Team India- So many blunders…

Come back home our heroes, come soon.. Come earlier than you were supposed to come as if the union budget would not have been presented without you back in India. It was a display of utter nonsensical batting and captaincy right from the first ball, no even before that, right when the coin was tossed.

1. India winning the toss and batting second: Indian record in chasing has been good in recent past but given that this was a do or die match, it would have much more sense to just go out there and play their game. Get a score on the board and then see. Chasing in such a critical match, Indians generally need a lot of diapers to see these matches through
2. Poor bowling: 14 wides compared to 4 by England sums it up. A 4 of a wide ball of the last ball of English innings could very well be the runs that India fell short of.
3. Poor batting: How can someone defend that none of a team’s top 4 batsmen can play short deliveries? No one can defend a world cup playing on lollies and hitting them out of the park. West Indies troubled them and England raped them by the same tactic. Where is the famous learning curve now? Byt seriously, Indians have to start practising against this stuff if they want themselves to be taken seriously in world cricket.
4. Unexplainable captaincy: Dhoni deserves full credits for gifting this to England. Now he made so many blunders, they themselves need sub bullets:
   1. Not coming down at number 3: he came down at number 3 against Banglash and Ireland and playing like a slow donkey. The argument, he will stabilise one end of the pitch while others will come and score from the other end. He will be the anchor. Why dint he come down today? Was he scared of English pace bowling? It appears like that
   2. Sending Jadeja: Who in his sane mind would send someone like Jadeja when you have Dhoni, Yuvraj and Pathan sitting in the dugout? He tried his best to get out but somehow was unsuccessful in even that. He should have tried hit-wicket, run-out or maybe obstructing the fieldsman, that could have made him go back quicker to change his leaking pajamas. Maybe he dint even know these ways of getting out.
   3. Keeping Yuvraj in the dug-out: Dhoni preserved Yuvi as if there is a tsunami out there in the middle and the over won’t be counted while that’s is going on. Alas, he was partially correct, there was a tsunami but Yuvi was sitting safe on shore while the clock was ticking for India. Defensive cricket generally does not win T-20.
   4. Dhoni’s batting: Someone please explain the logic of trying to sneak in a single when you need 60 off 30. You lose by 3 runs or by 15 runs, how on the freaking earth does that make a difference. Somehow he has started to believe that he cannot hit 4s and 6s and hence does not even tries to hit them. What happened to his hammer shots? All he could manage were 2 lucky snicks for 4 down past the third man. He looks more concerned to access facebook on his Aircel mobile then to play cricket these days.

With so many blunders, I personally believe it would have been a gross injustice to the effort of the team if India had won the match. At some stage of the match, it appeared that even if all the English fieldsmen shut their eyes and their hands and feet are tied with a rope, India will still lose. Reason: Dhoni would still hit the ball straight to the fielder. It seems that all the practise and so called edge Indian players had gained via IPL had gone down the drains. Hope that someone at the airport welcomes them with rotten tomatoes and eggs.

Hail Team India..

Indians and Politics

This may be a very contentious issue to be tinkered with but what’s the point in trying to tame a meek goat when it would be much more fun to fight with a raging bull. So let me try to control this bull with some logical points which may not go down so easily with everyone, and for the rest take these words with a pinch of salt as is generally done with Tequila shots for reasons know to everyone.

The linkage and affection of politics and Indians is almost as old as that of earth and sun. As no one can comment on “Who came first, chicken or egg?” nothing conclusive can be said about this issue also. The recorded history shows Rama being sent to exile by the political Keykayi, this may be the first instance of politics ever played but who knows what happened before that. The affection of Indians with politics can be attributed to many reasons some of which I would enumerate here.

1) 1) Inherent tendencies to think: Right from our childhood we see people fighting and politicizing against each other, day in and day out. An innocent child learns politics from his mother and grandmother politicizing against each other, the father and his boss politicizing against each other. He grows up in such an incubative environment that it is difficult for him to resist his newly developed instincts from trying on people around him on the first chance he gets to use.

2) 2) Extreme amount of free time: Plenty of people don’t have much to do in their day to day lives. Result, they start thinking laterally, on issues which don’t affect them, issues which are irrelevant for them. Twisting and bending each fact becomes a source of enjoyment in their otherwise boring and wretched lives. The fun to do something wrong to an unsuspecting person is something which they strive for. Rumor mongering is a favorite pass time of good for nothing people who can otherwise do nothing constructive in their eternal free time.

3) 3) The tendency to have an opinion on everything: How many of us don’t think that they can be a better prime minister than Manmohan Singh or a better cricketer than Sachin? Almost all of us believe that whatever is happening is wrong and could have been better if they were allowed to pour in their invaluable contribution towards everything. This is not only true for bigger things like these but also for much smaller and inconsequential things like student body functioning or even the working of a non-profit volunteer club. So awesome people try to become more awesome by criticizing the lesser awesome incumbent members of each organization.

4) 4) The tussle of mediocrity and meritocracy: Again a live wire to touch, but people who are mediocre and more importantly themselves believe that they are mediocre try to fight merit by the only possible way which is the political way. Equitable distribution is their slogan since distribution on merit is something which would leave them starving and naked on the street. Result, targeted political attacks on people who don’t even need to be political, their merit would take them places they want to reach, places which these people can only day dream of.

The truth of these statements is reflected in the amount of tussle for every student body election in every university, be it at graduate level or post-graduate level. These tussles sometimes become very poisonous as seen every year in DU elections with violence marring the democratic process. The love of politics and power is so ingrained in each one of us, that we make sure to live up to them even outside India. A simple look at other universities outside India would show the manpower we have in their student bodies. This may be good or bad, that is an issue we are not debating on. The issue is the preference this thing takes over primary academic activities. Some people might argue that had it not been the case we wouldn’t have had so many politicians, after all almost all of them started their political career from DU only. And who knows, it may have been better for our country.

Nobody could escape the ever growing sphere of influence of politics and politicians. If lord Rama couldn’t escape the politics played by his own mother, who are you and me to even think of escaping it. I have poured in my opinions about this issue in front of you, after all you see; even I have an opinion about things. Think twice before liking them or hating them, for this is a total non-political effort in putting in my opinions.

The Side Effects of an MBA

In my two articles I have given an account of MBA course, which is generally either positive or neutral and generally tries to capture the tangible effects. Here I try to explore the side effects of an MBA which are carcinogenic and start breeding in the blood of every MBA the day he/she puts his/her foot on an MBA campus, only that the symptoms of cancer are visible sooner than the actual cancer. Even after this nobody does anything to remove these tumors which lead to an explosive growth in their sizes hampering the norm al course of life of everyone around an MBA student.

People going to an IIM start thinking of themselves in no lesser than some God simultaneously forgetting about other 180 odd self professed Gods. This lead to ego clashes between every one with every one, where in everyone thinks he is correct and the other person is some idiot who has no right whatsoever to speak in the presence of His majesty. People become short tempered ready to blow the fuse at the slightest of provocation. They just become intolerant of other students, simply intolerant of their mere presence around them, looking frantically for pettiest of reasons to rip each other off. Even a slight error on someone’s part is blown out of proportions thinking this as the only chance in the lifetime they have gotten to get the better of the other person. Forgiveness is a forgotten virtue and is considered a vile by many. There are no friends there, only contacts and batch-mates which may help you bargain for a job sometime down the years when you need one, that too not because of friendship obligation but because of alma mater ties. It may be purely because of being more mature and practical than each of us was in our undergrad days when emotions were strong and lifelong friendship really blossomed amongst fellow hostelites. Or maybe having worked for some times in the harsh and unforgiving corporate world may have changed us. Each of these can be a reason, independently or as a combined package, no one can be sure though.

One very peculiar change I personally observed in fellow MBA grads is the ever declining ratio of emotional quotient. People lose their sensitivity and become hardened; which may be appropriately called stress hardening in pure engineering terms. Personal and intangible issues take a backseat and life of almost everyone becomes mechanistic to its extreme point. Humans turn into machines churning out PowerPoints and word reports at the pace of Brett Lee bowling on WACA pitch. This murder of the child within each of us may also be one of the reasons of the perceived hostility amongst almost everyone.

Other thing people forget coming to a b-school are their pre MBA relationships. It is a widely accepted fact that almost 50% of pre-engaged couples break up within the first 6 months of their MBA and start afresh with someone inside the campus. Now is this due to lack of time to spend with the first fiancée or plenty of time spent with someone else on the compulsion of assignments or projects, I have no clue. The funniest part is that people surrounded by so many people get so lonely that they don’t have a soul to talk to. Maybe that drives people near to each other and the sheer distance from the original loved one takes the relationship away. I am no authority to analyze the issue morally since it is a totally private matter of the involved parties. But certainly I can observe and look at the issue as a neutral connection.

Studying in a fully residential course, I can relate some causes to these side effects. Group assignments and projects were supposed to foster team spirit in people working together, but here they achieve an opposite of that. People spend so much time together for work related reasons that they get bored out of each other. Now generally if you don’t like someone in real life, you simply ignore him and things become normal, but here you have to work with the same person acting as a coherent team. The very thought of a free rider eating away the fruits of your hard-work can be very frustrating and disheartening and when you that happening almost every day you just want to kill that parasite. These frustrations search desperately for a reason to be vent out.

The other reason can be simple pressure to do better than others, on whatever expenses it may be. Competition doesn’t end with cracking CAT, it starts from there. People realize the laws of supply and demand and most likely they learn it the harsher way. The relative grading system doesn’t help either. People go to all extremes to stop the other person from getting a better grade or a better job, in fact even a better friend. Effect, no respect or gentle feeling for others since they all are your competitors before being anyone else. Sadism is the art which people acquire automatically, taking extreme pleasure in every small thing that can cause even the slightest of pains to the other.

I do not know if these changes are found only in an IIM or only in a fully residential course or are these just a common phenomenon with every MBA course. What I really know is that, there are not many friends out there, if you can find some you are a very lucky man. People believe that the only way to be on top is via someone else’s head. I believe that a B-school teaches to be shrewd, unkind and diplomatic besides the other never ending boring theories and may be these are the learnings which will ultimately matter in your adventures when you step into the corporate life.

Hustling and jostling with these side effects of MBA, I still think I can finish off my MBA. Just think of these as the side dishes in a multi course meal; “they add to the spice of the meal” and you have a totally new perspective of the things J.

Team Work, Free Riders, Parasites and Leeches

The most overused phrase in corporate world is team work and team play. All organizations look for team players and only they are considered a good fit in an organization. Personally speaking I also believed in this concept till a certain extent because this allows proper work distribution and all that. I should say that this belief of mine was shaped by the people I worked with as a team in my corporate career. I had not worked with different kind of people till now who behave totally arbitrarily and are very interesting and simultaneously very irritating in their behavior.  

 An MBA teaches you many things, some explicit and some implicit. Learning from people and learning about people comes under the implicit part. 90% of tasks and assignments and tasks in MBA are group tasks which are supposed to teach you how to work as a team and cooperate. I don’t know if the primary objective behind these group tasks is to learn team play or to learn how to tackle non-contributing and negatively contributing team members and use this learning in your career. Before going ahead, let me explain the psyche of these two species in some more details and introduce one more category. 

Free Riders: Non contributing members who are a liability on the remaining team members are affectionately called free riders. Quite an apt description I must say. These are people who believe in the theory of symbiotic living but only partially. They will stick on with you, contribute nothing, take the benefit and move ahead. Their focus is solely on how not to come in limelight and how to hide their incompetency. They do not show any sense of self consciousness or shame in blatantly copying other’s work. They believe that it’s the duty of others to feed them as they themselves are so much incompetent. A true believer of social theory of justice they are: Distribute not in proportion of competency but of need.  

Parasites: Good thing about free riders is that if they don’t contribute, they don’t either disrupt other team members from working (incompetency is the reason), hence others can work and feed them considering them necessary baggage. Now imagine a case where some people don’t contribute and simultaneously spread negative energy in the group. These can be people who will work as well but will make sure that the team never works as a team. They try to show that others are wicked and shrewd and want to steal the credit which only they deserve. Everyone else in the team is a predator for them waiting for any opportunity to eat their hard work as if they are the only one who can contribute. Contributions made by others are insignificant and irrelevant for them. 

Leeches: The third kind of people you come across are those who are a combination of free riders and parasites. They dont work but keep on lamenting about what others are doing or have done. These act as critics to your work without knowing a bit about it. They try to show off about their knowledge but from the sidehelm only. They never enter the arena but try to make the rules of the games. Very interesting characters infact!!

Now why am I writing about people and their psychology is a question which can be asked. Reason: 2 months into an MBA and I have met and worked with all kinds of people. Sometimes it becomes so much irritating when you work and others either screw up your work (as a team evaluation) or others take credit for whatever you have done. I am not saying that everyone knows everything and ignorant and non-knowledgeable people should be ousted totally. What is more important is the will to learn and contribute in whatever way one can contribute to the team task, how much ever insignificant it may be. We all are here to learn and no one is perfect, what matters is how much are we willing to learn and add our bit to the team. Why should 3 people carry the burden of 3 other almost dead people on their shoulders when all 6 of them are equal and have same pressure to perform? Why shouldn’t they shrug and throw these people without caring for them? The reason can be only one, their own social life and attitude towards others. I don’t believe in social responsibility of carrying dead weight over my shoulders, but still I do it. I am ready to feed poor and helpless beggars who cannot do anything but not rats and cats who will tomorrow bite me if need be. Either they should publically declare that they are incompetent and need social help in order to survive or they should try to behave like respectable students at par with others.  

This might be a controversial topic to delve into but meritocracy and hard work is what I believe in. If all are considered equal, they should earn this status and not take this for granted. If they don’t, others have all the rights to consider them inferior and try to dominate them. Respect cannot be enforced; it can only be earned by your behavior and deeds. So try to earn your own self-respect and the world will respect you.

 

Why An MBA???

This is the question which may have very well costed me a seat at IIMB. This is the question which most of the people preparing for their B school interviews/admission essays dread answering. This is the question which maybe the most clichéd question in any interview. This is the question which all aspirants prepare the best yet this is the question which nobody can answer perfectly.  

I may have gotten an admission to one of the IIMs, I may have worked for 2 years but I am still not very sure about the answer to this question. What I dread is that even after doing an MBA I might not be able to answer this question. And this fear is amplified after I read the book “Snapshots from hell, The making of an MBA”. The book is about the first year at Stanford Business School, a school among the top 3 business schools worldwide. The book is about the struggle to cope up with the academic rigor, to get used to the cut-throat competition, to worry of not getting a job and more importantly the struggle to survive. And finally it also tries to answer the question and it would be a lie if I say that I don’t agree with it. We will come to the answer later. First of all lets see what an MBA is and what an MBA actually is. 

So what does an MBA from XYZ school provide the graduates with? Is an MBA more of a fancy degree than some real stuff? Is the school matters more than the education itself? Will the graduates end up being at the same position 5 years down the line had they played Golf and boozed instead of learning how to run a company at the school? Will it be fair to say that all a business school does is put a higher price tag on its graduates? The answer to all these questions is YES and NO. What I feel is that an MBA is both. It makes you sellable, it creates demand for you but that demand is also right. An MBA student learns 100s of different things during the course of 2 years. He is among the crème-de-la-crème when he enters a prestigious business school. He is already one of the better brains around, so he deserves all that he gets after his graduation, every penny of it. But it is also true that an MBA is a bit overrated. It’s the experience and sweating out in the corporate battlefield which ultimately separates chaff from the wheat. Its just that the odds of an MBA being the grain are higher than being the chaff. 

Coming back to the question, Why MBA. I still don’t have an answer but I would like to quote from the book itself.  It diversifies the outlook of an individual, forces people to learn about everything ranging from IT to OB to marketing, gives people poise and self-confidence, and more than everything gives the power of networking. The contacts made during the two years last lifelong and reap rewards continuously. A business school gives an opportunity to mingle with bright, business minded classmates and to give serious thoughts to all kinds of business careers. A business school doesn’t take anyone to paradise; in fact it teaches that there isn’t a paradise.

So now, is a business school worth the effort and the investment? I have already taken a decision and till now not repenting it. So, decide for yourself…