10 things they do teach you at IIMs

So I’ve finished a year of MBA, or in quantitative words “I am half a manager”. In hindsight, it wasn’t that bad after all. In-fact, I could go out on limb and confess that the last term was actually very good. The past year was one with a lot of learning, most of it involuntary. It just came about as a consequence of trying to survive in the new world order that exists inside these institutes.

I’ve read about so many articles about ‘list of things they do not teach you at IIMs’. That is of course a more interesting topic to write upon, because the things they do teach are mostly academics that tends to be inherently boring. However at a good b-school, what they teach and what you learn is not really the same. A b-school is designed like a system, and not just a student-teacher interaction. The lectures, projects, quizzes, assignments, committees, clubs, internship, events and everything else are part of the system. And the system manages to teach you much more than what you’d gain in a classroom. So how does the system work? I really have no idea. You just have to be a part of the system to reap its rewards.

Regardless of how they managed to put it across, there are a few learning that changed the way I think about things. I would like to share ten of them here. Are these ten the only takeaways from the first year? Nope. This is just my list. So will reading this list equate to a year at the institute? Not really. I can share these observations, but I can’t share the conviction I have in my mind about them being true. Their strengths, weaknesses, limitations and assumptions are all context driven. Does it justify investing a year in b-school to gain that conviction? I think so!

1. Diminishing marginal utility: The more of something you have, the less its demand and vice-versa. Explains why sleep during exams, time during projects and girls already committed are so much in demand.
2. Price: It is the cause and it is the effect. It is the truth. Getting the price right is priceless. In the words of one Mr. Druker, if you can measure it, you can manage it
3. Objective comes first: Aim and then shoot.
4. Sunk Cost: Same as the age old “don’t cry over spilled milk”. Every second is a fresh start.
5. Find the right word: Because there is one out there and only IIM grads know them
6. Know the audience: Understand the people who’ll evaluate your work
7. MECE: In all alternatives and options try to be Mutually Exclusive-Collectively Exhaustive. It just makes you look smarter and more manager like
8. Cite: Tell your sources. Only they show that you are a graduate from a well known management institute of Northern India.
9. Market yourself: Soap sells, coke sells and even work sells. Includes opinions, view points and criticisms. Customers include professors, committees and companies.
10. You’re the best: You are the culmination of millions of random events, circumstances and choices. You are unique. And as fate would have it, those events are just the perfect combination for being a future Fortune 500 CEO

Here I am, on the road again...

So I've resigned again. This time I've left Microsoft for the lure of a management course at IIM. It was a very tough decision for me to take. Since the time I can remember I've been fascinated by technology. I still have disturbed nights, when I feel as if I've lost a loved one close to me. The kind of happiness I got in digging deeper and deeper into logic would probably never be found again. But the learning must go on. If you plan to live a life of learning, it becomes important to not get caught in a niche, to see the big picture, no matter how hazy it appears. Never again would I get the chance to learn about disciplines like finance, marketing and human resources. Never again would my family be so supportive. Never again would I have the kind of financial freedom I have today. Never again would I be this courageous and just let go.
Serving the notice period in Microsoft was tough, because I could see people with much lesser love for computers who've made Microsoft their home. And there was also the lure of a very comfortable present and a bright future. Another realization was that the people who I thought were different, and who had made it to IIMs painted a very sad (or maybe just a practical) picture - "The purpose of coming to IIMs is to get a better job", "I would recommend management to people who are not sure about what they want in life". These kinds of thoughts unnerved me a little. I've often painted a very rosy picture of how things would be in the future, only to see them getting distorted amidst the practicalities like these. But then I thought, though the reality hasn't the way I've pictured, it has been good enough to keep me dreaming and hoping, and that ain't that bad!
In the software industry we always take decisions. This algorithm, this hardware, this technology. Thinking about these made me realize that these are not really decisions you take. These are the decisions you arrive at. Mostly you have enough facts to know which is the better technology, you just call the act of interpreting those facts as decision making. The real decisions one needs to take are the ones in which you don't have the facts, at-least not as many as you'd like. I realized I am quite in-adept at taking such decisions. Something I intend to learn, through trial and error, in the coming two years.
These days I've been reading about Steve Jobs. He is becoming a sort of a hero for me in my adult life. What I like the most about him is that he has had to fight at every step to reach where he has reached today. And he has. You can hear a very fascinating speech delivered by him at the Stanford convocation here. I would just like to re-iterate about what he talks about dots and how you have got to keep making those. And these dots always join in the past, they will never join looking forward. So in order to make a few dots and hoping to connect a few..Here I go, TURN THE PAGE!