Kolkata- A Pictorial Tour

A pic is worth a thousand words- here are a few thousand words.

 With my classmate Dash-we met 37 years ago at IIMB, where we have been partners in crime.

 You ain't seen nothing if you don't do the Amar Prem run..Chingari koi bhadke..

 This is Tolly Club, and the building below is where we did an alumni party of
IMT Ghaziabad a few years ago, when I worked there.

A fuller view..

Dilli O Dilli

 Went to Delhi and a conference at IMT Ghaziabad, where I found old colleagues. Two of them, Rashmi and Jayanthi were in a mood to smile, so here they are (above). Below, a special session on Retailing (a course I teach to doctoral students at Indore).

 The address below is my workplace in Connaught Place, that I adorned (!) between 1984 and 1985.-now you know how ancient I am :)  It used to be an Ad agency of the Living Media/Thomson Press group. My work life began here.

 An interesting way to adorn the outer wall of a restaurant in C.P. (below)

 And my visit to a city is never complete without a book store being included..this one has a tea room called Cha bar attached! The layout of the books is really tasteful too.

Colleagues From Past Workplaces

I am concentrating on the ones I am still in touch with, mostly.

Leslie Price was a colleague at Lander, South Carolina, and we got along like a house on fire. We are now older, hopefully wiser, and parents of beautiful children, and still communicate on Fb.

Muthukumar, who I worked with at the market research firm called MBA, and shared an abode called Karl Guest House in Andheri with. We still meet and bond over a beer or a whisky. Sometimes Golf.

Avinash Mulky, who was at IIM Lucknow with me, now works at IIMB and I, at IIMI. We do meet occasionally, and talk of old times and new.

BK Mohanty, a colleague from my XIM Bhubaneswar and IIM Lucknow days, is a dear friend and we get to meet here and there.

Shahida, of PESIT, now at ASCI Hyderabad, whom I have met less often, but we are in touch on the phone and through Fb.

Dhanapal, who runs his own school at Coimbatour, and worked with me at Kirloskar Institute, Harihar. We meet now and then, and plan on more golfing trips like the one we undertook in Pattaya, courtesy our student Jogeswari and her company Golftripz.

Vijayakumar, who has been at KIAMS, and IMT Nagpur, and I meet quite often, and have gone to Munnar and Kodaikanal on roadtrips to play Golf.

 Nagpur ex-colleagues at Tuli.

 The Nagpur book launch.

Vijayakumar and Jayasimha figure in this one from KIAMS.

Gadgil, who I bonded with at IMT, was in the US like me, and has great stories to tell of those times. Was also responsible for improving our MDP (training business) at IMT, with new clients like Asian Paints.

Harsh Halve, who was at IMT and is now at Jaipuria Indore, also bonded over the karaoke mike, with his family's active participation.

Jayanti Ranjan and Sita Mishra, who I have met at academic events since I left IMT Ghaziabad.

Anant Ram, who we got from KIAMS to IMT Nagpur while I was there.

T.K. Chatterjee, who was a karaoke convert after I introduced him to it.

Bhagyalakshmi, who I had the pleasure of working with at PESIT, and also at IIM Indore.

Manoharan, with whom I worked and who was my first Ph.D. student. We still write papers together, and meet when we present them.

S.P. Kumar, who is a past colleague from PESIT, and member of a nice club called the City Institute, Bangalore, where we have met a few times.

Smita, who was a colleague at IMT Nagpur, and helped me launch my autobiography at Nagpur Crossword and at Pune too.

Non-teaching Staff- A Tribute

Academic life has its pluses. Lots of reading time, opportunity to feel young in the company of youngsters who are full of life, etc... But it also has another angle. A lot of staff (non-teaching) who you get to work with. This is a tribute to some of them, from IIM Indore, IMT and Kirloskar Institute, Harihar that I feel fortunate to have worked with. The immediate trigger is the wedding yesterday of Neha, who works at the MDP office at IIM Indore.

Some really good officers have helped run the MDP/Training office here, like Pradeep, Manas and Bhupendra earlier. They worked untiringly to keep the training programs going efficiently, leading to a lot of repeat customers, and significant new business. I also had the good fortune of having a wonderful academic assistant (Saumya Sharma) and two secretaries (Limaye before, Naresh at present) who are a great help.

IMT Nagpur was a place where I headed the institute, and therefore, the role of the staff was extremely important for me. From Archana, my secretary, to Group Capt. Nath, a smiling ex-serviceman who headed admin, to Kamal Nayak and Vinod in accounts, to the ladies in the PGP office, to the guys who served tea and the drivers, Anand the mess manager, and Pankaj in transport, all of them performed their duties in a pleasant and efficient fashion. IMT N remains on my list of Best Places to Work, in no small measure due to all the staff. Similarly, Gaurav at IMT Ghaziabad and Aparna Dey. Raju Pujari at IFIM also I can never forget for his resourcefulness. And Somanna in accounts/admin. The Research Associates at IMTN were all hardworking, and I remember Tripti Shrivastava (who handled a conference all by herself) and Abhinav in particular.

KIAMS was an idyllic world, inhabited by some of the friendliest staff I have ever seen. Rajesh and Raghavendra stand out, along with Gururaj, Veena, Mehboob, Dr. Gopi, Srinath, Nagaraj, Umesh, Yuvaraj, Pavan, many of whom remain good friends to this day, and I look forward to meeting them, several years after I left Harihar.

These are unsung heroes who keep the institutes going, sometimes after faculty have left.

Copenhagen Business School

IMT Ghaziabad has an ongoing partnership with Copenhagen Business School, and one program out of this is a short-term exchange program for 20 of their students who come to Ghaziabad for a 2 week exchange with a small project that they do for a company in Delhi, and learn various things through experiencing Indian food, culture and places.

The second such program started today, and an enthusiastic bunch of youngsters came over. They are assigned buddies from among our students here, to guide them through their logistics and exploration. There are also some talks on entrepreneurship, and this is part of a program on International Business that they are pursuing at Copenhagen.

Had a chance to interact with them, with a brief talk about India and its diversity of cultures, languages and faiths. And definitions of forts and mountains (the tallest one in Denmark is about 150 metres, according to estimates). I told them about my visit to Charleston 'fort' from my time in the U.S.- it was a puny affair, compared with what we are used to here. 

Leadership- Faculty Management

This is a longish post, with some original thoughts based on my experiences on leading B schools.

Faculty Management

I found faculty the easiest to manage, for some reason, in my few years as head of various institutions. According to me, the key is to treat the faculty as an equal unless you have some reason to exert your authority. I was a faculty member once, and found this above-mentioned facet to be a key differentiator in the way I was dealt with by various bosses.

I am not suggesting that this is the same as abdicating your responsibility or not thinking problems through. For example, assertiveness is required in some situations. For instance, I have had to sack faculty in exceptional circumstances too, but they were exceptional. I was also forced to take a call on performance evaluations at times, in unpleasant ways, but did not shy away from it.

But in the normal course of events, faculty are your biggest assets, and should be respected as such. They will actually go beyond the call of duty, and do, if their basic need- respect- is given to them by the bosses and the management (owner/promoter). This can happen in any level of B school, not just in the top ten or fifteen. Sometimes, even the reverse happens- resulting in better than expected performance in lesser known B schools.

How do you gain the confidence and respect of a faculty member of your team and help them perform better? First, you need to convince them that their development is aligned with the name and fame of the institute. Philip Kotler is an asset to Kellog’s at Northwestern University, and not vice-versa. Srikant Datar has brought fame to Harvard with his book on ‘Rethinking the MBA’ in recent times. Parasuraman of SERVQUAL fame is better known than his university, in fact. I am not sure which university he works for.

So a faculty member can actually play a major role even in branding his institute. But above all, he must contribute more than just good teaching. He could develop his training skills by offering or teaching in Management Development Programs, or publish scholarly work in journals of repute, or write a text book (where would Kotler be without his famous text?).

Value-added Activities

I call these value-added activities, and these are as important as teaching. Of course, your students will remember you if you teach well, but the whole world will salute you if you do more in different forms suggested above. You could also lead a PhD program or at least be a guide to some doctoral students, or start a journal for your institution, or do some more innovative things- for example, consulting. Faculty need to excel in at least two of these besides teaching. And then you will automatically become a much sought-after person in your field of expertise.

Setting Expectations

At PESIT, Bangalore, I first set out my expectations that every non-PhD faculty would get a PhD. To their credit, every single faculty who did not have one, enrolled for one, and we had 100% faculty who either had one or were registered for one- including a 58 year-old! It helps to set out expectations in terms of teaching, research, Ph.D., training, and academic administration.

Let me tackle some of these. Academic administration is the toughest. Most faculty members ask, why should we do this (unpaid labour)? My answer is, I expect you to be a Dean or a Director of a B school in a few years. These are valuable experiences along that path. I was once a placement chair in an institute. Not a very good one, I might add, because my selling skills were weak. But I learnt how to handle students and placement chairs after that stint, which was to prove useful to me later on.  I was also an MDP chairperson at another school, and a research chair at IIMK, in addition to coordinating admissions and the Post Graduate Program at various stages in my career. All of these were useful stints, and helped me grow. I saw one of my major successes in appointing the right people for the right job, in some of my later stints as head of an institution.

Teaching

Load for teaching needs to be defined, and should not be exceeded beyond a maximum. It is an exhausting process when you include preparation and evaluation (in an autonomous school the faculty does this himself), particularly when class sizes are large. Therefore, to find time to do other things that are important, teaching hours need some control. Unlimited teaching may produce a good teacher incapable of adding value to himself or the B school over a period. Four courses could be a good starting point, for an annual academic teaching load at a top autonomous school, because grading papers takes a lot of time in these. In some cases, you may need one or more additional courses to be added.

Publication

Either empirical research or case study publication is a must to prove that you are pursuing current knowledge. Contribution to the profession is also measured through publications. Accreditation agencies like AACSB, EQUIS, and NBA,  and ranking agencies evaluate a B school on the basis of their faculty’s publications, which is counted towards the intellectual capital. Therefore, for various reasons, publishing your work is crucial. Training and hand-holding of new faculty may be needed to help them achieve this goal. Journal lists of potential journals to publish in must be generated and updated. You could start an institutional journal. Research seminars by internal faculty can be organised regularly for sharing of work in progress. Training on research methods could also be imparted internally or through sponsorship to programs done by other B schools.

Conferences

Conference papers are more easily accepted than journal papers, but do need effort. They can be co-authored with faculty from other B schools or your own. The presentation of papers is a break from routine, and can expose you to new ideas as well as new peers. I once found a co-author at one conference at MDI Gurgaon- he happened to be an Indian working in a New Zealand University and it led to a decent international publication.

Industry Interaction

This can take several forms. If the budget allows it, faculty must get industry speakers to come in to their class for a couple of sessions in a course. This builds a network with industry, and exposes the faculty to some industry jargon and events. Also, consulting or training opportunities may come as a result of these interactions. Industry seminars on  a theme that is current or trending, can be organised as a day-long event, with the help of student interest groups. This may create leads for placement or projects.

Case Writing

I believe, and have proof for this assertion, that anybody can write a case. In fact, students have written several cases for me based on both real and simulated or fictional data. Faculty can certainly do so, if they put their mind to it. I have had a faculty colleague write a case in I.T. , and I have thought about cases in other areas that I know nothing about. Of course, in Marketing or Organization Behavior, it is far easier to think of case situations. I have also done a video case by interviewing the protagonists once.

A novel idea we tried out at IMT Nagpur is writing cases on the companies of participants in an Entrepreneurship program. This involved documenting and rewriting the experiences of a dozen participants of a long training program, where they presented their own case studies. Rewriting these for a particular set of problems or questions made them very good topical case studies for teaching. We also encouraged people to write cases at a conference that we (IMT Nagpur) conducted at Goa every year. Budding case writers were encouraged to write cases and were given feedback by experts who have written several cases for teaching or publication.

Evaluation of faculty

Usually a mix of criteria, that include teaching quantity and quality (measured through student feedback and other criteria such as novelty, etc.), publications, and service to the institution through academic administration are used in evaluating faculty contribution. You can devise a method that suits the goals of the organisation. But this needs to be clarified many times orally and in writing. Goal-setting for the institution also needs repeated discussions with individual faculty and in groups.

International Exposure and Development

You need to handle faculty with care, as an important resource. Their developmental needs can be met through exposure to training, foreign teaching, and networking opportunities. Future leaders can be groomed through such exposure. For instance, at IMT Ghaziabad, over 80 partner institutions are available for faculty and student exchange, as MOUs have been signed with them. In a given year, at least 10-12 faculty go out and teach internationally. This brings in great exposure and an incentive for faculty to continue with the institution. In other words, it is a retention tool for those faculty members who value such opportunities.

Designing Faculty Development Programs

While designing FDPs, there are three major (and one minor) areas that must be covered.

1.      Research techniques and methods, which help in publishing

2.      Use of cases and other innovative pedagogical tools

3.      Publishing avenues and strategies

4.      Networking with faculty and industry

The programs can be designed and conducted in-house with internal resources (if available) or external resources, if these are not available. Usually, the payoff is immediate, in terms of increased productivity, if the exercise is handled correctly. For example, in a Bangalore based B school, we had faculty papers going up from nearly nil to about 15 per year, including conference and journal papers.

A liberal policy of encouraging conference participation funded by the institution needs to go hand in hand with raising expectations and conducting FDPs or sending people to attend them elsewhere. It is probably cost-effective to conduct them in-house for the topics/themes mentioned above. For specialised or technical training which is very narrow, they could be sent out to other institutions, or even to industry as ‘interns’.

B-School Leadership- Alumni Relations

Alumni Relations

These could be the most critical of the relations an institution may have. I am not joking, but dead serious. The brand of their alma mater is carried by each alumnus/alumna for their career and the rest of their life after! Therefore, the institution or its office-bearers need to have a plan of action on roping in the natural goodwill that alumni feel for their alma mater. All great institutions in the world have active alumni support in terms of words and deeds. In India too, some of the better institutions, public and private, have a wonderful alumni network.

What Can be Done

In the pre-internet and mobile phone days, getting in touch and keeping in touch was difficult. Now, it is not. There must be a full-time body or committee headed by a faculty member of the institution to take care of alumni affairs- or relations, if you prefer that word to ‘affairs’.

There are several things one can do to make the alumni a vibrant and connected force. But you must remember to think of it as a human relations exercise, first and foremost, and not as a financial extraction exercise.

Chapter Meets

Regular opportunities that come every year, include a social gathering or chapter meet, attended by the institution head or faculty members, or both. This connects the alumni back like nothing else, except a visit by him/her to the campus. Since that is difficult, you must reach out. Maybe the costs of the chapter meets could be shared between the institute and the alums, but that is an accounting matter. The meets must happen regularly. If budgets are small, this can be initially a low-cost venue, and expanded into a more high profile one after funding is sorted out. Sponsorship of these by alumni companies is an option.

We do this each summer across five cities, and at least 500 alums attend chapter meets of IMT Nagpur . The interactions are lively, and organised entirely by current students who had a genuine interest in linking up with their seniors from the institute. The alumni felt good, and came up with several ideas on improving their institution further in several directions.

Awards for Alumni

Distinguished alumni awards are another way to recognise the contributions made by alums to their organisation, to the profession, or to causes. There could be one at the convocation each year, and some at chapter meets too.

Admissions Interviews

Most Indian B schools have personal interviews for admission into the institution. You could invite select alums to attend as a panel member to select future students. This is a sure way to improve ties with alumni, while increasing their feeling of ownership in their alma mater. We have successfully tried this in the IMT system.

Guest Lectures

Most alumni would have experiences to share after a few years of work experience. What better way to get this into your classrooms than to invite them for a guest lecture? They would be very pleased to take a day off sometimes, and come to their institution for one. They also get to meet potential recruits if their company is in hiring mode. They may end up mentoring some youngsters regarding what career paths they should or should not take. A formal mentoring program can also be thought of, and implemented, apart from this.

This year, six alums of IMT Nagpur came to talk to the new batch during their induction, and more will follow.

Seminars on a Theme

Themed industry seminars are something we successfully did at PESIT, Bangalore. In one academic year, four such seminars were held on four different themes in HR, Finance, Operations and Marketing. These are eminently doable in cities, and also in other locations, for a modest budget that includes an invite from the institute, travel and stay. Many industry bigwigs including alumni can be the speakers. It forces students to think about trends in functional areas of management, and organise an event in their interest area too.

Entrepreneur Meets

We have also invited at IMT Ghaziabad, our alumni who are entrepreneurs, to a discussion on entrepreneurship. One of the interesting sessions was for our executive batch, and another for the visiting students from the Danish Copenhagen Business School. These were enriching sessions, with both our alumni and the current students benefiting.

Kolkata- A Capital City

Kolkata it was, for the fourth of our alum get-togethers. In a historic setting, reminiscent of the British Raj. The hoary Tollygunge Club in south Kolkata was where we had the party. It was a small, intimate gathering unlike the very large crowd in Delhi and Mumbai. That could be because job opportunities in Kolkata are fairly limited, and most companies that recruit MBAs do so for other places of posting. But there were people from ITC, Proctor and Gamble (a good combo of professions), and so on, with some entrepreneurs too- a sort of contradiction in terms in Kolkata (this is not Gujarat).

However, that gave us a chance to chat peacefully, and exchange views over a drink or two.  Having three former members of our Alcom (students' committee that looks after Alumni relations) lled to a lively discussion about the past and the future of this important function in the context of IMT Ghaziabad,

It also gave me a chance to revisit the Calcutta Metro that I had seen since birth and suffered its pangs through traffic jams on my visits during its construction. I was briefly taken aback to find Tollygunge missing from the list of stations, until I discovered it had been renamed as Mahanayak Uttam Kumar. A nice gesture, but comuters need to know where they are going too- so they have Tollygunge area written in brackets everywhere. Being a Sunday, it was not too crowded on the metro.

To end, an original  PJ for the upcoming BIG Day.

Why did the Bong's wife get annoyed with him on Feb 14th?

Because he thought it was Ballantine's Day, and got drunk.

AACSB and Faculty Development

I am in Mumbai on work, more on which later. But I got a chance to talk to some faculty members at K. J. Somaiya School of Management through a friend/co-author who works there. It was about the state of research in management schools and how we can do more.

Another interesting discussion was about how foreign B schools in Asian countries (non-Indian) have positioned themselves better through accreditations and research output and so on. IMT Ghaziabad, and  KJ Somaiya have both applied for AACSB accreditation, considered the best in the world. We at IMT are working hard to get it, too, and hopefully should in a year or more. We had a useful sharing of info on what it entails. One of the important things again is research output improvements. Second, accountability in the form of Assurance of Learning for our students. Documented and delivered, audited. Good stuff! I think schools (not just B schools) at all levels should do this.

A Rocking Party

As part of my regular forays into the India Habitat Centre, I forayed there once more last evening. As part of my portfolio of work, I am in charge of alumni relations (sounds a lot better than 'affairs'). And what an event it was. Hats off to our student team who organised it.

The hall started buzzing so most of the speeches got drowned-but who cares for speeches in such an event anyway? A lot of our faculty gamely turned up, including two goras- from Britain and Grenoble, France- and one of our alums who is now a faculty member at University Of San Diego, USA. (In a Hindi-film like coincidence, this alum was also an alum of Georgia State for his PhD and took a course from my brother who teaches there!)

There were young and middle-aged guys and gals (though the gals did not LOOK middle-aged, I should emphasise, in case they take offense), and a great mix. I am not referring to the beverages here. It was unadulterated enjoyment, of the kind that happens when friends meet their friends, in large numbers, and make new acquaintances, like we did. Over 300 alums turned up, and stayed till late.

We also did these at IMT Nagpur, and I got to meet and interact with quite a few interesting people as a result. Of course, it also becomes the genesis of fresh ideas, but even if it does not, in the here and now, it is a wonderful experience. Cheers to all alums of all institutes. Do go back sometimes. You will not regret it.

Bengaluru Summer

I was in Bangalore for the IMT Ghaziabad alumni meet. This is a part of a series of meets across all major cities in India, done once a year as part of our outreach. The IIMs have also recently started this tradition, and it is a great way to keep in touch with alums. We did this at Nagpur with our alumni too.

However, the interesting part of this visit was that Bangalore had a high of 26 degrees or so, while Delhi had a max of 11 and min. around 3 degrees when I left. Not very different, as I can see now.

Anyway, I had three different alumni meets, while there. Met a few of my classmates of IIMB, and talked about our impending Tees Saal Baad in a couple of years. Also, met an alum of PESIT who works for VF Corp, the brand owners of a few well-known garment brands-Lee, Wrangler among them. She has kept in touch through these years, and it was great meeting again.

All in all, a nice summer outing out of freezing Delhi.

Cricket on Coldest Day

We had a different kind of Cricket. There were some Englishmen and South Africans involved, but no Pakistanis. It was actually a conference organised by a centre for rural innovation, knowledge management and entrepreneurship at IMT Ghaziabad, which goes by its acronym, CRICKET. This conference is partnered by the University of Essex's entrepreneurship centre.

Happened to be the coldest Delhi day yet this season, with arctic winds and freezing temples (the body parts), but the conference went on quite nicely at the India Habitat Centre. And the day ended with a dinner at the same venue.

Tomorrow a friend's book, The Hussaini Alam House, gets its Delhi launch at the same venue. Huma, who wrote it, is my classmate from Osmania engineering college, and the book is her first. I had reviewed it here before, but suffice it to say that it is really well-written, and evokes memories of a world gone by.

At this rate, my habitation at the Habitat centre may become rather permanent. 

Novel Post Graduate Program in Service Management

IMT Ghaziabad has tied up with a German school- ISS Hamburg- for a two year program in Service Mgt. (MBA to be offered by them and a certificate by IMT). There are some unique aspects to this. The student spends 2 semesters in Germany doing a study plus internship (arranged by ISS) simultaneously with a German company. He can work with a company (maybe German) in India too during the other two semesters. Chances are that he will get placed with the same company after he finishes the program. Thesis type reports/term papers are expected based on each term's work in the company plus some other coursework. So the practical component is very strong.

To be launched this December, this requires graduation (preferably engg or Science) plus at least a year of work experience. 

Unique D.B.A. Program with Grenoble

We at IMT Ghaziabad are launching a unique program, called the Doctorate in Business Administration, or DBA, in association with Grenoble School of Management, France. This program is aimed at corporate executives who may want to transition to academics but need a flexible yet rigorous program of doctoral studies. It involves attending a few short workshops and then doing a dissertation over a 3-4 year period. IMTG will host many of these short workshops, and Grenoble will host a couple of them, including the first.

Grenoble is a triple-accredited management school, having got these from AACSB, EQUIS and AAMBA. IMTG is of course, a top 10 business school in India. This opens up another avenue for potential faculty who  may want to migrate from. the corporate world. We are expecting to start the program early in 2013.

Inauguration at IMT Ghaziabad

It was the inauguration of the IMT Ghaziabad PGDM (MBA) batch today, and a large crowd of expectant students filled the hall up. It was their first day in class at IMTG, and they had a lot to listen to. The guest for the occasion was Mr. Ramana Murthy, Vice President HR at Coca Cola in India, who incidentally is from A.P.

He shared his life story briefly, drawing lessons for a typical student to transform into a leader over his career, with some sage advice. He also outlined pitfalls that come in the way, and suggested means to tackle them. He also asked them to identify their passion and select a career related to it. Of course, some of this advice gets clearer in hindsight, or as one progresses in one's career. For instance, my migration to teaching- and many others from my MBA batch did something similar, either becoming professors or entrepreneurs. Two of them are also into spiritual pursuits full-time (not the United Breweries kind). He also tackled well some tricky questions from the young minds.

All in all, a good beginning for all the youngsters, and my debut at Ghaziabad. The campus seems a bit small after Nagpur, but it's vibrant with 1000 plus hearts beating on it.

Moving On

I have a new responsibility given to me. The sad part is that it involves moving away from IMT Nagpur, a place that I have come to like a lot. But such is life. I am moving soon to IMT Ghaziabad as their Dean.

It is gratifying that with the help of excellent team work, we have put IMT Nagpur on the top-20 map of Indian B schools (numbering 3500 plus at last count). A recent reconfirmation of this came in the Business Standard report on Indian B schools published this week. It placed IMT Nagpur in the top 20 which they call the Superleague. The incoming batch which starts Monday will be the largest in our 8 year history, at 360.  Faculty here are among the best anywhere, and the staff's efficiency and courtesy is noticed by all visitors, and missed by faculty who have left us to join the new IIMs.

Alumni have given us great love and support, which was evident in all the five cities where we held alum meets last month. More than 500 alumni turned up to celebrate their bond with the alma mater. IMT Nagpur is also one of the leaders in faculty development programs, particularly in research methods, having done about 5 programs till date for B school, engineering and architecture faculty.

Here is wishing even greater success to IMT Nagpur. Cheers!