The Journey called MBA

25^th March 2010, A day when my academic student life came to a full stop,  although I would remain a student forever as I strongly believe in Steve jobs famous  statement, “ Stay Hungry stay foolish” and moreover the wise men have always said that Life is the greatest teacher J Yet my student life has come to an end in the sense there shall be no more of the students privileges like

No more bunking classes

No more partying whole night almost every day (especially semester 4)

No more sleeping the whole day, knowing that someone would have marked my attendance

No more carefree attitude

No more No accountability ... 

During the thirty four hours journey from Pune to Howrah , the past two years reflected in my mind like thoe flash back movies often seen in Bollywood. I was bound to notice the transition in me during the last two years . The tenure  of MBA has definitely transformed me into a much better person  professionally and personally.This blog is about those leanings . No don’t worry this is not about the academic learning one has but it’s about the other learning’s which are not to be found in books aka tacit knowledge :D

The best  part of these two years was the interaction with a varied mix of people , we had students  who were right out of college and also students who had up to four years of rich corporate experience.Students were from varied backgrounds ranging from psychology to engineering- medicine to fine arts. This fine blend of a varied background helped us understand  varied perspectives, it made us realized that each one us has a unique talent . We need to focus on each other’s talent and learn from them and absorb their rich experience and at the same time share the unique talent which we have.

I being a fresher was new to a lot of things one among them was working “efficiently “ in a team. During Engineering there were very few group assignments  hence I was not used to working in a group. Whereas during MBA most of the assignments  were to be done in a group, whose team members were selected by the professor. Such teams seldom had homogeneous members and as such one had to deal with issues like the ignorance of a fresher , the attitude of a experienced  among other things J It was truly very painful initially to work in sync with other team members. It is only at the end of these two years I realized that working in a team actually is more efficient resulting in achieving goals in a shorter period of time with high efficiency. A team can do a lot of things which one single professional cannot do ever, this is something which I took a lot of time to imbibe. Moreover  I am told that in organizations all projects are done in a team which always have people whose mind is completely out of sync with us.Thus this habit of working in new varied teams has prepared me be a efficient team member in future. Moreover I have had the best of memories  while working in such colorful groups and it is during such group activities I have found friends which made my stay @ SIMS full of fun .

In MBA we learned to prepare presentation at very short notice, in life we do not always get a lot of time to win an opportunity  and MBA has taught me to do any kind of assignment at short notice and at minimal given time. This was realized specially in the fourth semester when although we were given sufficient time to prepare but we always prepared  important presentations only a night before J - which led to this eureka moment. Initially I found it extremely difficult to make a presentation if I was not given all the relevant data but today I am confident that I can deliver an hour presentation based only on a few words of data, rest I have learned can be safely assumed :) 

Professional life is to be kept separate from personal life this was told to me during my  engineering days , but its actual importance has been learned only in the last two years. This lesson was learnt when I had to complete assignments in a team whose members I did not like personally yet I had to professionally acknowledge him/her and work in sync with that person.  This taught me that one needs to learn to work with team members whom we may  loath personally yet who is our professional  partner. This is one of the major learnings and now I am confident to work  with any kind of team members without having a grin on my face .

The last two years also has changed my thinking perspective. During my graduation days I used to look at any business/professional situation from an employee’s perspective but today given any such situation I think from the management’s perspective , I think about the benefit of the organization and how  the shareholders wealth can be maximized. The basic functionalities  of an organization as taught in  MBA, namely  Finance, Marketing and Human Resource are as important and applicable to our own life as they are to an organization 

Let me elucidate –

Finance –The basic concepts of Finance like cash management and asset liability match if applied to our own personal  finance would enable us to manage our own finances more efficiently. Concepts of Balance sheet, P & L account  and Cash flow analysis can be applied to our own life and would enable us to manage our finance in the most optimal way.

Marketing -  This is something which attracts and retains customers which are the blood line of any firm. Similarly if such marketing concepts are utilized by us it would enable us to attract and retain the figurative customers  of our life . For e.g. when we appear for an interview we need to know how to sell our personality and retain the job .  Similarly our reputation is similar to the brand of a product.  We need to know how to manage our reputation similar to managing the brand equity of a product or a firm.

Human Resource – This is to acquire and retain the right talent in an organization and ensure that its employees are satisfied.  Similarly we need  to identify the right people as good friends and we need to retain them forever. A poorly performed HR could result in having the wrong people in an organization leading to increased dissatisfaction among employees and would be detrimental to an organization  the same can be applied to personal life also .

Most importantly MBA has equipped me  to face the unexpected with a smile on my face. 

The last two years were the most fruitful time of my life till now and at the same time has given be memories which would bring a smile on my face always.....

An experience of a lifetime

There are certain experiences in life which we cherish our entire life, today was my day to have such an experience. It was the second day of our orientation program and as per our (class 1 D) schedule we were suppose to have a business exercise, I had no idea what a business exercise actually meant and simply assumed that my classmates and I would have to go through certain tasks, as in some group activity which would check our skills as a team member. I reported at sharp 08:15 as per schedule.
Professor Manohar Kamath was in charge of our class for this activity and before he actually told us the task which we were suppose to do, he said that we would realize ourselves after the task is done and truly after the task I am much more confident about myself and have discovered my potential in a better manner. The task was to go to a area called camp in pune and find a job there work for the entire day and earn at least Rs.150 and we were suppose At first the task looked prodigious, I am new to pune hence was skeptical about reaching the place on time and of course finding a job for a day and earning Rs 150/- seemed very difficult.
Swati Raheja was my buddy (we were supposed to be in pairs for this task), soon we headed towards the main gate of SIMS (Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies), and found ourselves asking for lifts to camp.
Four of us approached a car for a lift, the gentleman driving the vehicle gladly agreed to drop us at a place near camp. The gentleman owned a hand loom shop in pune , as soon as we heard that he had his own shop, we asked him for a job, he would have gladly agreed but soon we realized that we had to work only in the camp area and this wonderful opportunity slipped out of our hands. We had to take another lift from where he dropped us to camp, we were lucky enough to find another gentleman ready to drop us to camp . we were in camp by 10.40 am, and the first place we decided to go was SGS mall, we hurried to the main gate of the mall, bit only to find the mall closed it was suppose to open at 11:00 am. The first thing we saw next was a restaurant by the name of Coffee House. We walked in the restaurant and went to speak to the manager, he was skeptical at giving us a job at first but soon we convinced him by saying that we can do anything required from cleaning dishes to serving customers, he smiled and asked us to enter the kitchen there he asked us his chief chef to assign us jobs.
Then it all begin an experience which was completely new to me as the only thing I can cook is tea and coffee. Although I am a food lover I had really never tried my hands on cooking before . The first job I was asked to make was pera ( the thing which is made from the dough to make chapatti).
There I was standing with a huge plate of dough in front of me and the best part was I did not know to make peras :-), I approached one of the helpers for help and he gladly taught me the process to make peras, after a first few horrendous tries I finally managed to make things which at least looked like peras. Half an hour later I was on the top of the world as I had made around 35 peras for chappattis , lucha parothas, and naans.
The best part of coffee house was the amount of cleanliness they kept, every ten minutes one of the staff members would clean the tables and floor. My next task was peeling and chopping a basket full of onions. With the help of staff there I started my task but soon realized that it was not as simple a sit looked. I spent about one hour in this sophisticated task , and this one hour was one of the most uncomfortable hours of my life. I had tears in my eyes( no I was not crying it was the onion affect), it was very hot( after all it was a kitchen) and the worst part was I was in my formals. Half of my concentration was in making sure that my new shirt does not get spoiled. The picture was really very funny, Imagine a kitchen of a mediocre restaurant and a man wearing clean formal clothes( with tie) peeling and chopping onions .
After enquiring I realized that the restaurant actually opens only at 04:00 am, and the staff members come at that time to cut vegetables which are then kept in water, so that it is easier to cook food faster and also it keeps the vegetables fresh. My next task was to cut paneer into rhombus shapes mix them with the spices provided and then to fry them, this was something I was skeptical about, but with the encouragement of the staff there I actually managed to complete my task. Soon we were asked to report at the restaurant in the first floor .I thought we had to work as waiters , but as soon as I reached first floor I realized they had offered lunch to us, the best part was we were served the paneer dish which was partly made by me. The feeling of eating the food which was made by me (partly) was amazing , I felt confident as I realized I could accomplish any task the only thing I had to make sure was that I give my best to the task.
Post lunch there was not much work except for the snacks which they were preparing for the evening. The next hurdle was frying cutlets , I was asked to put them in a pan of boiling oil and keep turning them till they get red, yet another task which looked gigantic to me. The confidence which I had gained after mailing the paneer dish helped me sail through this task smoothly.
Finally the kitchen was closed and we were asked to leave, the manager paid us Rs 150/- each .
This was one day from which I have learnt a lot, right from travelling without money to chopping onions to frying cutlet each of the hurdles I overcame gave me a new sense of confidence.