Is MBA about giving fundas?

My wife complained to me yesterday that ever since I have come back from my MBA school, I have started giving fundas to everyone. She mentioned while listening to a conversation with my friend over phone, that every statement he made, I had an opinion on it. I classified it as either good or bad, useful or useless, interesting or bad, so on and so forth. Her argument was that may be the other person just made a statement and didn't expect that statement to be evaluated on my scale.I didn't agree to her initially but it forced me to think. So, what is it? Is it that MBA helps you to think through everything and helps you make quick decisions or is it that just get so much accustomed to giving your opinion as a part of "evaluated" class participation while discussing the case studies? Whatever it is, I think I need to take this feedback and work on it.

Another Indian Paradox

There was a news item recently that there are more religious shrines in India than schools and hospitals combined. Although, I don't find anything wrong with that, it does reflect that we Indians are quite religious and our belief in afterlife and karma is supreme. Now, the paradox lies here. We all go to temples to get some favor from God, and add to our account of good karma, but for doing this, we add so many more bad karmas. e.g. we pay to get vip darshan, we do not follow any discipline or rules and at drop of hat push people, jump lines, avoid lines, not even caring for small children and infants. We look at beggers with harted, scold them, no do anything to make their lives better but we will give away hundreds in the temple which will be used to make the temple better, add gold to it and make it more attractive and bigger to invite more people and add to this mayhem.

BTW, why do I say that its not baffling that there are more religious shrines than schools and hospitals, because not every one is sick and needs a hospital at a given time and only people of certain age go to school, which is only a fraction. But everyone goes to temples and prays - everyday! or at least they are supposed to. Therefore, I didn't find this news item that striking!

Should there be reservation for OBC?

Today Supreme Court has upheld the government decision to reserve 27% seats for OBC candidates in educational institutions. While government action is a welcome step to bring equality among the people, I am not sure if this is the right step. For one, by not having a robust primary education system, the reserved seats in higher education institutes in futile. Without basics, students in higher classes wouldn't gain much and will be subjected to undue pressure. There are already numerous cases of suicides among students who are unable to cope up with the pressure and expectations of their parents and relatives.

Secondly, this kind of action is more politically driven and any action with no proper basis, leads to more disintegration on the country. This will cause division of society. This is definitely unwelcome. There is this increasing trend of divisional politics (another case in point it Raj Thakhery's Marathi politics) and this will lead to more problems for emerging India and will slow down the progress.

Then what should be done? One way out is to have reservation, if any, based on financial status. This also can be done by providing lower interest rate educational loans which can be repaid after the job. This will bring some accountability to everyone and these seats would not be taken for granted. We already have demand-supply mismatch. Any deserving student should get the seat and finance should not be a hurdle.

We also need a robust primary education system. A system where everyone is encouraged to go to school, the schools should be good with teachers who are motivated. Education should be free at primary level for financially challenged students. Unless this gap is plugged any affirmative action only at the top level would not help anyone and will only have negative consequences.

Fatal Flaws in Shakespeare's Tragic Heroes

All the tragic heroes in Shakespeare’s plays are strong characters and one of their attributes causes their rise and the excess of the same attribute causes their downfall. Some of the attributes of Shakespeare’s Tragic Heroes are:

a) Hamartia – This represents a fatal flaw that the hero has that causes his downfall.

b) Pathos – This represents that particular action, whose consequences will be fatal.

c) Hubris – Excessive Pride

d) Narcissus – Being in love with himself. This is a curse.

e) Peripetia – Reversal in context, but the hero doesn’t realize that and continues to do what whatever he was doing.

f) Anagnorosis – Point of recognition.

g) Angulimaal Point – Point of no return. Non-reversible.

h) Nemesis – A justly deserved penalty, retribution.

i) Catharsis – Purification, Purgation. Sense of pity and fear will have catharsis effect on people reading Shakespeare because of secondary experience and it has emotional cleansing impact.

A tragic hero follows a graph, where on Y axis is the growth due to the attributes and on x-axis is the time. Initially there is a meteoric rise of the hero because of his attribute, e.g. say Hamartia. However, a threshold point 1 (T1) is reached at which the growth becomes stagnant and infact the downfall starts. This point is called Peripetia. Though, a constant growth path can still be charted out, the Hero doesn’t realize that because of Hubris. If the hero realizes that, he can still go back, however, as time passes it becomes increasingly difficult, until it reaches the Threshold point 2 (T2), called Metamoia. As you approach this point, the transition becomes Herculean task and the hero avoids it. By having no corrective actions between T1 and T2, the fall of the hero accelerates beyond T2, until it reaches point T3, called Angulimaal Point. This is the point of no return. The path to go back from here is almost impossible. The hero even if he realizes, would not go back and would rather undergo the consequences. He has to undergo the consequences irrespective. Further fall brings to the point of Anagnorosis where the Hero realizes but it is too late. From here follows death, decay, oblivion, derailment and shame.

On the x-axis as time progresses, there is also an increasing masculinity (assertiveness, desire for material goods) and that squeezes femininity. This hastens the fall. The learning for we future leaders is how to prevent ourselves from reaching Peripetia and even if we reach Peripetia, we can guard ourselves by having mentors, confidants and having a feedback mechanism in place. However, the time duration between T1 and T2 is very short and coming back on track from here becomes increasingly difficult as times passes.

To avoid reaching Peripetia, it is important to have strong Emotional Intelligence which comprises of Self Awareness (Introspection, feedback and Psychometric), Self Regulation (assertiveness), Maslow Hierarchy, Empathy (listening) and Social Skills (Networking – driven by commonality of interest).

Commitment vs Loyalty

One of our professors posed a question in the class, "Is there a difference between commitment vs loyalty?". e.g. Can you be committed to your wife but not loyal or may be you could be loyal to your wife but not committed.

Well, there is indeed difference between commitment and loyalty and he brought it out by an example. He says, as per a study done, most MBA students from top universities would join jobs and they would be totally committed but not loyal to these jobs. Meaning, wherever you work, you would give your 100% to the job. They will work hard, contribute with ideas and whatever it takes to make the company successful. However, if they find another good job where they like more, they would switch easily, i.e. no loyalty! And then they will be totally committed to the new job! Interesting thought!

Can a MBA ship goods?

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