Diversity, the new Homogeny!

Picture this: An Entrepreneur who owns a mining unit, A Healthcare Administrator, a Chartered Accountant, a Marketing Country representative, a HR Manager, a Radiologist, an Operations Manager at a nuclear plant, a Product Lifecycle Management specialist, an Investment Banker and an IT Salesman having an avid discussion on Organization Behavior and Business Ethics!

For those pursuing their General Management Program at XLRI, this is not an uncommon sight.

The classical saying ‘birds of a feather flocked together’ holds no water when it comes to the 2012 Batch of the General Management Program (GMP, a one-year fulltime flagship MBA program) at XLRI Jamshedpur!

Originally conceptualized for the promising middle-level managers TATA Steel for a faster climb up the corporate ladder, XLRI broadened the scope of the General Management Program by extending it to professionals from other industries as well. XLRI in its admission process places a strong emphasis on choosing prospective students not only based on the relevance of their job experience, but also ensures diversity within the class. The GMP has evolved over the years and boasts of a class profile now that spans across industries.

Students from sectors such as Media, Medical & Healthcare, Energy (Nuclear, Oil and Gas, Petrochemical) , Manufacturing, Information Technology, Fast Moving Consumer Goods, Human Resources, Business Consulting, Telecommunication, Steel, Mining, Apparels, Banking, Textiles & Fashion open up to subjects such as Management Accounting, Economics, Marketing, Ethics and Corporate Sustainability to obtain a holistic perspective of a business.

The diversity and variety is not restricted to Sector representation alone.

Students have held various corporate positions and wide ranging roles and responsibilities such as Regional Managers, Design Specialists, Operations Managers, Portfolio Manager, ERP consultants and Project Managers.

The GMP boasts of a wide range of student age groups with the youngest class participant being 26 years old and the oldest, 38 years, as well as participants who have worked across geographies and multiple locations.

Where does all of this lead to?

Both Raja Marthandan (27), the youngest entrepreneur in the batch who runs a Manganese Ore mining unit, and Siddhartha Agarwal (38), unquestionably the wisest member of the class, an importer and exporter of textile goods are able to correlate the curriculum and their knowledge gained in running businesses.

For the class participants, interacting with members from other organizations and sectors and listening to their perspectives of subjects is an eye opener.  The result being that the program provides the managers with not only a substantial exposure to the theoretical foundations in management but also a comprehensive view of business. This in turn helps them shoulder responsibilities that come up as they move up the hierarchy. In sum, the GMP re-emphasizes that the value of an MBA education lies also in things learned outside the classroom, in the relationships established with others in the community and fellow students and most importantly in the importance of the age old mantra ‘Unity in Diversity’.

The Dining Etiquette Lab , with a Fatherly grace ...

Reeling pressure, suffocating heat of sarcastic surprise quizzes , overlapping assignments and tests , technically summarized as ‘rigor’ may drive the experimental GMPians of XLRI to a dreadful, invulnerable donuts but also pushes them to par excellence . When red eyed early morning classes from late night rattas , dropping heads in half understood lectures becomes the order of the day , the dining etiquette lab of our beloved Father A. C. Jesurajan punches in a fresh lease of optimism and desired variation from the stereotyped rigor-, where we not only get good food,free booze but also plenty of dining etiquette tips and a chance to dress and oops ! Impress.

Prior to this lab, in Father’s class the Indian whiskey's myth is broken, beware our desi ‘single malt snobs’. According to Him, Indian whiskey is nothing more than a bi-product of second stage fractional distillation of molasses and hence a mere cohort of not so friendly chemicals. How acid (alcohol) reacts with base (soda) to form salt and water and lowers our mighty ego was clarified with scientific precision. Wine glasses’ use , the choice of restaurants across the world , the cuisines , the pre dining etiquette , table mannerism, time constraint … were all splendidly explained with a true cosmopolite elegance.

Tonight, this practical lab showcases His genuine effort to crystallize these theories into practice and a crisp controlled array of sequential mannerisms, filled in with the right ambience and a li'l nervousness of over drinking ..

Being informed well ahead where to go , and aware of the fact that we are simply thrown out of class had we been 1 minutes late , cheerful yet cautious junta arrived at the stipulated time , all dressed up gentlemen and ladies ,to be greeted generously by Father , his assistant Freddy, and the softly played country numbers ..the fillers .The scene somehow reminded me of a famous cat-mice cartoon sequence !! Conspicuously, the evening started well. We were guided to our seats, and directed to go over the counter for beverages. Blenders pride , Rum and Smirnoff were served in measured 60 ml pegs (just the opportunity we were waiting for , in spite of its whatever chemistry ) . The snacks (chicken, mushroom and mixture )were excellent and the liquors, as always ,didn’t let us down .

After a couple of drinks ,as expected there were no more order or round robin in getting alcohol from counter , alcohol has somehow always worked to coalesce humans to the same emotion level (proportional to the number of pegs). Then there were photo sessions ..for ,with and by the Father .Just at the right moment when we thought that we should venture our 4^th peg of alcohol , we were asked to join the dinner at the ground floor.

It was a wonderfully lit room , each table smitten by candles whose fluid light was ecstatic for the already intoxicating evening ..We settled in our positions ( or should I say already reserved tables) and began our dining …

Using napkin, cutleries - outside in ,from course to course, guided by father at every possible steps effused perfection and His tremendous commitment to us .We learned to be managerially efficient hosts with proper etiquettes in the best possible way (well almost ! we heard few forks and spoons dropping down the floor ) .After the soup , starter, salad , interesting main courses we passed one over another to the end of the session to finish up with a beautiful dessert .Father’s announcements between the dinner courses channelized the flow and did let us know what we were doing. Again a pleasant surprise was evident. We had two birthday boys and the details didn’t go unnoticed by Him. Two delicious cakes glided in , were cut by the birthdays babies ,photographed and justice done by us to the cakes .In short every moment was savored.

Like all splendid spells, this also came to an end and it was called off with an introduction of the serving staff , who were not only hospitable but were extremely efficient to manage 60+1 odd of us (not everybody in the best of their senses after intoxication) seamlessly . We concluded by thanking the maestro of perfection, the ‘Communication Guru’ with a standing ovation ….

Thus we wrapped up one of our best nights at XlRI,a night marked by the epitome of dining etiquette connoisseurship,a lesson learnt in the finest details, a knowledge that will definitely remain ever embedded in our empirical etiquette DNA.

The Web Is 20 Years Old Today

It was twenty years ago today/ Tim Berners-Lee taught the world to play/ Although 20 years ago he would have sworn/ That there wouldn’t have been so much porn. That’s right – the world’s first website, a placeholder page written by Sir Berners-Lee way back on August 6, 1991 in the then-nascent Hypertext Mark-Up Language, is celebrating its 20th birthday today. And, on this important anniversary, we ask what hath the web wrought?

In the past two decades we’ve been given ecommerce and spam, we’ve torn down the music, news, and publishing industries, and we’ve LOL ed at more CATS than we can count. We’ve surfed the rise and fall of empires , the dissolution of the line between public private , the end of enforceable copyright . We’ve seen new modes of communication drive out unwanted regimes at home and abroad and we’ve heard the endless howl of a million voices calling out at once, most of them in comments on this site.

We’ve also seen lots of the aforementioned porn.

The original page is mirrored here and it’s a fascinating look at the seed crystal that catalyzed change to the world as we knew it in those heady pre-Internet days.

Happy birthday, Internet Web. Here’s to another 20 happy, healthy years.

~amen