MBA - Bad Career Choice???

PLEASE SEE THE 1 MINUTE CLIP and then read ahead.

Few weeks ago a friend put up the link to the above video on his status update on GTalk. 

Although it talks about grad students and Ph.D's, the crux of the joke is on people who have studied too much with an expectation to earn a lot of money, but fail to do so!

Being an MBA (why? why? why?) I really felt a severe pinch after watching the clip. Look at us MBAs, we call ourselves suavely educated and can't land up even decent paying jobs (forget hi flying jobs) 

This further reminded me of a talk I listened by Sir Ken Robinson, an educator. (link to his video) It is peppered with doses of fantastic humour. 

I have put the excerpts of the talk for the people who feel watching the video is not feasible for them.

• It's really true where he says that education today produces 'cogs for wheels', not the 'driver of the cart'. He delves into the world history education system and concludes that the education system today is imparting the us the wrong education. The way we are educated is archaic and will produce unhappy individuals.It came into existence to meet the need of industrialism in the 18thcentury when there were no public education systems.

• Creativity is OUR future

• He mentions that we dont know how the world will look in 5 years time. and the children who are educated today will retire in 2065..we are teaching them today's methods for a future that we have no idea for!

• Creativity is as important in education as literacy and we should treat it with the same status.

• If you're not prepared to be wrong, you can never come out with anything original and by the time we are adults, most kids have lost that capacity!

• We have become frightened to be wrong because we stigmatize mistakes. The result is that we are educating people out of their true capacities.

• All children are born artists. the problem is to remain one as we grow up, if we dont grow into creativity, we grow out of it!

• Every eduction system in the world has the same hierarchy of subjects.

1. Maths and Sciences
2. Languages
3. Humanities
4. Art

• Hierarchy in Human Arts

1. Art
2. Music
3. Drama
4. Dance

• There isn't an education system in the world which teaches dance everyday to children the way we  teach them maths! WHY NOT?

• UNESCO report states that in the next 30 years more people, worldwide will be graduating through education since the beginning of known history.  SUDDENLY DEGREES AREN'T WORTH ANYTHING. It's a process of academic inflation. It indicates the whole structure of education system is shifting beneath our feet.

• Our education system has mined our mind like how we mine the earth...for a particular commodity (minerals). We need to change!

• INTELLIGENCE is

1. diverse.
2. dynamic / interactive
3. distinct

• We need to harness our creative capacities.

• We may not see this future, but our children will, and our job is to help them to make something of it... 

So, tell me......................Are we there yet? When will we understand it? 

Midnight's Learning - On Entrepreneurship

Continuing from where I left, our discussion moved to entrepreneurship.

On a lazy noon after lunch Mustafa went to have a paan at a paan shop near his office and being an Ayubi, started chatting with the affable bhaiyyaji. Following are the excerpts:

Mustafa(M): How is business bhaiyya-ji?

Paanwaala(P): Business is as usual, nothing great.

M: It's good to have your own business. You are your own boss!

P: You feel so. Maybe. But not for me. I have a family to support in Mumbai. I live hand to mouth. I can't even think of taking a day off, come rain or shine. You know on a box of 20 cigarettes of a Classic Mild I just make 6 rupees! 

(now comes the management lesson from the bhaiyya-ji)

Beta-ji, never get into a business where you are a commission agent. You'll have to rely on volumes to earn big money. If you want to make money,  produce (manufacture or service) something on your own, then you'll keep the cream for yourself! 

And we read management theory from text books and lectured by morose professors to learn it. 

As the night progressed we were discussing about our experiences since we started working. 

I happened to meet an entrepreneur who studied in vernacular medium, migrated from a small town and started his life in Mumbai as a daily wage worker. Today he heads and owns a company whose turnover has exceeded Rs. 1 billion and is a niche player in the market he operates! After a 2 hour meeting with him, I took home only one lesson. There is only one trait, just ONE trait which an entrepreneur needs to startup, RISK TAKING ABILITY. Rest all are crap!

In his words, I'd conclude. 

Aamir life mein sirf daring karne ka, risk lene ka!

Another One Bites The Dust

Throughout my post graduate management education, all the lecturers submerged us marketing majors with examples of brand endorsers ranging from film celebrities to sport persons ruling the roost for major brands in India.

It was mutually agreed between the students and the lecturers that most of the endorsers have diluted their brand equity by endorsing multiple products. It's okay, if they endorse multiple products, but some of them have endorsed so many brands that it feels like they are hoarding for a foreseen economic catastrophe! It is like the end of brand endorsements for them.

Mr. Amitabh Bachchan, Mr. Shah Rukh Khan and Mr. Mahendra Singh Dhoni are the endorsers with the highest number of brands under their belt. But tell me, when you switch on the TV and look at the advertisements , how many of you really wait to see the ads featuring the above mentioned gentlemen? For a change, I wont mind watching an ad with Rakhi Sawant rather than these gentlemen! They are like the house flies of brand endorsements, anywhere and everywhere, selling 'chaddi baniyans' to Hajmola to pens that they would never use in their lifetimes! GOD!

So going back to the management education days,(not a lot of time ago) we always used to discuss how Mr. Aamir "Perfectionist" Khan chose his brand endorsement deals very carefully. He was the last man standing where his choice of brand endorsements was being discussed in management colleges. He endorsed very few classy brands like Titan and Tata Sky and Toyota.

But off late, there has been an inundation of Aamir Khan's presence on TV. I was quite dejected to see him running the streets giving T-shirts to junk food eating people and requesting them to eat 'baked, not fried' low cal biscuits(Parle). And soon, he'll be selling motorcycles to us! Where's the fit? John Abraham and Yamaha is understood as he is a self confessed bike enthusiast.

When Aamir Khan signed on to sell Mahindra bikes, I sang 'Another One Bites The Dust'. On the contrary should I say, 'The Last One Bites The Dust" ???

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Awaiting your comments
Aamir

A Management Tactic at the Ayodhya Verdict

There was something interesting that I observed on the 30th September 2010 when the Ayodhya verdict was given by the Allahabad High Court.

I left office early that day and reached home at around 2pm. I usually loathe news channels, especially Hindi ones. (Do I need to give a reason other than sensationalism?) And amongst the English ones, I stick to CNN-IBN first, simply because of Mr. Rajdeep Sardesai, and then Times Now or NDTV. And apart from these three, I feel no other general news channel actually deserves to be called a news channel. They are not even 'views' channel, for Christ's sake!

On switching on the TV, I straight away jumped to CNN-IBN and was not surprised to see Mr. Rajdeep Sardesai heading the show. As the verdict was not out I started my channel surfing. (being a human male, we're used to channel surfing just to know 'what's there on the other channel?') 

And then something struck me! All the others news (views) channels had their correspondents on the field, especially at the Allahabad court, but CNN-IBN didn't have a correspondent. They had their channel's 'National Bureau Chief', a certain Mr. Bhupendra Chaubey on the field!  

Why? I got the answer as soon as the verdict was out and the lawyer brigade emerged from the 'super secured' court room. Mr. Ravi Shankar Prasad representing one of the party to the dispute, was the first famous and qualified person to emerge from the court room, he was hounded by camera crews with his face almost shoved with microphones! (nothing new I'm sure) Every media person was stoning him with adulterated and cliche`d questions, but there stood Mr. Chaubey, with a blazer on, in the heat, asking some really simple but relevant question to him with his loud non baritone voice. And voila, Mr. Ravi Shankar Prasad, answers him by calling his first name. And for the next 10 minutes, it's only Mr. Chaubey and Mr. Prasad in a dialogue covered by the entire national media. 

And Mr. Chaubey repeats the feat with other 'important' guests.

This was the differentiation tactic that CNN-IBN employed. If its an issue of national importance to be covered by each and every media house of the country, send your Generals, not the pawns!

And as usual Mr. Rajdeep Sardesai had a very eminent panel for the show, a social scientist, a Supreme Court lawyer, a liberal Muslim theatre veteran Padma Shree awardee and a very senior journalist. They were all very well versed of the Ayodhya issue. 

I think this was a very good management tactic ployed by the channel. 

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Awaiting your comments.