tune of $200,000 are more the rule than the exception. Investment bankers probably handle much higher stress than consultants and usually have 65 hr work weeks. But the job is really rewarding with the large bonuses and the high profile work style. A key learning was the fact that career shifts into investment banking by engineers/IT pros are rare and very difficult in 1 year MBA programs.

The IT strategist was up next and the first thing he asked for was a show of hands from all who had an IT background. This year's student directory claims that our batch has only 28% students with technology background but the show of hands indicated something much bigger. This instantly thrilled him and he said that the IT industry needs all of us to come back and is also ready to welcome students from other backgrounds. He was commenting on the multitude of middle management opportunities in IT and the way the outsourcing wave was booming. In his words, the industry has still got a long way to mature and opportunities are galore for ISB grads in IT. It was really gratifying to listen to him as career advancement in IT is exactly what I'm looking at accomplishing.

On came the marketing lady. She talked a lot about how every consumer decision is influenced by marketing and she also talked a lot about branding. As is expected out of any management discipline hectic schedules, excessive travel and high targets are to be expected in this role. The auditorium had a good number of marketing enthusiasts and her presentation struck a great chord with them. She also alluded to the marketing side of IT and it rung a few bells in my head too.

The stage was finally set for the entrepreneur to come in and walk away after winning all the hearts. He started by saying that as an entrepreneur you can be a consultant, i-banker, marketing pro and a lot more single handedly. He took a dig at every profession and also drove home the point of personal satisfaction that he derives out of being an entrepreneur. He also talked about the mental strength and risk appetite that one needs to have to set out on his/her own. This guy was really amazing 'coz he had his venture running even when he was studying at ISB and he used to travel every weekend to take care of stuff. It was absolutely fantastic listening to him and I'm certain that his speech inspired entrepreneurial ambitions inside the minds of a good number of people.

After this the experts clarified a lot of questions from the audience. I thoroughly enjoyed this session and gained a lot of insight about what each of these professions meant. Hearing about more and more options can confuse you a bit but it also lays a path to self discovery. For now I know that I need to tread this path soon enough !

Section D - Rocks

The orientation program culminated with the Talent Nite yesterday. The class of 2008 brought out all their talents to the fore. We have great guitarists, percussionists, singers, dancers, mimics and theater artistes. After heavy partying till 4 AM on saturday I was down in the bed whole day and consequently ruled myself out of the section D practice sessions and out of any stage performance. I really hate myself for doing this but I had some solid (not bloggable) reasons for not getting out of the party zone that night ;-). So I decided to be part of the cheering squad and chant our section slogans.


The stage performances were really impressive. The evening started with a poem dedicated to the class of 2007 by one of our batchmates. Section D guys produced some really brilliant stuff. Sudipto on the tabla, Sravanthi and team with the skit and Kanika, Sumiti et al with the dance all rocked their way and earned loads of points for the team. Eventually we finished second overall. Section F's skit called "Dhanno ka Pati" earned them 2000 points and the overall championship. I thought the section F cheering squad also did a fantastic job improvising new chants every 5 minutes.

So the gyaan and fun week finally ended with the entire batch of alums who stayed back going up stage and singing a couple of songs for us. I guess it was a really emotional moment for them. Over the week I realized that each one of them was so very proud of the ISB brand and they put their best foot forward to convey this message to us. The parting words from our alum Mala was "We all will be there for you not just the coming year but throughout life". Truly our alums rock.

Today is a rest day for us. I should pick up my pre-term booklets and glance through them a bit.

Orientation Madness

It has been a roller coaster first week at ISB so far. I would have shook hands with atleast 200-250 new admits and would at best remember around 100 names ! First lesson learnt "Unless you spend some quality time with a person you will not remember his/her name. Shaking hands just for the heck of it is really useless".
The batch of 2007 is doing a really fantastic job with the gyaan sessions et al but man the schedules are really crazy. The earliest I have slept so far is 2:00 AM and that too on the day I landed here.

After registration on saturday things started rolling with the dean's address on Sunday(April 15th). ISB wants to convey the message to the new batch that sunday or monday ISB will keep buzzing all along. The speech by professor Ajit Rangnekar was really insightful. His speech totally captured the students pulse. He took a jab at everything from IITian prejudices to unwarranted placement pressures to honor code violations. The clear hype on management consulting was very obvious and I got to learn that ISB was really a pro-consulting school. I donno how I will benefit from this but lemme play the waiting game.

The next four days have been really crazy with sports, treasure hunt, team buildings, gyaan sessions, club presentations, career perspectives, leadership development session and a case workshop. I had my first midnight gyaan on wednesday when the informal gyaan from the Biz Tech club went on till 1:30 AM. I tasted first victory in ISB as part of the section D Tug-of-war team. In section D some great bonding is happening. Looks like we have a great legacy to carry forward from our previous batch. Big time cheering is going on during the fun events and some of our chants go like "Go D Go" and "Jeethega bhai jeethega, section D jeethega".

Already two chicks have light a flame in my heart but both fizzed out after I saw them smoking. I thought smoking these days is out of fashion but I was surprised to see atleast 50-60% of the girls smoke. Right now preparation is on for the talent night on saturday night and by all projections the craziness will continue till end of this week. Pre-terms start next week and hopefully I'll get into a groove and manage to balance my act.

Rough Start

After a comfortable train journey bunch of ISBians from Chennai reached hyderabad this morning. In what could be one of the biggest shocks I have had so far my name was not present in the list of admits in the main gate. The guys checked all the student villages and my name was not present anywhere.

What the heck !!! Did I really have an admission offer or not. In a period of two hours two million thoughts passed my head. Finally my name was found in the master list at 11:00 AM. The first impression did not go well but I'm keeping myself positive about the whole deal. After all the admin folks are not demi-gods. Small mistakes do happen. But the fact remains that my heart stopped this morning !!!!