How to Make Profits AND Contribute to Society

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Social Entrepreneurship.

This word has been bandied around a lot, and many companies, colleges and people pay lip service to it.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_entrepreneurship

  1. How do we create a sustainable enterprise that makes profits and fulfills social obligations?
  2. Can we help uplift the stature of the small town that we came from, where we were nurtured, before the city lights seduced us to the big city?
  3. How can we make more money that by having a job in the city?
  4. How can we have more stature and recognition than being a factory worker in a big corporation?
  5. Can we take the unemployed youth of our town, the girls who are prevented from having a career in another city and make something that will create wealth for the young people of our town?

NextWealth is showing the way. Read it here.

How I wish that some more mentees used this example, and created a sustainable enterprise in their home towns.

As you start an MBA program

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When you join an MBA course, you consider yourself a student. You behave like a student, learning from classes and books. When you leave the MBA course, after completing it, you are no longer a student. You are a corporate citizen and are being paid to behave like one.

In these two years, what have you learnt that makes you into a corporate citizen? Knowledge of management and its streams?

Does knowledge of Marketing, Finance, HR, IT and Operations make you a manager? Does that provide value to a company? The company can also search the internet for the data that you profess to have. In fact it is cheaper and more efficient, as this data is available in searchable form while it is available only incompletely in your mind. The difference between the internet and you is that you have arms and leg and can do things. But do what?

Doing things in a company means listening to your boss, understanding what he wants and doing it to his satisfaction. remember your boss contributes 90% to your career.

Doing things in a company means promoting yourself, your boss and your company and its products.

Doing things means executing projects to everyone’s satisfaction.

Doing things means influencing everyone to do what is required to be done.

How do you learn this in college if you are focused on memorizing and vomiting information?

If an MBA college teaches only theory, the instructors are simply aggregators of information. If you want book summaries, they are there on the internet. Why attend classes. Moreover, why not do a correspondence course?

So in order to be useful to any organization, apart from knowing the theory of management, you need to learn the practice of management.

You may argue: why do this?

  1. This is a college, not a company and there is no opportunity to practice management.
  2. Practice is what we will do in a company, we should focus on getting the maximum theory in college.

Let us evaluate these beliefs. By the way, these beliefs come from a resistance to transition from a student in academic life to an adult in real life. You will fight tooth and nail to resist these changes, because they move you out of your comfort zone.

  1.  A company is made for profit and has an objective of creating a product, its need and to sell it. Everything else is secondary. You have an objective of creating yourself into an MBA, creating a need for you and sell yourself in an interview. Are you not a company?
  2. You need to listen to your instructors, the deans, will your boss be any different?
  3. You need to execute group assignments and individual assignments to everyone’s satisfaction, in a give time period. Is this not execution of projects?
  4. You need to convince your colleagues and your professors to give you what you want. Is this not practicing influence?
  5. Why should a company pay to teach you the practice of management?
  6. Why should a company give you a high salary because you have imperfect theoretical knowledge?
  7. Why should a company take a risk on you that you will be able to satisfactorily practice management? There is no proof and predictability of your capability.

So what should you do as an MBA student.

  1. Keep an eye on your placement-ability. What does the market want and what can you do.
  2. Understand that the college social system is no different from a company, with its own share of internal competition, cooperation, politics, groupism and need for influence. If you cannot handle yourself here, you will not be a good corporate citizen
  3. Apart from mugging up information, you need to create transferable skills like managing your emotions, critical thinking, managing others, managing projects, managing stakeholders…managing life.

The downturn in the economy

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http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/84/mba.html suggests what to do if you do not get a job.

 

First book “MBA Blues” launched

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Book Launch, IBA Bangalore

As many of you know, there has been talk of writing a book, for a long time. Ultimately, it has become a reality. The book has gone for final proof reading, the cover page has been made, ISBN number has been obtained and we are ready to roll.

This is the first book of the 7 books that will be rolled out. This one focuses on ‘The MBA program’ – the demand and supply of MBAs, what recruiters want etc, then managing self and relationships and lastly, critical thinking (bringing some rationality into thinking).  This is for the first trimester.

The other books are on effective project management, and then on hard core sales and negotiation.

Then there will be a book on how to do an effective SIP.

In the 2nd year, I will focus on Emotional Intelligence, the Business Common Sense and lastly transition to corporate life.

All in all, these books are focused on soft skills that are transferable across any job.

Wish me well.  Go to the top of www.mbablues.com and look at the menu options.

The self esteem of a Bhindi

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I hate Bhindis (okras, lady’s fingers). When I go to the vegetable market, I pass over Bhindi, even if they are fresh and tender. I do not even see them. Should the bhindi have low self esteem? Should the bhindi start believing that because I have not considered it, there is something wrong with it?

If my boss loves Bhindi and he is coming to my house for dinner, I will pick up the Bhindi. Should the Bhindi now have high self esteem?

The point is, when people ignore me, or do not return my overtures of friendship, I feel rejected. When I feel rejected, slowly I start believing that I must have done something wrong, or there is something wrong with me.
People interact with me when they need me. sometimes they need, sometimes they do not. Some people like me, some do not. Some people have time for me, some do not. Why should I believe there is something wrong with me? Why is my self esteem going up and down based on other person’s reaction towards me?
It is all a matter of taste. There is nothing wrong with the Bhindi

Dante’s Divine Comedy

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Dante Alighieri wrote this allegorical epic poem in the 1300s. This is his examination of the afterlife. One travels through the Inferno (Hell), the Purgatorio (Purgatory), and the Paradiso (Heaven).

Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.

Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.

Understand that this is an allegory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory It is not a treatise on Christianity. Here is my interpretation

  1. All actions and inactions have consequences, intended or unintended. If you do not know the consequences or ignore the consequences, these ripples will come and impact you later…ripples take time and space to travel. The later part of your life in time and space is the after-life. That means you do not know when and where the consequences will impact you. And it can become hell because of what you did in your previous part of your life.
  2. Once you have suffered the consequences, you need to decide how you want to move forward. If you mope and whine, you continue living in hell. But if you have thought it thorough and decided, enough is enough, I accept the consequences, and move on, you are into purgatory. Purgatory cleanses you. Fire burns off all impurities from gold. You pass through, burnished.
  3. Once you have been purged of your guilt, your pain, and all negative emotions, you are left with positive emotions
  4. Now you are in heaven, as you start finding happiness in every small thing. You know how to reframe.

Don’t shoot the messenger – ad hominem attacks

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What is effective communication? It is a good composition of the message and its flawless transmission? Is it reception of the message without distortion?

Distortion of the message happens at two points

  • during transmission – physical distortion
  • due to the belief of the receiver

The same message, to two different persons will have different reactions. There are three types of beliefs that a receiver has that can impact distortion:

  1. the beliefs that a receiver has and therefore how he interprets the message itself – this is impacted by the language, the tone and the structure of the message. Sometime the size of the message makes a difference: big emails, short sms, terse verbal responses, long and winded verbal responses (lectures)
  2. the receiver’s belief about the sender and the intent of the sender (even an innocuous birthday wishes will have sinister overtones if sent by someone who I think is my enemy; if you do not like a lecturer or his intent, then even his sincere messages will have different overtones)
  3. the communication medium : in today’s discussion, the messenger. I am ignoring physical media like telephone cables, Internet etc.

Traditionally, we are advised to differentiate the message from the messenger. We are supposed to be messenger agnostic. “Don’t shoot the messenger,” we are entreated.

But the messenger will determine how we receive the message. If we do not like the messenger or the way he delivers the message, we will not care about the content or the sender. If a book is good, but it is presented by a lecturer or a student we do not like, then we do not care about the contents of the book, or its writer. If a person gives you feedback, we will care about the feedback based on who is giving us the feedback.

Does it mean that I have to be liked before I can send a message?

Does it mean that I have to be liked before I can deliver a message?

Does it mean that my messenger has to be liked?

Does it mean the message loses its significance?

Look at the response of the receiver. If he does not like the message, he has choices:

  • attack the message,
  • attack the sender and also
  • attack the messenger

If he does not like the sender or the messenger, he has same choices.

So when people do not do what I want them to do, I need to look at my message, the receiver’s perception about me and the receiver’s
perception about the messenger.

I also run the risk that if people do not like my message, they will attack the messenger – the poor guy

So if a teacher wants the student to study, and if a student does not want to study, he will attack the message (the course is useless) or the sender (the writer is not qualified) or the messenger (the professor is useless and does not know how to teach)

If a group member does not like what another group member is suggesting, he will attack his suggestion or he will attack the person.

If a group member does not like the person delivering the suggestion, even if the suggestion is good, he will attack the person and the suggestion.

Why do we fear, when we know that most of the fears are groundless

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Our mind is not designed that way. A baby does not fear the snake, the response of the people around him makes it fear the snake. Our fears are a product of our programming. People eat things that other people shudder to look at. People have learnt responses and behaviours that are acceptable. It is the product of the environment we grew up.

The previous blog gives an idea of how this programming happens.

So what does this mean?
Every time I behave or react to a stimulus, I need to understand why I do that. If I understand what makes me do what I do, or be what I am, I can decide whether or not to change my behaviour or values. The desire to change is based on what impact the change will have in the pursuit of my goals. If I do not have a goal, there can be no change, because there is no reason, no purpose. Goals and purpose are related.
One of the ways of understanding self is to understand and accept my fears. Courage has been defined as a realisation that I am afraid, admitting that I am afraid and still go through with the action. Courage is NOT the absence of fear. As long as we have emotions and can think and imagine, we will have fears.

Sometimes fears are derivative. A fear of public speaking can be because of a fear of ridicule.

A deeper understanding comes from how the fears have been created. For this, I need to look back into my past life (the current one, not the previous reincarnations) and pick out the events where I had similar fears. For each such incident, I need to realise if my fears were groundless or not. Typically I find that most of what I feared did not happen.When we start finding the pattern, we get a sense that most fears are groundless and we have more confidence to face the future. We also find that we catastrophised(made mountains out of molehills) the outcome of each event. If we go further back, we can find out the root causes of our conditioning.

For example, the fear of ridicule could be because people laughed at me when I was performing on stage or at home when I was 5 years old.

Once we know and understand how we are conditioned, we have a choice.

  • We can, of course, blame our conditioning for screwing up our life, and live life like that.
  • We can decide to use ‘extinction’ as a method of modifying my behaviour that resulted from my fear. If I have a fear of enclosed lifts (elevators), I can shut myself in it for 1 second, see that my fear is groundless, and keep increasing my exposure to the fear under controlled situations, until I realise that the fear is groundless.
  • The traditional method of throwing a person into the deep water to teach him how to swim has a risk of additional trauma and the fear of water being replaced by the fear and lack of trust of the person who threw him in.
  • There are other therapies like CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) and NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) which could also help. The first one analyses what you think, find patterns in your negative thinking and allows you to logically argue the fallacy of the thoughts. The second one reprograms your thought process by using alternate modelling. Both require qualified professionals.

Values and personality formation – some theory

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This comes from writings by Tad James who is paraphrasing the sociologist Morris Massey. Some parts have been removed for succinctness.

There are three major periods that a person will go through in values and personality formation.

  • the Imprint Period, which occurs from birth until age 7
  • the Modeling Period, which is from 8 to 13
  • the Socialization Period, from 14 to 21.

THE IMPRINT PERIOD

The Imprint Period, from birth to age 7, is the time when we are like a sponge. We pick up and store everything that goes on in our environment. We get our basic programming in that Imprint Period. Our basic programming occurs between ages 2 and 4, and by the time a child is 4, most of the major programming has occurred. Most of the phobias are created between ages 3 and 7. That is where we find most of the earliest experiences that serve as the basis for a phobia. (Of course, there may be amplifications or reinforcement of the phobia after that.) There may also be no remembrance of the creation of the phobia because the learning processes that occur during the Imprint Period are largely unconscious. The Imprint Period occurs from ages 0 to 7 and is the basic programming of an individual. The child unconsciously picks up the parents’ behavior.

THE MODELING PERIOD

The ages 8 through 13 are the Modeling Period. Between 8 and 13 the child begins to consciously and unconsciously model basic behaviors. I can plainly remember a time when I was about 10. I was with my grandfather, who had a rather severe limp. I was unconsciously mimicking his way of walking. He saw me and scolded me for doing that, and yet at the time I was not aware I had been copying him. Perhaps you, too, can recall memories of how you modeled adults during this time. Maybe you can even remember having to dress just like Mommy or Daddy.

Before age 7 or so, the child is mostly unaware of any difference between the parents and himself. The child experiences no difference from parents. Then at age 8 the child begins to notice that there are people outside himself, and through age 13 he begins to look outside himself at the goings on in the world. They notice the behaviour of friends and family and model them. At that point, children begin to develop heroes. We notice that children have fewer conscious heroes before age 7 than after from age 8 to 13 they begin to start picking up the values of the people they have made into heroes. Massey’s point of view is that our major values about life are picked up between 8 and 13 (at around age 10). In addition, his point of view is that your values are based on where you were and what was happening in the world when you were 10.

SOCIALIZATION PERIOD

Ages 14 through 21 we call the Socialization Period. The child goes through a Socialization Period where social interaction begins with other human beings. The young adult here picks up relationships and social values, most of which will be used throughout the rest of his life. At age 21, values formation is just about complete. At this point core values do not change unless there is a significant emotional experience (or other therapeutic change is done). Other more conscious values change and evolve continually. People change and grow and their values change over time. The values people start with, however, the basic core values, are formed around age 10 and locked in at age 21.

More on academic pressure

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Earlier, I focussed on parents and peers for putting pressure.

One respondent talked about the professors vacillating between academic probity, their institute’s academic reputation, the professor’s professional reputation of being a hard task master and his personal reputation if blamed for the untoward incident. Someone recommended professors making judgemental call on grades based on potential psychological impact, not on objective academic criteria.
While we are at it, let us not forget to blame society, the education system etc. Ultimately, we will do nothing as we cannot take on the system.
When Kapil Sibal took on AICTE and tried to change the CBSE to give only Std 12 board exams (making std 10 optional or locally corrected instead of by the Board), there was a hue and cry from all affected parties.
  • The parents said that their children will have no experience in giving competitive exams. They also said that teachers now have more power as they determine a portion of the final grades and this will create a misuse of their power; that we were now following the American system and look what has happened to America; that they will now have to help their children with the projects at home instead of watching TV which is their birthright after returning from office.
  • The teachers objected saying that because of continuous evaluation, their work load will increase. They do not want to do corrections locally.
  • The children revolted saying that earlier they had to do tuitions and study only for the board exams, now they will also have to study the whole year, listen to the teachers, attend classes…essentially foregoing their birthright of bunking classes.
If you look at the common factor, it is fear.
  • Parents transmit their fear of taking care in old age, not having enough money, starvation etc. Therefore they instil the spirit of competition. Parents have their own fear of their position in society and loss of bragging rights
  • Peers feed on the fear of not belonging as well as not allowing others to get ahead
  • Children have a fear of self esteem also assimilate the parents and peer’s fears
  • Professors have a fear of being blamed and the impact on their career
  • Educational Institutes have a fear on one side of diluting the academic integrity and on the other side of the PR impact. (Maybe, they should put statutory warnings during the ‘welcome to the cream of the cream of country’ speech at orientation that ‘if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen’ or ‘we are not responsible for peer pressure, the grades and how you mind perceives both of them’)
  • We have the fear of the unknown; and of change in status quo and our intention of mitigating that fear by having a nest egg, a proper education, job etc…
And then we have Mr. Tagore talking about India, ‘where the mind is without fear’
  1. Most of what we fear does not happen but the mind imagines the worst.
  2. Does it not boil down to having the courage to face our fears, and to control our mind of negative thoughts?
  3. I find that most successful people have this ability to not succumb to negative emotions and the ability to change the status quo. Look at the sales guys, they bounce back after so much rejection!
  4. If any counselling has to be done, it has to be towards managing self and our fears – not to erase the fears (which we can’t) but to manage them. Also to manage relationships and change, and what I call “emotional resilience
  5. Can we as alumni teach them this? What is the benefit of our experience if we cannot tell the students about our fears, and what happens in reality?
  6. Can we as parents change our conditioning and try not to inculcate our values on our children?
  7. Why are we trying this systemic change, the big bang approach, where we have power only to influence a small section of society – the family. Can we start a chain reaction, slow but more permanent?