Over the years from Nagpur (2009-13), IIM Indore (2013-2020), NMIMS (2020-22), and Prestige University (2022-24), I taught Golf basics to a wide variety of students including MDP participants from industry, MBA/BBA/Ph.D. students or alumni, and faculty members. Staff too. Some pictorial reminders-
Below- Radha Ladkani, prof., IIM Indore
Somebody's post on a Social medium triggered this. What is a job? Salary plus perks. The salary is in cash, and tangible. The rest is in the form of mostly intangible benefits, or perks, if you will. I am talking of higher education, and institutions which are reasonably well known as good employers, private or government.
The first perk in a good institution is good students. If they interact in a class, do their assignments reasonably well, and so on, it is quite a satisfying outing for the faculty. Doctoral students can perhaps stretch this feeling further, in discussions outside class too.
Autonomy to drive your own interests is another great perk. You can produce some output in terms of case writing, publications, text books or conference papers, depending on your interests and motivation. Institutional support helps, naturally.
Organising events for the institution or its stakeholders, can be a useful activity with a lot of learning. Alumni meets or short term programs for executives, or for faculty, are some examples. Industry seminars are another avenue to bring about greater interaction and understanding. Tracking internships or getting cases written by students are possibilities.
Even when I was in admin. positions, I met many students while mentoring them, or participating in events they organised, or helping them make films.. some did!
All in all, a fulfilling career can be built in a good academic institution. The bonus sometimes is a lot of alumni who are still in touch after they have moved out. Some become friends for life! Like Jogeswari, who took me to play an international Golf tournament through GOLFTRIPZ.
Went to their office recently (not the Mountain View one) in Gurgaon, to meet an alum who works there. Thought I should know something about them since they know so much about me- corrected the imbalance to an extent.
Now I know why they are rated so highly n Best Places to Work and similar surveys. Less bureaucratic than most, friendly atmosphere, great food and relaxation areas, flexi timings for those who want them, and more. Some pics from meeting Bhuvneet Raheja and another alum -Surjo Sankar Sarkar- that we ran into from IIM Indore's IPM -5 year Integrated Program in Management. He recognised me, and is a Facebook friend too.so we took a photo, pronto - the third pic here.
JIS University had an induction program, which ended with a lot of dhoom dhaam at a big city auditorium in Alipore.
Nine eleven, so called by Americans for the date of that attack on the World Trade Centre, was good for me- the years, I mean.
I joined IMT NAGPUR as Director. Flew in a six seater private plane with the promoter, to be introduced to the faculty before joining. My former colleague Anwar Ali was with me too.
I was interviewed by the student team that ran our newsletter- probably by Gowri.
Met a lot of new colleagues, and Jayasimha, an old one.
Planned out a few things, and ran into a hunger strike by students in early 2010, over placements. Replaced the head of placements (faculty), and also MDP chair.
Taught a Seminar course called Seminar on Thought Leadership, for the first time, with 40 students- one was an exchange student from Austria, Laura.
Met a lot of bright students through various functions, committees and events. Some of the best!
With Prof. Ravi Gadgil, built a green to play Golf on. Played Golf with him and others.
Taught a class on how to use the case method of learning, for students during orientation.
Started Alumni chapter meets in 4-5 cities
Conducted a Case conference planned by Harsh Halve and Jayasimha in Goa, for three consecutive years, at the International Centre, Dona Paula.
Conducted our first independent convocation in 2011 with Mr. Sunil Mittal as Chief Guest. Second with Mr. Mukesh Ambani, and third with Mr. Azim Premji.
Got IMT Nagpur into the top 50 B schools as per a major survey.
Recruited Anant Ram, TK Chatterjee, Vijaya Kumar and Smita Dabholkar, who have been around for many years. Also Rajnandan Pattnaik.
Guided Naveen Das through his Ph.D., jointly through NLU Jodhpur and IMT.
Helped students start F 'n F on campus.
Ate a lot of Oranges.
It was wonderful to meet some ex-colleagues from IMT Nagpur, some students I knew and more that I did not, at the alum meet last evening at the Orchid, Pune. Alcom managed it well.
It was good to hear and feel the nostalgia that students felt for their Alma Mater, and promising to help improve its Branding and standing in the crowd of B schools. Many alumni are now in a position to influence hiring from their companies in diverse areas, so that's an obvious way to do it. But also participating in multiple ways through doing well in your career, going back for guest lectures or taking part in admission interviews, helping with case studies, and so on..
Some pics-
Another alum.
From the nuns in primary school, and classmates in school, teachers in high school, professors and classmates during college and IIM Bangalore, and at Clemson University where I went or a Ph.D., it's a long list. But it does not stop there.
Many friends made in later years- or re-friended due to common interests- also touched my life. Golfer friends Vikram Venkateswaran, Dhanapal, Vijayakumar, and Venugopal Reddy are some.
But apart from colleagues who became friends- Bhagyalakshmi is one, Shweta Kushal and Jayasimha, B.K. Mohanty, Tanmeet, Preeti are some - there's also another category that I am privileged to have. My ex-students.
Alumni of various B schools I have been in have touched my life in many ways. Some, I have been in touch with for a decade or more now. They bring a new perspective to everything we discuss when we meet. Gowri, Anshita Chetty, Ishita, Vanshika, Prachi, Pratishtha, Swati Jain, Sheetal Garg, Nidhi Kanungo, Nishka Kumar, Abha Kulkarni, Nikita Ray, Vrinda Khanna, Bharath Shenoy, Sirisha Adi, Pallavi Bajpai and Shafique Gajdhar (both my twins as per FB!), Anusha Soni, Anushka Mishra, Meghna Sinha, Meghana Khadilkar, Pavan Tarawade, Akshat Surana, Pradyumna Mohanty, Aishwarya Omprakash, Aishwarya Iyer, Anchal, Shuchi Bhatnagar, Pooja Shukla (we haven't even met), Laura Shah, Swati Sinha, Sampark Sachdeva, Vaishali Bathla, Divyaa Sharma, Dheeraj Mohan, Vidya TC, Smita Mohan, Sanjana Rao, Harshad Lunavat, Garima Shah, Abhinav Kamal, Tanaya Kar Chaturvedi, Tosha Dubey, Bhuvneet Raheja, Sharanya, are some who fall in this category.
Annie and Samrendra Singh, the Soni family, Leslie, Ron and Carmon Green, were good friends during our stay in the US. Kiran Ken Jolly and Neena too, apart from relatives- Jayashree and Sheelu among them.
My research findings from life, continued.
Teaching is an art, and not everyone is an artist.
If there is an artist-teacher, he or she can captivate a learner. I have had the fortune to get some artist teachers in school (Hindi, English), MBA (Organizational Behaviour, Marketing) and Ph.D. College, not many. I also tried to introduce artistic ways of teaching humdrum stuff like Marketing Research and not-so-humdrum stuff like Digital Marketing and Advertising.
Learners also respond to non-academic ways of connecting, if done right. Without biasing the evaluation that needs to be done professionally.
Ties can go beyond the college/school years, between students, and also between teachers and students. Some of these bonds can be as strong as those between friends of the same age. I have been very lucky in this department, with alums of various institutions who are great friends now.
Work first.
Started a journal, PES Business Review when I was at PESIT, Banashankari, Bangalore. Manasa, Jayasimha and Shahida all played a role. We launched it with some good papers.
A Case conference at Goa when I was Director at IMT Nagpur. It was exotic, fun, and very successful. Harsh Halve was a prime mover.
Successful convocations at IMT Nagpur. The Admin. played a major role. Also the faculty in various organising committees.
Publishing my first book, on Marketing Research. KIAMS staff helped, and students by writing cases for it. Now in its fourth edition, released at IIM Indore.
Alumni meets for IMT alumni. Many were memorable. Some friends made there are forever. Sheetal, Nikita, Anchal, Shuchi, are just some of those.
Ph.D. students I worked with as a Guide, or mentor. Manoharan, Suma and Naveen Das actually were my students as a Guide. Others, I was on their committees.
New courses, like a Seminar on Thought Leadership, or Digital Marketing and Seminar on Tourism Marketing. Taught me a lot.
In this case, turned out to be alums of two kinds- students and faculty- from IMT Nagpur, which I left in 2013. That hasn't mattered, coz the alums are warm and welcoming, even today. Applies to some faculty alums too.
The pic below has both- students Abha Kulkarni and Shalini Sinha, from around 15-16, and Harsh Halve, who was a faculty member and Placement Chair there. We had a great time, in spite of the high decibel levels trying to prevent us from talking! Mrs. Deepshri Halve, a personal friend, was there too. We also remembered other alums, like Kanika Mhendiratta, Nikita Ray, Ananya Nandi De and Sheetal Garg.
Got a surprise visit from two IPM alums who were in my Marketing Research class too- Amogh Jawa and Vanshika Chaudhary- she's on to a Ph.D. in Eco. now and he works for Caratlane.
They came with old friend Shweta Kushal, prof. at IIM I. We joined IIM at the same time, and are 'batchmates' therefore!
We had great fun, cooking, eating and drinking.. and singing. Vanshika is a great singer, and also plays the guitar! She also trains people in taking better selfies. I need to enroll. But she did teach Amogh a thing or two- he's progressing well!
This is likely to be a series. I may highlight some of my workplaces.
IMT Nagpur
Apart from Oranges in the city, I think I had the coolest bunch of students on campus. And some cool-headed faculty as well. I only taught one Seminar on Thought Leadership during my 3 and a half years there, but I interacted with a lot of students through their extra-curricular activities, and even faced a strike from some lovely guys/girls in my first year- they had a point!
No idea how that bond developed with so many students, but maybe alumni parties were one reason. We had 4-5 each year, and that was a great way to meet and keep in touch. Last week, I met an alumna in Mumbai- Sheetal Garg, and exchanged messages with another, Meenu Mynam who lives in the Gulf. I also keep meeting others- Kanika Mhendiratta, Surbhi Mehta Chadha, Abha Kulkarni, Ananya Nandi De, Shweta Sinha, Anupriya Pandit, Gowri, Sreeram, Anshita Chetty, Ishita Modi, Anurag Sikaria, Pallavi Bajpai, Shafique Gajdhar, Meghna Sinha, Swati Jain, Divya Singh, Vrinda Khanna, Keyur Bhalavat, Ishan Joshi, Ankita, Manjari Mundanad, Nikita Kumar/Ray, Shruti Sharma, Aditya Naag are some I have met at least once. Abhinav Kamal's company, Ten Motion Arts, I wrote a case on. He is into film-making now.
Faculty like Smita Dabholkar went out of their way to do book launches of my autobiography. Ravi Gadgil helped design a green for Golf at the campus. Vijayakumar and others helped bring up the research profile. TK Chatterjee and Harsh Halve did a great job with Placements.
Support staff like Archana and Vinod and Snehal, and Madhuri Helchel all did their bit. Also, RAs helped us run a Case Conference at Goa for 3 years. Tripti Srivastava and Abhinav Chandel were among those. Rachana Mittal helped create a PPT on Leadership that I used in many MDPs.
One of my greatest workplaces- I learnt a lot, and continue to learn from alumni and some friends there.
I have noticed that social skills are not uniformly distributed across genders, even if you keep some things constant. There seems to be a gender disparity, that is statistically significant. The women in general, have much better social skills, than the (poor) men. I am not sure if the men are aware and are happy about this (if they are aware, that is). But in my view, we should not be too thrilled (again, assuming my findings are right).
Why do I say so? I have now interacted with thousands of students in and out of class. During the teaching term, if any students came up and asked for any more inputs or expressed a fear of stats (what little was in my Marketing Research courses), it was mostly the women students. Also for extra-curriculars, clubs, committees, it was the women members who took the lead to approach me to participate, write, contribute, etc.. no idea why.
Even more pronounced is the banter on social media. Though a couple of men students/alumni are good at it, including comments (one in particular, from KIAMS), in general, the women alums known to me from various B schools are generally more involved, more frequent in engaging in a chat, or in asking for advice about a course, or responding positively to any request to meet up in their city. I have therefore ended up meeting a lot of alums of the fairer sex in all these years. This includes a couple outside India such as Smita in Dubai and Swapna and Vidya in Singapore. These have been very enriching meetups too, I must add, for me.
With ex-colleagues, it is more balanced, with some of the men outdoing the women in catching up- maybe for a drink or a game of Golf. So far.
Not sure about readers of the blog yet, unless there's some more research to back it up.
I had another innings in Bangalore from 2020 end till October 2022. This was as Director at NMIMS Bangalore campus. Eventful 2 years, which started with online classes due to COVID still being around. Slowly, we started offline classes, and I was able to meet many students in person. We had a lot of good times, a couple of Convocations, etc. and a few Golf sessions too- in our backyard.
Went to Chennai for a few days, after quite a while. I used to attend a December conference at Great Lakes Institute for a long time. This ...
