Lecture
1
The
doors towards Syndicate 2 opened when my name was there in the list that NITIE
released on 27th march 2012. I left Indian Oil Corporation Limited,
a Maharatna Company. 18th June 2012 was the day when I was entitled
to sit in Syndicate 2, to commence a all new voyage, popularly known as
“M.B.A”.
Dr.
Prasad aka Dr. Mandi came in the class room exactly at 14:15 hours, the persona
as such was totally magnificent. His way
was utterly bohemian and unconventional, that was the biggest charm in the
lecture. His way of making us learn thru this blog is a full delight in itself.
The learning that I imbibed thru the lectures that I attended till now is as
follows:
1)
“AAJ KI ROTI AAJ HI KAMANI HAI”
(Earn
your bread and butter for today, today itself!)
The
first thing that really struck my brain was this line. After hearing to the
words of Dr. Mandi, I learned that, firstly, there is no lower limit to the age
where we can think about start earning. A strong opinion that embossed in my
mind that it is very much possible that if I am able to crack the mantra of
negotiation and marketing and dealing with any lay man in convincing manner, in
short if I can develop those strong marketing skills in my mind, then I can run
any business with success. The strong marketing skills that I am talking about
were unknown to, but not for long. The skills are simple, be honest in
portraying your product (be it any finished good or any service), you must know
how to target the right customer and when is actually the right time to bang
the nail. E.g. if I have to sell a toy, with a concept of physics involved in
it. Then for sure I must know the benefits of that toy for a student of physics
i.e. how good it would be in helping him understand a particular concept of
physics. My target customer should anyhow be students of school and the right
time should be any exhibition in school, any carnivals and may be during parent
teachers meeting. In this way I must know the art of selling my business and it
will any how help be earn what I can and achieve the status of “EARNING TODAY’S
MEAL TODAY ITSELF”. I learned and imbibed a belief that Yes! I can recover my
entire fees of roughly 6.5 lakhs during my stint in M.B.A College itself.
In addition to this an all together new concept
of “Socho
Becho, Becho Seekho, Seekho Socho”, was told by Dr. Mandi. In this
concept the three concepts of Learning, Sales and Innovation are blended
together. If I scroll a few pages back in my life, I reach IOCL, where I was a
Sales & marketing Officer (LPG), I believe that this concept fits in
perfectly in the lame scenario that LPG Market is facing these days. The
prospective customer for subsidized LPG is actually poor people, but this good
is provided in subsidized rated even to likes of Mukesh Ambani, Ratan Tata etc.
My idea that I just got during the lecture itself is an outcome of this concept
of “Socho
Becho, Becho Seekho, Seekho Socho”. As per my suggestion or recommendation, this LPG should be given
at subsidized rate only to BPL customers. The bifurcation could be easily done
on the basis of Adhar Card. In a simpler sense another idea could be that every
customer is entitled for just 3 to 4 cylinders an year at subsidized rates. With
this Government will make a lot of profit and Oil Market scenario of the
country would stabilize manifolds.
2)
“Bohemian ways required for imbibing good knowledge”
During the lecture, we were shown the video of
“Another Brick in the Wall”, by Pink Floyd. The basic idea behind showing this
video was that, if we still intent to follow the conventional ways of learning
i.e. follow the fix curriculum, basic focus is on scoring high marks without
learning new things etc then the entire purpose of perusing an MBA degree is
defeated. This is the first time I am writing a blog and trust me I am
thoroughly enjoying every bit of it. Plus I am amazed to learn so many new
concept that are coming to mind automatically, just by keeping my mind, eyes and
ears open in the class. The new concepts that are being experimented here make
us learn a new subject; the same bohemian ways could be used in marking up
one’s business standards. The idea that struck my mind was if you want to be a
good marketer then first learn to be a good sales person. Very closely I am
able to relate to the idea of Mandi, wherein we are actually into selling the
good from various NGOs, directly to end customers. This way I believe will
bring an all new association with end customer, the understanding will improve
and anyhow the important concept of targeting the right customer would be
understood by practically dealing with the thing.
3) Concept of SMART Goals :
The SMART is acronym for:
S: Specific
M: Measurable
A: Attainable
R: Relevant
T: Timely
E: Evaluate
R: Reevaluate
This concept tells us about three things,
firstly, being realistic, secondly, being motivating and thirdly about
reevaluating. I can associate thing concept with my Ex- Company, the target
that were given to us were utterly vague at times. Like company at time ask us
to give a growth of 25% on subsidized products, which at times is un justified
as it is loss of national wealth. So by following there principle of goal
setting we may set the targets such that no one is deprived of their right to
get these products and also there is no loss of national wealth.
4
Tower
Building Exercise (The art of management hierarchy and team building):
A very good exercise that was
done in class.
Background:
Three people, the highest bidder in the class,
were actually asked to perform the task. Here out of three, one was lower
management person, one middle management and one was a top management guy (this
role was played by me!!). Here the lower management guy was blind folded and
was supposed to stack cubes of 1X1, one over the other and that to with his non
dominant hand. The middle management was supposed to guide him, just verbally.
The top management guy was supposed to interfere only when he feels that
situation is out of control and that to maximum 10 times.We were able to make a
stack of 18 cubes.
LEARNING:
There are two ways in which I can manage my
workforce, being a manager. One w.r.t Theory X and other w.r.t. Theory Y. In
Theory X I believe that my employees are inherently lazy and inherently dislike
work, whereas, in Theory Y I believe that employees are self motivated and
exercise self- control.
Lower Management:
These people are those who are into all the working. They are skilled in
particular task. But, they cannot perform any duty without the supervision of
middle management. The middle management has to take care of each and every
movement and task performed by lower management people. They have these
inherent tendencies of giving up, if they are not motivated as is the case of
tower building activity. They need to be handled with care.
Middle Management:
These people do the entire supervision. They are the one who motivates the
lower management and extract the work out of them. As per my analysis, they are
actually self motivated and know the seriousness of their job (case being that
they are handled properly). Their prime objective however is to finish the task
at any cost.
Top Management: They are
there for emergency situations and other man power handling related issues. The
role was played by me, the biggest study that I could decipher out of it is that
even when no one is there to supervise them and their prime objective is to
finish the task. Even then they have a strong association toward their work and
they keep their work ethics intact. They prompt only in out of turn situations
and their main objective is to maintain right people for right job.
So, these were my
learning from the lectures. It was an awesome experience and has definitely
made my management acumen even more acute. I will surely now think to put in
these principle both in personal and professional life.
