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Fight against “oppression of women” – Illusion or reality
No country is doing any better on “fight against oppression of women” because everyone has changed the definition of “an oppressed woman” to suit their needs. And this has nothing to do with religion… Anyone who attributes such oppression to religion is either speaking out of ignorance or intentionally playing a communal card. Either ways, you are not doing any bit to solve this problem.
So, what we need is a radically new social system which ensures that everyone in society continues to view and treat women as the honor of society and nothing less – at home, at work, at school, and everywhere.
Now the next logical question is what should this social system look like… I anchor this future state system on three key principles:
_ One thing is very clear that self-enforced discipline has not got us anywhere so there has to be some kind of mechanism to drive desired behavior… more like guard rails than being too prescriptive.
_ There is a need to move away from providing band-aid solutions to different symptoms and starting with a clear definition of “what is the role of women (and men) in society”
_ Almost all of us have women in our life who we care about… and so whatever we define as “women rights” should pass the test on our family.
A woman has both a familial and societal role:
_ Within family, she has the role of a wife, mother, daughter, and sister which comes with its own rights and responsibilities (overarching principle in these relationships is to treat the other the way you would want to be treated)
_ Within society, she has the right to pursue education, take up employment (and equal opportunities to excel in her areas of expertise), even run her own business, exercise her vote, and engage in politics (and affairs of society)
By nature, men have been created as physically strong while women have been created as delicate humans who need to be respected and honored in the right way. In fact, I see it as the responsibility of men to protect the rights of women.
As I look at it from a muslim perspective, it is clear that the misconceptions surrounding the treatment of Muslim women arise from two sources:
1. From Muslims who may justify their oppression and mistreatment of women on the basis of Islam
2. From non- Muslims who have an agenda to take the Islamic teachings and want to depict Islamic civilisation as backward and oppressive
Even though the actions we read about are not from Islam, the western media have linked this crime to Islam.
In fact, this is what’s mentioned in the Quran – “Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more strength than the other, and because they support them from their means. . .” I am yet to find any contrary teaching to this in the Quran.
Real value of a consultant
Having returned from a loooong hiatus, here’s what I see as a sequel to my last article on consulting >>> Professional reflections – My first year of consulting at the Firm
“Being a great leader is often less a matter of eloquence and more a matter of repetition and consistency.” – Lou Gerstner
Over the last few days, I have started reading a couple of books one of which is “The Firm”, an external perspective on what McKinsey is and what makes up the McKinsey culture. While I can be completely honest that some content in the book will not pass a factual check, there is some content that drew my attention which I wanted to share below.
My thought process is very closely aligned with what the character, Mike Ross, says to his boss, Harvey Specter, in one of the episodes of the TV series, The Suits. It goes something like this, “I know what kind of a lawyer I can be if I am as smart as you, but what I want to learn is what kind of a person I want to be.” (Don’t hold me to the exact wording of the quote… I don’t have as great a photographic memory as Mike Ross).
Anyways, going back to the main topic, I was impressed by what Marvin Bower articulated in his 1997 book, The Will to Lead, as five responsibilities of a professional consultant. I go a step further to add an overarching sixth responsibility that sets the foundation for these five responsibilities.
0. Must hold oneself accountable for being morally right in everything he/she does
1. Must put client’s interests ahead of the firm’s interests
2. Must adhere to the highest standards of truthfulness, integrity, and trustworthiness
3. Must keep to himself/ herself the client’s private and proprietary information
4. Must maintain an independent position and tell the client the truth as he sees it
5. Must provide only services that have real value
A true consultant actually ends up playing four roles:
_ Lawyer for the discretion and integrity
_ Engineer for the scientific, fact-based rigor and precision to the task
_ Doctor for dispensing advice to unhealthy organizations on how to get better and to healthy organizations on how to stay that way
_ Priest for serving clients and being a responsible member of the community
To do this, key ingredients, that Marvin called the McKinsey persona, are:
_ Being selfless
_ Being prepared to sacrifice money and fame for the sake of building a stronger firm
_ Never look for public credit
_ Confident and discreet
Looking for truth in a maze of lies, nonsense, and injustice
Like someone said… there are always three sides to everything – yours, theirs, and the truth.
Over the last few days, all the events happening around me have annoyed me to no end about how people have lost basic sense of rationality, humanness, and morality. Countless events to substantiate this but here’s a few…
H&M disposal
Former Nestle CEO
Victoria Secret
Boston Marathon incident
Bangladesh
Iraq drone program
Stepping back, I feel the only thing that distinguishes humans from other God’s creations (aka animals, plant life, and everything between the sky and underground) is this very “humanness” – defined by compassion for fellow humans, and respect for mankind.
Our lives now center around economic well-being optimized for individual prosperity at the expense of societal progress.
Professional reflections – My first year of consulting at the Firm
On May 8, I would have clocked in a full 365 days as a member of the Firm (what is internally referred to as 1+0 in the firm). And it has got me thinking of how my journey has been thus far… so over the next couple of weeks, I will share my reflections from within.
What started out as a dream job has turned into finding my true passion… a calling which combines
(1) working with the best minds to solve some of the complex organizational problems,
(2) pushing for professional excellence with independence respected by others,
(3) realizing the profound ability to connect deeply with clients, and
(4) adding a sense of meaning to my life and those of others around me.
As consultants, there is definitely a strong sense of responsibility to the organizations we serve and also the stakeholders within (employees from the front line to the C-suite, shareholders, customers, suppliers, and regulators included). Few lessons I have learned in the course of solving some challenging topics has been:
1. Do not lose sight of the “human element” in consulting work. This human element approach gets me to a fundamental principle: We should not view a human as an economic unit and then endeavor to find the most economically viable solution viewing all problems from the angle of the economic effect and cost. And the basic premise of “unlimited wants, limited resources” has to be corrected since most of the informed people in the world have realized by now that the resources are ample enough to completely satisfy the basic needs of all.
2. Respect for clients and colleagues. We often take this for granted but it is important to time and again acknowledge the roles each one brings to solving a problem, and their contributions. It is not to discount the fact that some people are difficult to work with but the positive side of that experience is the opportunity you get to master your people skills. Needless to say, there are more people who have been great colleagues/ clients than not so it absolutely is essential to be able to acknowledge their good support/ work and say a simple “Thank you!” every so often.
3. Be aware of your long-term goals and continuously calibrate to stay on track. This is one place where everyone can easily chart their own path independently and with much ease. When I reconnect with peers who joined the firm at the same time, I am yet to find someone who’s had exactly the same path as I did and yet everyone’s reasonably comfortable with the way their path has turned out to be. Speaking for myself, I was fortunate to have found the right mentors and managers that allowed me to decide where I placed my next step on this career ladder.
4. More tenure means more problem solving. Some people have a notion of consulting that as one gets tenured, the farther away one moves from the actual problem solving. That definitely doesn’t seem to be the case at McKinsey. Every client study I have been on, the leadership (Partners and Directors) have been as actively engaged and have provided immense value to problem solving with their continuous insights. Often times, the Director on the study would have had more knowledge about the client organization than the client leaders themselves given their long relationship in serving a particular client.
5. Know your strengths and also your development needs. In the past I would have been hesitant at sharing my “development needs” (aka weaknesses) but at the firm, I have found it so easy to be vocal about that so that people around me can provide me opportunities to better myself on those dimensions. At the same time, it has helped highlighting my strengths (I admit, it’s hard to talk about your strengths while controlling the brag buttons) to be able to help bring those to life in client engagements.
6. Prioritize, prioritize, and prioritize. There is so much you can do at the firm that is beyond the humanly possible limits. As I initially learned the hard way in business school, the firm experience thus far has given me lessons in ‘Prioritization 201’ through which I have found it easy to prioritize what I do at the firm based on two broad dimensions – alignment with my passion, and contribution to my career goals.
7. Manage your time and have control over it. Might sound odd but given my habit of trying to stay punctual (in my world, it means always before time) and the multitasking I end up doing (sometimes of my own choosing), I find it very important to not only manage my time well but also control my time. This is something I observed in a few partners at the firm who come out as being in total control of their time and priorities. One tactical implementation of this principle (sounds silly) is to always schedule one-on-one meetings with colleagues/ clients/ friends as you calling them since you don’t end up waiting for them to call you otherwise.
Education sector in the United States… system going hollow from the inside
I have had different touch points that got me really curious to learn about the education sector here in the United States…
1. My business school work with companies serving in this space offering tools and resources
2. My discussions with people from work (consultants doing pro-bono work in this space, family/ friends working in this sector)
3. My own decision process as a parent of a soon-to-be-schooled kid
My inquiry process started with a simple question on – “How do I find which school district is the best performing in my area?”
Three fundamental problems surfaced…
A. Defining the school district boundary is arbitrary… it changes every few years based on the “subjective judgment” of the education administrators in the government. One prime example: the city of Chicago has one of the largest school districts in the US with a wide range of school performance and demographics. A few years earlier, some of the high-income neighborhoods worked out something whereby there are these pockets of school districts geographically within the large Chicago school district to ensure their high performance is not lost in the averages.
B. Funding and performance is a vicious never-ending cycle… Schools perform better with high funding, funding is high when the property taxes are high, taxes are high when the real estate is high, real estate is high when people are willing to pay more to buy/ rent a property because of the school district, school district is attractive since the school(s) within are better performing. And so the vicious cycle continues. Once a bad school, always a bad school is how it turns out to be.
C. Using technology to improve assessments and align them with the learning development goals… two sub-problems here include schools taking unethical routes to show higher scores (read the recent news article on how the education administrator in Atlanta city colluded with schools to alter student responses to increase scores) and then technology capabilities not sufficient to provide a timely feedback on student performance even though the level of data gathered is the most advanced it can get (e.g., schools collect some amazing level of data on assessments but then it takes almost a year to document that data, analyze it and understand potential implications for student learning plans by when the student has already graduated to the next class).
During my conversations, all that I have heard of work happening in this sector is on problem C which is an enabler problem… but no attention is given to even acknowledge the other two problems (A and B) and then go about solving it. It’s a matter of will I suppose… where there’s a will, there’s a way!
More on what tactical lessons I learnt in choosing a school in one of my future posts.
External article: What RBS and the banks can learn from early Islam
I recently came across a short article about the economic benefits of an Islamic economic system. This was in Money Week and authored by Dr. Peter Frankopan titled “What RBS and the banks can learn from early Islam“.
The disastrous results released by RBS earlier this year were bad from a financial perspective – a loss of £5.2bn in 12 months. But they were even worse morally.
Contained in the 318-page report, and listed in the unfortunately named section “Highlights”, are a catalogue of sins, including fines for fixing Libor, for mis-selling “structured collar products by the cartload and the systemised scandal of PPI [payment protection insurance]”.
If the sentence that follows is not meant as a joke, it is certainly a brave one: “RBS is committed to serving its customers well and helping them realise their ambitions.” Who knew that those ambitions included being ripped off?
Nevertheless, the report does try to seek penance for past deeds. This been a chastening year, it says. A time “to put right past mistakes.” RBS is lucky it was not in the banking business around the time of the birth of Islam – or it would have found things much more uncomfortable than a light grilling by the Financial Services Authority and the series of humiliating fines and provisions. The bankers would not have been losing their bonuses; they’d have been losing their hands.
One of the great secrets of early Islam was the store that was set by justice and on fairness in commerce. It was significant that the spiritual revelations delivered to Muhammad promised a new way of doing things, a way that protected private individuals as well as businesses from being exploited by those with access to credit. Of particular concern was the issue of the principles of lending money – a topic that appears repeatedly in the Koran.
The customers of RBS and the other banks implicated in the current scandals would recognise the sins that Islam’s holy book warns about. Those who set out to exploit their customers by excessive borrowing charges are no different to “those controlled by the devil”, records the Koran.
Getting to the root of world’s real problem – Global poverty (Part 3 of 3)
Now for the finale… having understood what the problem is, what the current system is doing to amplify this problem… time to get a glimpse of what a to-be state of the economic system should be.
Amongst many other details of the futuristic economic system, I see 5 key pillars:
1. Understanding that world’s resources are in abundance and not scarce as proposed by economists like Adam Smith
2. Recognize the problem of poverty and solve it to offer home, health, and food security as a fundamental right of all human constituents
3. Manage resource control effectively… important to understand that all the world resources can be classified as either belonging to an individual, the State, or the public
4. Ensure equitable distribution of wealth by making sure that individuals/ organizations don’t hoard wealth but rather use it thereby increasing wealth circulation (think of this as if a neighborhood is independently run as an economy and there are $1,000 worth of wealth and everything has to be run within itself, if people start hoarding cash and not using it, eventually, everyone will have cash but there wouldn’t be any means of earning for so many people who could have otherwise been employed to offer goods/ services for that wealth)
5. Focus on productivity in creating a “real” economy
_ Do not sell what you do not have (you can see how not following this principle has screwed the whole financial services industry and precipitated the crisis)
_ Introduce the gold and/or silver standard to support real wealth creation and not just currency paper printing
_ Eliminate interest from the economy and introduce profit-loss sharing in all financial transactions
Getting to the root of world’s real problem – Global poverty (Part 2 of 3)
Continuing from my previous post, I hope we all recognize that “poverty” is a real problem and a flagrant violation of fundamental rights of many of our fellow mankind.
Now, what is the current system doing to exacerbate this problem? Let’s apply different lenses…
1. Everyone in the multinational forums talks about reducing poverty by 50% by 2020… So, does it mean that millions of people (just 300 children die of hunger every hour) are destined to die of hunger since we cannot solve the problem soon enough. Nothing more to be said on this…
2. Capitalism… it’s just a virtual economy with no “real economy” fundamentals
_ Dollar and the gold –> Back in the times, currency was tied to the dollar to ensure that we don’t over-inflate our wealth by just printing money. Now, that this linkage is gone, value of currency paper can be set by the whims of people in power. Just the other day, I was trying to do simple math that if an economy had real wealth of $1 trillion and is spending $1 million every day, it would take them ~2,700 years to exhaust just that $1 trillion.
_ Regulations –> Society has become more individualistic where rules have been changed as deemed fit for certain section of the society to remove all regulations and allow individuals to hoard wealth thereby taking it out of circulation. The power of a real economy is in the continuous circulation of wealth to allow for an equitable wealth distribution.
_ Stock inflation –> Just because some analysts/ investors forecast great returns (remember, nothing is predictable), the stock price shoots through the roof… take some of the recent IPOs for example. There is no real alignment with what happens on the ground.
_ Usury explosion –> In my opinion, this is at the core of this economic system menace… people with more wealth are able to rip off the not-so-privileged by lending money at unfair terms (high interest rates) which means a common man borrowing will have to pay more to afford the same kind of goods/ services.
Getting to the root of world’s real problem – Global poverty (Part 1 of 3)
Over the last few years starting with my pre-MBA job, then the business school, and subsequently my current occupation… I have heard and seen closely the issues facing organizations. More often than not, what happened since 2008 is easily blamed on the “financial crisis” without delving any thought to understanding what’s behind this so-called crisis and what the fundamental underpinnings on this issue are…
At the heart of all this is the collapse of the economic system… the primary purpose of an economic system is to ensure economic well-being of all constituent individuals – a fundamental right to live for all mankind. Unfortunately, we have often taken this economic system as given, reclining to the belief that some people have to go hungry for some other people to have a lavish dinner spread.
So, now it’s a question of who falls into which bucket? And so does the flawed theory of “survival of the fittest” find its way. There are countless of articles on economic system and what can be done. I have decided to take a different approach and start with what is the prime objective of a “rational and just” economic system… and then build on how the ideal economic system will handle it robustly than the current systems – be it capitalism or socialism.
Even before we get there, let me share what someone says in support of what I am about to share…
“The causes of the economic crisis are a combination of greed, incompetence, and a number of additional negative character traits.”
– Steven Pearlstein, a Pulitzer Prize winner and a Washington Post columnist
(1) At the core foundation, the purpose of an economic system is to ensure economic well-being of every individual by solving the problem of poverty.
(2) This economic system has to co-exist in harmony with the other important systems of any well-run civilization – the social system, the political system, the legal system, and the moral system. What we see today is exactly the absence of this… where the ecosystem is so corrupt and degraded that I cannot think of any of these five systems being in a good shape.
(3) Now, everyone is very well aware of poverty in developing countries… how rare is it to see images of starving children in Asian countries or malnutrition-related deaths in almost the entirety of Sub-Saharan Africa? However, what we are not aware of is that hunger has embraced shores of the “developed world” as well. The US Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service reports that ‘in 2011, 50.1 million people lived in food-insecure households and prevalence rate of food security in the US has gone up from ~10% households in 2000 to ~15% households in 2011’. Even the so-called glorious boom years of 2003-2007 did little to stem this rising tide.
(4) We, living in America, have no clue about this given the media whitewash such fundamental issues get. It was eye opening for me to see a CBS video on “hunger in America” to show how one in six Americans are going hungry every night. So, even within the capitalist stronghold, there are one in six Americans who need a REAL CHANGE!!!
(5) And to add urgency to the situation, it was touching to see how some regions in the world have seen hungry push people back to the stone age… with adults selling off their kids just to afford food. This is really the bottom a civilization can get to… even though all this is happening away from many of us who are fortunate to live easy lives, it is our collective responsibility to rise above the “individualism” mindset to solve this problem.
…
World-changing men don’t change diapers??
I just happened to come across a Forbes article with the same title (article link).
While it is such a shame that influential men who made it to Time 100 didn’t talk about their “other” role or didn’t feel important, this article also brought to my mind a more important issue… How should working dads balance their professional and personal roles better?
I am a proud father of a 15-month old and am embarking on a consulting career. The onus is on me to create my own professional life which provides me a good work-life balance. There is no cookie-cutter approach whereby I could talk to a few colleagues and then pin down on one colleague’s approach as mine. Circumstances are very case-based. And with changing circumstances comes changing priorities. I have realized that it is important to prioritize and then set appropriate expectations both at work and at home. This way, you keep both parties happy!
As for a working dad’s role at home, if the mom is also working, parenting has to be shared “equally”. Even if the mother is not working, I see huge joy of parenting in parenting teaming up and spending time with the kid(s). For example, I could see one parent cooking while the other helping with feeding the kid. Or one parent giving the kid a bath while the other preparing the clothes and other stuff for the kid. And it is important for both parents to jointly spend significant time with the kid and help with learning/ playing. At the end of the day, kids draw on their life lessons from parents’ actions.
Talking about parents’ actions… it was just yesterday when on our drive back to the hotel after visiting a friend’s parents, me and my wife were talking about how gracious and courteous my friend’s parents were and that their nature/ character very clearly showed up in their son. And in the same vein, my wife mentioned being at the airport in Riyadh and seeing a Saudi family with 4 children… who were so well-mannered that when my kid went towards those kids, they were so gentle and caring. Just goes on to show, how the parents behave with them at home and how they act with others. And just to drive home the point, I personally learnt a lot from seeing my dad help mom with household chores every weekend he was home… and in a way, I have tried to emulate that with my wife.
At least I wanna be one world-changing man who is proud to have changed the diapers also!
Putting the ET article on “Double MBA” into perspective…
Ever since this article was published in the Economic Times today morning featuring my story… I was surprised to see so many compliments coming my way and not to mention, some brickbats in the general media.
In all this unnecessary attention, I think the whole message was lost and hence I found it important to put things into perspective.
Pursuing a second MBA is not prescriptive for everyone but is very circumstantial – dependent on what career aspirations one has, their journey thus far, and its timing. If someone has graduated from IIM and have got into a career that he/she is satisfied with and see no reason to accelerate or change anything about it, there is no question of even considering another education stint. However, if someone feels the recalibrate their careers and update their management toolkit (this is often the most important reason for people in the current times), then MBA or maybe another specialized masters might be the way to address that.
Also, it is no way to question the caliber of IIMs. As I have professed time and again, IIMs do a great job at what they are designed to do. And in no way is it an apples-to-apples comparison to peg them against the ivy league schools. Each system serves a different purpose based on different fundamentals. IIMs are there to take in fresh undergraduates and equip them with a broader management toolkit that is more general in nature and softens their technical skills from undergrad. And sometimes, that isn’t sufficient enough to propel one all through their careers thereby meriting a second stint to build an advanced toolkit. In contrast, international business schools assume that incoming students have that general management toolkit through their pre-MBA careers (often 4-5 years of work experience on average) and that they need to bridge that gap required to get into a specialized management role. You can refer to my other article dedicated to this conversation: IIMs vs. Ivy League MBA Programs
A constructive inference from this news article (which I would have expected from the article author) should be that:
(a) MBA aspirants who haven’t embarked on this journey should understand the differences and make the right judgment – get to IIMs right after undergrad or work for a few years and then explore international schools;
(b) Professionals who already have an MBA can see this as an option ahead of them to recalibrate their careers, only if necessary.
Finally, this isn’t a new trend at all… there are a number of IIM graduates who have been going the “Double MBA” route. One such instance has been Pepsi’ Indra Nooyi going to Yale after her first MBA at IIM Calcutta.
In response to the Economic Times article titled Road to successful global careers: ‘Double MBA’ is becoming the next big tag
What Millennials Want
Adapted and summarized from a Forbes article by Susannah Breslin
1. They want to be happy.
Over and over, I heard from millennials that they want careers that make them happy. Sound obvious? Not really. It used to be that doing one’s job meant sacrificing one’s happiness in life. That’s what made you happy: doing your job. Not anymore. The new doing it all is having a career that brings you joy.
They want balance.
“I want a healthy work/life balance that allows me to work hard, but still have time for a social life, working out, travel, etc.”
What makes them happy? Doing what they love.
“I want to get paid for doing what I love, so that my personal AND career life will be enjoyable.”
They privilege joy over a paycheck.
“…quality of life and enough money to support a family. I’d rather be happy than rich.”
2. They want to have a purpose.
At the same time, they want authenticity. They want work that makes them feel like they matter, like their contribution does more for the world than move a mound of virtual paperwork from one virtual desk to another. It’s not enough to crunch numbers, do their 40 hours, or have a 401k. Millennials want to work to make the world a better place.
They want to matter.
“I want recognition, a sense of accomplishment and purpose. I want to make a difference and never stop learning.”
Purpose is their currency.
“To be paid to do something I enjoy so much that I’d keep doing it even if I had a billion in the bank.”
It doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t make a difference.
“Ideally, I want to get paid while utilizing my personal skill set and contributing to the betterment of others.”
They find passion in changing the world.
“I want to be able to give back to my community and incite change, all the while doing work that I’m passionate about.”
Same old 9-to-5? Forget about it.
“Any job or career path that effects change is worth getting into. There is no point clocking 9-5′s without influence.”
They want to fly high.
“I want to contribute to society and my company, and be justly compensated for it.”
3. They want freedom.
Just as important is the feeling of freedom. Hire a millennial and chain them to a desk? They will bolt. They don’t want a conventional career. They want work that changes them and impacts the world. They want flexible schedules, creative freedom, and the right to decide what their future holds, not let their path be decided for them.
They’re not fans of authority.
“The freedom to trust my own creativity and not have ideas quashed by sr. authority…I guess that’s why I’m a freelance writer.”
They want to career hop.
“I’m not even sure I want a career. The thought of staying in one field or industry sounds incredibly dull. But can I swing it?”
They want to play.
“Freedom to create, learn + explore. Flexibility.To be able to think + play like a child, w/ trust that I won’t behave like one.”
They want to be awesome.
“I want to do awesome things with awesome people in awesome places and on my own terms.”
They want to work from home, at least some of the time.
“I want to sit in my undies on the couch, drinking a smoothie, tapping out brilliant words on my Mac AND getting paid for it.”
IIMs vs. Ivy League MBA programs
Following up on my earlier posts about my MBA experience… I have often been asked about what the distinction is between the Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) and Ivy League business schools here in the U.S.
Before you get into the differences, it is important to understand that IIMs and Ivy Leagues are great schools in their own respect. I have definitely gained from both these schools, and perhaps would have not been where I am today if I hadn’t been to either of these schools. That being said, these schools serve different set of objectives which results in significant differences, some of which are outlined below (again my IIM experience is from more than 5 years ago so might not reflect current circumstances):
1. Student academic profile: IIM is designed to educate students coming with minimal work experiences, often right out of their undergrad schools. An Ivy League school (will use Columbia just for contextual relevance) typically attracts students who have on average 5 years of experience after undergrad.
2. Student professional profile: IIM tends to be filled with engineers and commerce grads (not by design but by expected standards) while Columbia has huge diversity in terms of student professional backgrounds, from the standard bankers, consultants to writers, musicians, teachers, social workers… in great numbers.
3. Curriculum: By virtue of the above two points, IIMs tend to focus on providing a good breadth of management skills to students thereby focusing on basic fundamentals across several areas of business operations. This means there is minimal coursework focused on specific industries. At Columbia, knowing that students come with significant background in specific industries and might want to build advanced skills to go back to the same industry, the curriculum is super-diverse in terms of offering a good depth and breadth across all areas of business. What would be discussed as a session in an IIM elective (e.g., options pricing) would be a full-term elective at Columbia.
4. Faculty expertise: Academia in India culturally have evolved to be purely academic alienating themselves from industry. And this also becomes a huge difference… Back in IIMs, the senior faculty members (often the most revered ones) have moved out of industry to start teaching a decade or more ago and stupid HRD ministry rules not allowing simultaneous work in the industry results in a very theoretical pedagogy. Often the cases and anecdotes you hear are from ages ago. However, in Columbia, what you see is that a majority of the faculty members (easily around 80-90%) are still active in the industry and are able to bring their experiences to class in real-time. This makes a big difference to our learning esp. as we endeavor to go into the very roles they have been through in their professional, non-teaching careers.
5. Recruiting: This is one point where IIMs have made rapid strides to bridge the gap with Ivy League schools. However, still how you see the gap between IIM-A and other IIMs is the kind of gap you see between Ivy Leagues and IIM-A (and other IIMs). I have always felt that recruiting is like a capitalist system… IIM-A being the oldest school in India had the privilege of having its alumni reach top positions in the Indian industry and being its alumni, they have been biased towards hiring more from their alma mater. So, other IIMs coming later on, had to play second fiddle in getting their graduates into these organizations. Now, when it comes to IIMs vs. Ivy Leagues, the same mechanism is played out at a far-bigger, global scale. And what you see is Columbia commands immense power with employers. A leading strategy consulting firm (you can fill in any name you want) hires only a handful from IIMs yet comes to Columbia and hires easily 10x of that number.
6. School resources: This is often not discussed or considered important but it is amongst the top 3 important differences for me… IIMs being at a small scale with campuses spread far and wide have resulted in resources also being split. So, hosting just around 600-700 students implies having fewer resources (just the game of per capita numbers… if 1000 students have access to $1Mn worth resources, 10,000 students have access to $10Min worth of resources). The libraries are very basic and so are other resources (although IIMs do a great job of managing these resources). In contrast, Columbia being part of a larger Ivy League university setup can offer a much more wider array of resources… which extends into the curriculum (you could do coursework specific to your industry interest in specialized graduate schools) and into the faculty (you could learn from teaching events / discussions with faculty from other schools) also.
7. Alumni network coverage: Playing the scale and age effect (like in recruiting and school resources), Columbia commands a more diverse and well-established alumni base globally while IIMs can boast of the same kind of network only within India. As more and more IIM alumni are exploring overseas career opportunities, this is turning out to be a big hurdle (in fact, ISB is also going through the same problem) as often recruiting decision makers outside India are not aware of the caliber of IIMs and often club IIM graduates with other regular business schools.
8. Location: With a very few exceptions, IIMs are located in such random places that there is no access to any resource of importance outside the campus (I was @ IIM Lucknow and can say with certainty that there was nothing of professional importance to students outside the campus boundary). In contrast, if you look at Columbia, being in New York provides immense advantages professionally and personally. Professionally, one can engage in term internships while studying, network with companies they wish to recruit for, attend professional events (conferences, seminars, etc.), and also undertake community service by engaging with non-profits in and around New York. Personally, if you have a significant other (spouse), it is far easier for them to find professional opportunities here than what would be the case with IIM campus locations.
In summary, while IIMs are serving a different purpose resulting in some structural differences, they are not yet ready to give a stiff challenge to Ivy League business schools. And not to forget, the political intrusion in IIMs have only made me less hopeful about any constructive change towards bridging this intellectual divide.
Should you want to read some of my other MBA experience-crelated articles from my blog, here are the links:
Going for a second MBA
First year at Columbia Business School… the highs and the lows
New York reporting…
In converation with the IMF General Counsel
This is based on my understanding after a candid, off-the-record conversation with Sean Hagan, General Counsel of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), wherein he shared the latest economic challenges and the road ahead for IMF.
The current economic turmoil is unprecedented with the “crisis in emerging economies” shifting to a “crisis in the advanced economies”. Today’s world is upside down. And we are at a time where IMF is seeking finances on a large scale from emerging economies (you heard it right!) to create a firewall to save these advanced economies.
And a global problem such as this needs a global solution. In a typical situation, when capital markets dry down, the economy naturally reacts with a currency depreciation but in the current European crisis (esp. Greece as a case in point), the challenge for these local economies is that they need to stay in the euro zone so there is no chance of currency depreciation… however, there is an alternative of private debt restructuring and internal devaluation i.e., lowering domestic prices, which could result in more pain for the local economy.
IMF plays a catalytic role to get foreign creditors to refinance loans without changing NPV of their claims. This has previously worked in Brazil and Mexico but in this case, the debt level is so “unsustainable”. In this case, IMF is precluded from providing any financing unless debt becomes sustainable so the country seeking IMF funding has to go through a “free default restructuring” to avoid defaults. In this case, IMF ensures that the borrowing government and its creditors follow the same macro-economic assumptions as prescribed by IMF. This is very controversial in that IMF has to tailor these assumptions on a case-by-case basis and not everyone would be in agreement with these assumptions.
At the same time, IMF is also advocating preventive strategies whereby they support through an LC (Line of Credit) without having to use these funds. This is where IMF is seeking augmentation of EFSF by $500 billion as a demonstration effort.
Sean Hagan suggested 4 key actions that EU should pursue:
1. Create a single euro supervisory authority to license and authorize cross-border banks
2. Create a resolution authority to wind down insolvent banks
3. Set up a single deposit insurance fund
4. Provide immediate liquidity from ECB
The main message was that markets need to regain confidence in the global economy. And when Sean Hagan was asked this very natural question that whether IMF should consider reverting back to the GOLD standard to build this confidence, Sean feigned lack of a thought to respond to this.
FT: Life after Wall Street
A very interesting article adapted from the Financial Times
By William D. Cohan
Some 40,000 high-level bankers lost their jobs in the financial crisis. But questions on what the former Masters of the Universe did next are met with impenetrable silence
When it comes to publicity, investment bankers are a notoriously fickle bunch. When it suits them – for instance, to boast about a game-changing M&A deal or to pump up a hot IPO – bankers are more than happy to be quoted by name, rank and serial number. But when it comes to addressing more difficult topics – the role bankers and traders played in the current financial crisis, why the world needed synthetic collateralised debt obligations in the first place or why they get paid so much – they scurry away faster than a cockroach when the light goes on in a darkened room.
Part of this behaviour is genetic. One of the supposed Wall Street truisms is that the great firms stay out of the limelight and shun press inquiries. They would prefer that their clients get the publicity, not them. This is, of course, a fabulous myth. The mass that has been written about Wall Street over the past decades confirms that the opposite is clearly the case. Still, Wall Street banks do all they can to drum into their employees the importance of not talking to the press – at least if they want to keep their jobs. The dictum of omertà is so powerfully reinforced that even after bankers and traders are no longer employed on Wall Street, many still stick to the party line (often sealed by contractual obligations not to discuss publicly their former employer).
Ten must-knows before a venture capital pitch presentation
10. Only the CEO can give the money pitch.
9. Check equipment or use your own projector and laptop.
8. Pace the presentation smoothly and evenly.
7. Don’t stroll or fidget around on the stage.
6. Don’t tell jokes. Ever.
5. Hand-outs are not your presentation.
4. Always use a remote control.
3. Don’t do a live demo of your product or service offering.
2. Don’t read your speech.
1. Never, ever look at the projector screen.
Inside McKinsey – knowing about the firm in the backdrop of a sad incident
This is taken from a FT article by Andrew Hill titled “Inside McKinsey“.
The world’s most prestigious consultancy prides itself on its intellectual prowess and ethical standards. But this year, an insider trading scandal surrounding former McKinsey luminaries has left staff and alumni reeling.
When 1,200 partners of McKinsey&Company – the elite of global consulting – arrived at the Gaylord National Hotel & Convention Center, outside Washington DC, early on the morning of March 15 this year, they found themselves where they least wanted to be: at the centre of a media firestorm.
Up the east coast, in a Manhattan courtroom, an insider trading case was focusing attention on the links between key former employees of the world’s best-known, most prestigious, most self-consciously high-minded consulting firm and a corrupt hedge fund boss. For outsiders, intrigued by and suspicious of the McKinsey mystique, it was an irresistible combination. For partners, most of whom had flown into Washington from their offices around the globe for the scheduled annual meeting, it was a public embarrassment, a private outrage – and even a potential threat to the future of “the Firm”, as McKinseyites call their employer. “You can’t underestimate the shock, the disbelief and anger there,” recalls one McKinsey veteran. As Dominic Barton, the Firm’s personable global managing director, brought the opening plenary session to order, the older partners were “completely ashen-faced”, the same person recalls.
Read more…
Circadian Rhythms™ 