networking: reasons for why to bother about your college buddies

Every Thursday night during his two years at the GSB, Dave Maney, MBA '87, and 20 to 30 of his classmates used to congregate at a large house in Atherton for a raucous game of poker. Admission was a six-pack of beer, and for Maney, at least, the poker game was the highlight of every stress-filled week. "It wasn't a heavy-drinking group; the focus was on hanging out together and having a good time. You definitely needed a thick skin and a sense of humor," says Maney, now the CEO of Worldbridge Broadband Services, a telecommunications services company. "Believe it or not, the Thursday night poker game is now my preeminent memory of business school." A big waste of time? Hardly. The group graduated 11 years ago, but every spring, in places like Bermuda, the Bahamas, and Jackson Hole, the poker gang gets back together. They often bring spouses, and sometimes they bring children. It is strictly informal: People go inner-tubing and hiking; they play golf, tennis, and, of course, poker. But like a lot of ostensibly lighthearted GSB social events, these weekends are also, to some extent, about business. They are about networking. The poker weekends keep alive personally rewarding relationships that can also be professionally valuable. Consider: Four years ago when Maney founded Worldbridge, he got seed money from five members of the poker club. His right-hand man at Worldbridge, Russ Cohen, is an '87 poker player. Last year when Maney got his first "real" venture capital funding, it was through an introduction by yet another member of the poker club, Kevin Callaghan. "I don't think people go to the poker reunion thinking, 'Boy, I want to network!'" says Maney. "But I don't think there's a network in the world that's like it. It's powerful." Welcome to the brave new world of management education, in which your classmates are more than casual buddies and the classroom is no longer just the place where you learn accounting. Business school is increasingly viewed as the stage upon which aspiring managers meet and mingle with future colleagues, partners, competitors, employers, and employees, not to mention potential spouses and lifelong friends. "It's a fabulous network and it was worth every penny of the $40,000 tuition," says Denise Brosseau, MBA '93, now executive director of the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs, with a laugh. But she means it. Christine Herron, MBA '97, agrees. "During business school, I didn't get to know anyone outside Stanford and frankly I don't know if I would've wanted to," says Herron, a senior product manager with an Internet company. "One of the things that happens when you go to business school is you're paying to build a network."

Photo by Bob Holmgren
IN CALIFORNIA: (From left) Forum for Women Entrepreneurs board members Noosheen Hashemi, Sloan '93; Polly Arenberg, MBA '94; and Jennifer Gill Roberts and Denise Brosseau, both MBA '93.
Ask just about any graduate of the GSB from the 1980s or 1990s what are the most important things they took from their Stanford years and they will invariably include the people they met. "I went for the academic experience and the credential," says Joe Judge, MBA '96, director of market research for AlphaMetric, a consulting firm founded by Fujiyo Ishiguro, MBA '94. "But it turns out what I value most is the network." "I was naive about connections. But I bet there are 40 people from my Stanford class I talk to regularly," says Maney. "Overwhelmingly, the most valuable part of the experience has been the people, both for what you learn from them individually and also in a flat-out sense for the network. Most of my career has involved GSB networking." This is a relatively new phenomenon that reflects profound changes in the world of business. Listen to alums of 41 years ago: "Coursework was the whole story," says Allan Tate, MBA '57, a retired investment banker-broker. "It was fun knowing those people, but the term 'networking' wasn't present then." His classmate Tom Arnett, a retired management consultant, agrees: "In our era there wasn't that kind of emphasis on networking. A few people may have networked for business, but most of us have gotten back together simply to reminisce and see what we can do for the School." A lot more than reminiscing and fundraising is going on among recent alums of the GSB. It is nearly impossible to get a handle on the vast, growing, and infinitely complicated web of relationships that has emerged from the GSB over the last 20 years. Certainly official programs--the 45 alumni/ae chapters everywhere from Portugal to Puget Sound, the conferences and reunions--help it flourish. But like any living, thriving organism, the network has blossomed far outside organized channels. Scores of spontaneously organized, unofficial events are constantly bringing together GSB alums. A book club of women from the MBA Class of 1988 meets every month in the San Francisco Bay Area. Women from the MBA Class of 1992 get together each spring at a beach house to talk about their lives and careers; a handful of their male classmates meet for a regular golfing weekend. The Sloan Class of 1973 has been meeting every two years in cities from Helsinki to Williamsburg, Va. The Sloan Class of 1994 has met every year, most recently in London. "We cook together, we spend time together, we recement the bonds," says BJ Hardman, Sloan '94. Why do so many recent alums say the ties formed through the GSB are among the strongest and most enduring of their careers? Why do they seem to value these relationships so deeply? Probably the most basic purpose of the GSB network these days is employment. "The main way people find their jobs is through the informal Business School network," says Robbie Baxter, MBA '96, director of product marketing for MindSteps, a software company founded by Shirzad Chamine, MBA '88. And at least to begin with, the people in a position to offer jobs aren't classmates, but alums who've been out of school a few years or more. Maney's first job was at Chronicle Publishing in San Francisco, where then-CFO Leo Hindery, MBA '71, hired him on their first meeting. "He didn't know me at all," says Maney. "That's how powerfully he was attracted to the fact that I was from Stanford." It wasn't exactly blind loyalty: The GSB is a pretty effective screening system, selecting out motivated, entrepreneurial types, and Hindery and Maney went on to form a close working relationship. But it has always been true that old school ties can open doors. What has changed--and the reason people seem to cultivate those ties more assiduously--is that nowadays doors may need to be opened again and again. For a variety of reasons--corporate downsizing, the allure of startups--careers have become dissociated from companies. "A lot of my classmates have stayed in the same job since Business School," says Hobart Johnson, secretary of the MBA Class of 1966. "It's not like that anymore. People change jobs a lot more and I think they rely on Stanford connections for support." The more people you are in touch with, the better your chances of being able to make a move when you want to. Or need to. Joel Podolny, associate professor of strategic management and organizational behavior at the GSB, has studied networking and says that research shows that the people who have the greatest success finding good, lucrative jobs are those with the most numerous ties dispersed the most widely across fields and companies. And as friends from business school fan out into different industries and companies, they can become just this kind of ideal business network. Consider the way this network has figured in Miriam Rivera's career: In 1996, Sara Frankel, a classmate of Rivera's who shared her interest in the nonprofit world, suggested Rivera become involved with a battered women's shelter in San Francisco. Rivera was intrigued and joined the board. "It was a great experience," says Rivera, JD/MBA '95. "It was the first time I was able to guide the strategy of an organization rather than just be on the staff." She ultimately considered taking a job as the shelter's director. But then she took an abrupt right turn and founded a software company instead. In the process, she has tapped into a very different branch of the GSB network: the venture capital community of Silicon Valley. She has regularly called alums in venture capital asking for advice on valuing and funding her startup. "I didn't approach business school the way some people did. I went for the content," says Rivera. "I definitely feel a lot of people were there to meet other people. That's why there were seven people sharing a house and paying $1,000 each. By comparison, I was in a studio for $400 a month and my place wasn't party central. But it's been surprising how useful the network has been, given I didn't go there to do that." The network isn't just about getting jobs, of course. It's also about filling them. Earlier this year when Mark Breier MBA '85, became CEO of Beyond.com, an online software superstore, he was charged with assembling a management team virtually overnight. "In the Internet world speed is everything, and half the folks I brought in were from my class," says Breier. "The friendship and the Business School background made them instantly eligible." The fact that Breier was able to staff the company so quickly was crucial in those early weeks. Quite simply, having a robust network can make people more effective at what they do. Historically, says Podolny, the term "network" was prefixed by the words "old boy" and suggested a small clique of white men trying to monopolize resources and avoid competition. But old boy networks haven't proven very efficient in today's world. The idea of a network as a secretive, unfriendly club has been replaced with the vision of a network as an open-ended chain of people who can communicate, collaborate, and learn from one another. When Joe Judge took a summer job helping a company market its services over the Internet in 1995, he found himself constantly on the phone with classmates working on similar projects. "It was so new, we were literally inventing it as we went along," he says. "I'd heard about the network, but you never truly understand it until you're in the middle of it. I realized that knowing these people can be valuable as well as fun." "We use each other as support systems and sounding boards," says BJ Hardman, director of insurance consulting services for KPMG, of her Sloan '94 classmates. "Whenever you have a question or issue, there's someone in the class who has the skill. It's like having your own extended informal consulting group. You can chew ideas around with these people." All of this works so well because people from the GSB often get along personally, as well as professionally. The people who make their way, by whatever circuitous route, to the GSB typically share very similar passions and drive. "I've never made friends like I did in business school," says Herron. "Look at the funnel you go through from high school to college to work. You've got a lot of common interests and personality traits, like a desire to build stuff. And even if the specific way you do that is different, there's an understanding." For someone like Conrad Prusak, MBA '80, the network has been the perfect melding of the professional with the personal. In 1989, at a San Francisco alumni/ae chapter meeting, he met Julie Johnson, MBA '88. A year later they got married. Today they run Ethos Consulting, an executive search firm in Greenbrae, Calif., and have placed friends and acquaintances from the Business School. They also help alums who are looking to hire. "Never underestimate the value of who you knew and who you can get to know once you leave the School by remaining associated with the University," says Prusak. Says Dave Maney: "Absolutely without qualification, if I made a list of my 10 best friends in the world, it's 10 Stanford guys. I don't know what it is about Stanford, but it creates incredibly strong and close relationships."

leadership by vivek paul

By Vivek Paul

It is truly a source of pleasure and pride to all of us BITS alumni to see how many successful leaders have been produced by BITS. What made the BITS experience so useful was that was that BITS did more than just teach us curriculum, it made us grow in multiple dimensions as we emerged from our protective familial cocoons to a melting pot of the best and the brightest from all economic strata and from all parts of India. The list of successful leaders in this issue is a salute to that diversity. As I think about the essence of leadership, the first thing that comes to mind is that different circumstances sometimes throw up leaders that are right for that time and situation. But even if you hold aside the situational leader, there are many threads in common for those that lead through all seasons, and I?ll share a few through some key quotes. ?All progress owes itself to the demands of the unreasonable man?. To be reasonable is to accept the status quo, to accept small gains. You must be unreasonable -- have a vision, a change agenda, something that most people would not see or be willing to push. So look around you ? what do you see changing that requires a different approach. Learn to pick up on the weak signals ? change descends equally on everyone, but a few realize it faster than others. These few see a technology shift, a social shift, an industry shift and seize the agenda. So go explore the boundaries of knowledge. Be like a jigsaw puzzle player who sees the full picture the fastest. And be unreasonable in demanding from yourself and others the effort it would take to change the status quo. ?Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn?t have to do it himself?. This skeptical view has checked many a leader in his or her tracks. Leadership can only be successful by example. If you expect hard work from others, you have to work the hardest. If you expect breakthroughs, you have to show a few yourself. There is no room in the world for ?empty suits? and never let a formal designation lull you into thinking you no longer have to personally contribute. So always balance your time between directing and excelling as an individual performer in whichever aspect you can do well at. ?If it is not important to make a decision, it is important not to make a decision.? There is this stereotype of this macho leader spewing a barrage of decisions. The reality could not be more the opposite. You have to learn to live with ambiguity for about as long as needed, able to balance the action list with ?no regret?, ?hedge the outcome? and ?full steam ahead? moves. There are only two ways to get this mix right. First, use a lot of data for every decision. Irreconcilable differences vanish when enough data is mined. The disciplined training in thinking we all get at BITS is invaluable for this. Second, is listen ? respectfully and with an open mind to your team. And here the diversity of your team is truly an asset. Foster the differences in perspective, and this is one area where I now see how BITS truly stood out in its encouragement of diversity in its population when I was a student. And since this is so critical, weed out yes men and foster people who are unafraid to tell you the unvarnished truth. In the jungles outside Bangalore there are many elephant camps where one can see huge elephants chained to a tiny stake. I wondered why the elephants do not just pull them out of the ground. I was told that as calves when they are tied to this stake, they try very hard to pull, but cannot, and reconcile themselves to being tied down by the stake. But as they grow bigger and stronger, they are mentally still tied to that stake and do not even try to break free. This then brings me to the next leadership idea ? have an infinite faith in yourself. The problem in being a leader is that there is no one to say ?well done?, no one to reconfirm your agenda against the whirlwinds of uncertainty you face every day. There is only you. And the good news is that just you is enough. I will end with something I learnt from Jack Welch, previous Chairman of General Electric. He said that he loved international trips, because every time he got on the flight on the way home, he would pretend that he had just been appointed CEO, that this was his first day at the office and that the guy before him was quite a dud. He would come up with scores of things he would do differently as the new leader. And this brings me to my last leadership idea ? always reinvent yourself, never being afraid to challenge your own past and your own success. So in a nutshell, catch the wave of change for therein lies opportunity, be unreasonable in terms of your expectations, demand of yourself more than of others, have an infinite faith in yourself, never be reluctant to change yourself and when success swoons at your feet ?always take your job seriously, but never take yourself seriously?.

Define success

Defining Success, by Subroto BagchiJuly 17, 2004
An amazing piece of writing, seems to come straight from the heart. And goes straight to the heart as well, had a lump in my throat when I finished.
Received this over e-mail, reproduced here without permission, it seemed to me something worth sharing. But please let me know in case I should take it off
Welcome Address by Subroto Bagchi, Chief Operating Officer, MindTree Consulting to the Class of 2006 at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore on defining success. (July 2nd 2004)
" I was the last child of a small-time government servant, in a family of five brothers. My earliest memory of my father is as that of a District Employment Officer in Koraput, Orissa. It was and remains as back of beyond as you can imagine. There was no electricity; no primary school nearby and water did not flow out of a tap. As a result, I did not go to school until the age of eight; I was home-schooled. My father used to get transferred every year. The family belongings fit into the back of a jeep - so the family moved from place to place and, without any trouble, my Mother would set up an establishment and get us going. Raised by a widow who had come as a refugee from the then East Bengal, she was a matriculate when she married my Father. My parents set the foundation of my life and the value system which makes me what I am today and largely defines what success means to me today.
As District Employment Officer, my father was given a jeep by the government. There was no garage in the Office, so the jeep was parked in our house. My father refused to use it to commute to the office. He told us that the jeep is an expensive resource given by the government – he reiterated to us that it was not 'his jeep' but the government's jeep. Insisting that he would use it only to tour the interiors, he would walk to his office on normal days. He also made sure that we never sat in the government jeep - we could sit in it only when it was stationary. That was our early childhood lesson in governance - a lesson that corporate managers learn the hard way, some never do.
The driver of the jeep was treated with respect due to any other member of my Father's office. As small children, we were taught not to call him by his name. We had to use the suffix 'dada' whenever we were to refer to him in public or private. When I grew up to own a car and a driver by the name of Raju was appointed - I repeated the lesson to my two small daughters. They have, as a result, grown up to call Raju, 'Raju Uncle' - very different from many of their friends who refer to their family drivers as 'my driver'. When I hear that term from a school- or college-going person, I cringe. To me, the lesson was significant – you treat small people with more respect than how you treat big people. It is more important to respect your subordinates than your superiors.
Our day used to start with the family huddling around my Mother's chulha - an earthen fire place she would build at each place of posting where she would cook for the family. There was no gas, nor electrical stoves. The morning routine started with tea. As the brew was served, Father would ask us to read aloud the editorial page of The Statesman's 'muffosil' edition - delivered one day late. We did not understand much of what we were reading. But the ritual was meant for us to know that the world was larger than Koraput district and the English I speak today, despite having studied in an Oriya medium school, has to do with that routine. After reading the newspaper aloud, we were told to fold it neatly. Father taught us a simple lesson. He used to say, "You should leave your newspaper and your toilet, the way you expect to find it". That lesson was about showing consideration to others. Business begins and ends with that simple precept.
Being small children, we were always enamored with advertisements in the newspaper for transistor radios - we did not have one. We saw other people having radios in their homes and each time there was an advertisement of Philips, Murphy or Bush radios, we would ask Father when we could get one. Each time, my Father would reply that we did not need one because he already had five radios - alluding to his five sons. We also did not have a house of our own and would occasionally ask Father as to when, like others, we would live in our own house. He would give a similar reply, "We do not need a house of our own. I already own five houses". His replies did not gladden our hearts in that instant. Nonetheless, we learnt that it is important not to measure personal success and sense of well being through material possessions.
Government houses seldom came with fences. Mother and I collected twigs and built a small fence. After lunch, my Mother would never sleep. She would take her kitchen utensils and with those she and I would dig the rocky, white ant infested surrounding. We planted flowering bushes. The white ants destroyed them. My mother brought ash from her chulha and mixed it in the earth and we planted the seedlings all over again. This time, they bloomed. At that time, my father's transfer order came. A few neighbors told my mother why she was taking so much pain to beautify a government house, why she was planting seeds that would only benefit the next occupant. My mother replied that it did not matter to her that she would not see the flowers in full bloom. She said, "I have to create a bloom in a desert and whenever I am given a new place, I must leave it more beautiful than what I had inherited". That was my first lesson in success. It is not about what you create for yourself, it is what you leave behind that defines success.
My mother began developing a cataract in her eyes when I was very small. At that time, the eldest among my brothers got a teaching job at the University in Bhubaneswar and had to prepare for the civil services examination. So, it was decided that my Mother would move to cook for him and, as her appendage, I had to move too. For the first time in my life, I saw electricity in homes and water coming out of a tap. It was around 1965 and the country was going to war with Pakistan. My mother was having problems reading and in any case, being Bengali, she did not know the Oriya script. So, in addition to my daily chores, my job was to read her the local newspaper - end to end. That created in me a sense of connectedness with a larger world. I began taking interest in many different things. While reading out news about the war, I felt that I was fighting the war myself. She and I discussed the daily news and built a bond with the larger universe. In it, we became part of a larger reality. Till date, I measure my success in terms of that sense of larger connectedness.
Meanwhile, the war raged and India was fighting on both fronts. Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then Prime Minster, coined the term "Jai Jawan, Jai Kishan" and galvanized the nation in to patriotic fervor. Other than reading out the newspaper to my mother, I had no clue about how I could be part of the action. So, after reading her the newspaper, every day I would land up near the University's water tank, which served the community. I would spend hours under it, imagining that there could be spies who would come to poison the water and I had to watch for them. I would daydream about catching one and how the next day, I would be featured in the newspaper. Unfortunately for me, the spies at war ignored the sleepy town of Bhubaneswar and I never got a chance to catch one in action. Yet, that act unlocked my imagination. Imagination is everything. If we can imagine a future, we can create it, if we can create that future, others will live in it. That is the essence of success.
Over the next few years, my mother's eyesight dimmed but in me she created a larger vision, a vision with which I continue to see the world and, I sense, through my eyes, she was seeing too. As the next few years unfolded, her vision deteriorated and she was operated for cataract. I remember, when she returned after her operation and she saw my face clearly for the first time, she was astonished. She said, "Oh my God, I did not know you were so fair". I remain mighty pleased with that adulation even till date. Within weeks of getting her sight back, she developed a corneal ulcer and, overnight, became blind in both eyes. That was 1969. She died in 2002. In all those 32 years of living with blindness, she never complained about her fate even once. Curious to know what she saw with blind eyes, I asked her once if she sees darkness. She replied, "No, I do not see darkness. I only see light even with my eyes closed". Until she was eighty years of age, she did her morning yoga everyday, swept her own room and washed her own clothes. To me, success is about the sense of independence; it is about not seeing the world but seeing the light.
Over the many intervening years, I grew up, studied, joined the industry and began to carve my life's own journey. I began my life as a clerk in a government office, went on to become a Management Trainee with the DCM group and eventually found my life's calling with the IT industry when fourth generation computers came to India in 1981. Life took me places - I worked with outstanding people, challenging assignments and traveled all over the world. In 1992, while I was posted in the US, I learnt that my father, living a retired life with my eldest brother, had suffered a third degree burn injury and was admitted in the Safderjung Hospital in Delhi. I flew back to attend to him - he remained for a few days in critical stage, bandaged from neck to toe. The Safderjung Hospital is a cockroach infested, dirty, inhuman place. The overworked, under-resourced sisters in the burn ward are both victims and perpetrators of dehumanized life at its worst. One morning, while attending to my Father, I realized that the blood bottle was empty and fearing that air would go into his vein, I asked the attending nurse to change it. She bluntly told me to do it myself. In that horrible theater of death, I was in pain and frustration and anger. Finally when she relented and came, my Father opened his eyes and murmured to her, "Why have you not gone home yet?" Here was a man on his deathbed but more concerned about the overworked nurse than his own state. I was stunned at his stoic self. There I learnt that there is no limit to how concerned you can be for another human being and what is the limit of inclusion you can create. My father died the next day.
He was a man whose success was defined by his principles, his frugality, his universalism and his sense of inclusion. Above all, he taught me that success is your ability to rise above your discomfort, whatever may be your current state. You can, if you want, raise your consciousness above your immediate surroundings. Success is not about building material comforts - the transistor that he never could buy or the house that he never owned. His success was about the legacy he left, the memetic continuity of his ideals that grew beyond the smallness of a ill-paid, unrecognized government servant's world.
My father was a fervent believer in the British Raj. He sincerely doubted the capability of the post-independence Indian political parties to govern the country. To him, the lowering of the Union Jack was a sad event. My Mother was the exact opposite. When Subhash Bose quit the Indian National Congress and came to Dacca, my mother, then a schoolgirl, garlanded him. She learnt to spin khadi and joined an underground movement that trained her in using daggers and swords. Consequently, our household saw diversity in the political outlook of the two. On major issues concerning the world, the Old Man and the Old Lady had differing opinions. In them, we learnt the power of disagreements, of dialogue and the essence of living with diversity in thinking. Success is not about the ability to create a definitive dogmatic end state; it is about the unfolding of thought processes, of dialogue and continuum.
Two years back, at the age of eighty-two, Mother had a paralytic stroke and was lying in a government hospital in Bhubaneswar. I flew down from the US where I was serving my second stint, to see her. I spent two weeks with her in the hospital as she remained in a paralytic state. She was neither getting better nor moving on. Eventually I had to return to work. While leaving her behind, I kissed her face. In that paralytic state and a garbled voice, she said, "Why are you kissing me, go kiss the world." Her river was nearing its journey, at the confluence of life and death, this woman who came to India as a refugee, raised by a widowed Mother, no more educated than high school, married to an anonymous government servant whose last salary was Rupees Three Hundred, robbed of her eyesight by fate and crowned by adversity - was telling me to go and kiss the world!
Success to me is about Vision. It is the ability to rise above the immediacy of pain. It is about imagination. It is about sensitivity to small people. It is about building inclusion. It is about connectedness to a larger world existence. It is about personal tenacity. It is about giving back more to life than you take out of it. It is about creating extra-ordinary success with ordinary lives.
Thank you very much; I wish you good luck and Godspeed. Go, kiss the world."

cat 2006 :tips

ou filled in your CAT application form. You sent it in well before the required date of September 10.
CAT -- a manager's tale
Take a deep breath and digest this -- CAT is designed to test the skill sets you will need to be a great manager.
Just remember -- management is a different cup of tea. Your intellectual abilities are important, but they are definitely not the end-all at making you a pro. There are other skills that are just as important.
So, look at the CAT exam like a typical multi-dimensional problem a manager would face.
Normally any such problem would have to be solved in a given time frame. The solution should adhere to certain basic minimum requirements.
A good manager should also be able to provide a solution that is fairly accurate. Besides, he should not crumble under pressure.
These also happen to be the skills you need to ace CAT.
A question of choice
For instance, how good a time manager are you?
Everyone knows the intellectual abilities required to tackle CAT are not exceptionally high.
Instead, make intelligent decisions. Choose questions that will maximise your score in the given the time constraint of two hours.
A multi-dimensional focus
Sometimes, a singleminded focus does not pay.
A manager should have the ability to tackle various problems just as he should be able to tackle various aspects of a single problem.
In CAT terminology, this translates to proving your competence in each of the sections, because each of them tests a totally different aspect of one's aptitude.
The best of the rest
The important point to note here is that one is not expected to get an equal score in each section. What is more important is proving you are among the best in that section.
For instance, the number of students who get a score of 20 in Verbal Ability is far higher than those who score the same in Quantitative Aptitude.
An ideal allocation of time would be 40 minutes for each section, unless one is exceptionally strong or weak in one of them.
Dealing with stress
Stress is another important factor.
This feeling of pressure is compounded by the fact that one does not know the ideal marks one should score in CAT.
Adding fuel to the fire is the limited number of seats each IIM offers.
The importance of accuracy
Finally, we come to the most important aspect -- accuracy.
Students with a modest number of attempts and a degree of accuracy in excess of 85 percent or so manage to outsmart others.
After all, as a manager, one has to take good decisions.
The P of preparation
So how does one prepare? Believe me, it is not too late.
CAT is not about good old hard work. It is about smart work.
For instance, the concept of multiple-choice questions is CAT's most powerful and user-friendly feature. Very often, you can eliminate answer choices or work backwards or, even better, use a combination of both these strategies.
Time management is something that comes with practice. Choosing which questions to answer, however, is the result of a combination of self-assessment and practice.
Late starters
For those of your who are late starters, I would suggest you avoid focusing on your weak aspects.
For instance, if you are not confident about permutations and combinations, it would be better if you could just learn the basics before focusing on your stronger points which, for example, could be geometry.
This is more applicable in the case of QA, given the relatively low number of average attempts.
It is important you understand and manipulate the constraints of CAT to your benefit.
The B school funda
CAT is the most important part of getting admission into the prestigious Indian Institutes of Management.
A good performance in CAT gives one a head start over the others, and often offsets other factors in the admission process.
Just as the days of cost have given way to the value-for-money policy, so have the

CAT 2006

These are just few of the tips given to CAT aspirants by different organisations that help you prepare for the CAT exam.
The countdown to C Day (CAT Day, November 21) has begun. So have sleepless nights, nervous breakdowns and last minute revisions.
Remember, though, those who slog mindlessly for this test fail to acknowledge the inherent nature of the CAT examination.
As many of the articles we have carried earlier on Get Ahead have reiterated, CAT is a test of your managerial aptitude and managerial skill sets like:
~ Time management~ How you handle pressure and uncertainty ~ Decision making
Remember, CAT is not about solving 150 questions in 120 minutes.
It is about solving 90 to 95 questions with 85 to 90 percent accuracy.
Here are a few tips that should fetch you a call from the best B-Schools in the country.
Tip 1: Handle pressure and uncertainty well. And reap the rewards!
Handling pressure and uncertainty is a crucial element of CAT. This is a vital skill that a manager requires in his/ her daily decision-making process.
The CAT examination spans 120 minutes, but if you are able to handle the pressure in the first 15 and last 10 minutes, your chances to excel increase.
Some pointers to help you excel at this stage are:
Have a flexible strategy.
Scan your question paper for the initial three to four minutes to locate easy questions.
Attempt your favourite section first.
Remember CAT is just another name for uncertainty. If it ain't uncertain, it ain't CAT! This year, you might get a paper based on Reasoning. Or you might have an additional section on Reasoning.
(The above prediction is based on the increasing emphasis on Reasoning in the last decade. Also, CAT patterns/formats are revamped every five years. The last time the pattern was changed was four or five years ago.)
Tip 2: Sequence and prioritise -- your mantras for success
Sequencing and prioritising mean:
~ Deciding on the sequence in which you will attempt the various sections.~ Allocating an approximate time to each section.~ Prioritising questions within sections.
Deciding your sequence before entering the examination hall helps you methodically attempt CAT.
As a result, you don't shuffle between sections and lose time. Once you have scanned the paper, allocate an additional five to 10 minutes to a tough section and take out five to 10 minutes from an easy section.

Let us assume that, before entering into the hall, your strategy was:
~ Scanning: 3-4 minutes~ Quantitative Ability: 40 minutes~ Data Interpretation/ Data Sufficiency: 35-40 minutes~ Verbal Ability: 40 minutes
If, say, Quantitative Ability is tough and the other two sections are comparatively easy, your changed strategy may look something like:
~ Scanning: 3-4 minutes~ Quantitative Ability: 45-50 minutes~ Data Interpretation/ Data Sufficiency: 30 minutes~ Verbal Ability: 30-35 minutes
By all means, attempt your favourite section first.
Those who have taken CAT, though, will advise you never to attempt Quantitative Ability in the end. QA utilises your core fundamentals and formulae; sometimes, they are difficult to recall under the twin pressures of time and mental fatigue.
The other two sections are primarily practise-based.
Here are some sequences you could adopt if you do not have a strategy yet:
Sequence I
1. Quantitative Ability2. Data Interpretation/ Data Sufficiency3. Verbal Ability
Sequence II
1. Quantitative Ability2. Verbal Ability3. Data Interpretation/ Data Sufficiency
Sequence III
1. Data Interpretation/ Data Sufficiency2. Quantitative Ability3. Verbal Ability
Sequence IV
1. Verbal Ability2. Quantitative Ability3. Data Interpretation/ Data Sufficiency
Tip 3: Tame CAT by taming each section individually
Here are some specific section-related strategies:
Quantitative Ability
Attempt questions in three rounds.
Round 1
~ Attempt all one liners.~ Attempt all two liners.~ Attempt all four liners.
Round 2
Come back to the leftover questions of Round 1. Under pressure, you might just have left easy questions from Round 1 unattempted. Attempt them again
Round 3
If time permits, tackle the lengthier questions on your favourite topics.
There is a second school of thought which says lengthier questions are easier.
But remember: It takes just five to 10 seconds to decide whether you should attempt to answer one or two liner questions. Lengthier questions take more time to read, comprehend and crack, if at all you are able to do so.
Verbal Ability
~ Most students attempt English Usage or Reading and Comprehension questions first.~ In Para Jumbles, look out for structural and logical connectors.~ Before attempting Reading and Comprehension, scan the questions once.~ Narrative RCs have generally proved students' nemesis. Be careful.~ Generally, students scan a poem before an RC. A poem is short and easy to read, thanks to fewer eye fixations. You will also come to know within a few seconds whether it should be attempted or not.~ Grammar questions should be your forte.
Data Interpretation/ Data Sufficiency
~ Revise your percentages and approximations.~ Data Sufficiency questions are independent of each other and should be attempted first. Try not to use external knowledge while answering Data Sufficiency questions.~ Once you are done with the Data Sufficiency questions, attempt single graph questions followed by the double graph questions.~ Questions based on logical games and long tables are generally attempted last.
Speed breakers
CAT also features speed breaker questions. Beware of them.
These questions constitute about two to five percent of the CAT paper and are best attempted by not attempting them.
They are also known as 'take home' questions.
Most important!
1. Relax.
2. Take two easy full-length tests on November 19 and November 20 from 11 am to 1 pm.
The test on November 20 should be a three-section test.
Try taking a four-section test on November 19 (Remember, CAT may have an additional section on Reasoning).
3. Do not over-burden yourself on November 20.
4. Revise your mathematics formulae.
5. Watch a war movie to pump up your adrenaline!
If you have prepared well, do not worry.
All the best!

Guruchran das's view on indian companies

WINNING STRATEGY FOR POST-REFORM INDIA

The truth is that a decade after the reforms most Indian companies are floundering. With a couple of dozen exceptions the vast majority has failed to become truly competitive. Our companies have still not acquired the confidence or the skills to succeed in the global economy. Most continue with a “factory mindset” when the industrial age is disappearing. Most sell cheap, shoddy products.
It has become increasingly clear that a definite divide has emerged in Indian business. And it is not the divide between the so-called “new” and “old” economy companies. It is between those companies who have a clear strategy and are quietly building competitiveness and those that are not.
The best Indian companies have been re-inventing themselves, building on their strengths, investing in talent and technology, and approaching the type of competitiveness achieved more broadly by Korea and Taiwan. Reliance and Hindalco are two outstanding examples. Those who think that Indian brands are disappearing should note that Titan watches are stronger after the entry of Timex. Maruti may have lost market share, but it is putting up a good fight and becoming innovative. BPL, Videocon and Onida are holding their own in colour TVs, despite the entry of global players. Bajaj may be struggling, but this has more to do with a shift in the market than competition. Even Thums Up is well and alive within the coke stable. Taj and Oberoi continue to expand their world-class hotel chains.
There are only three ways that a company can create sustainable competitive advantage. It can compete on the basis of superior costs or superior products or superior service. There is no fourth way. I find that most Indian companies are still following the cost/price strategy. This is a vulnerable approach—for example, when the neighbouring country devalues, your cost advantage disappears overnight, as we learned painfully during the East Asian crisis.
Indian companies have many failings—they are short term; they try to do too many things and lack focus; they do not invest enough in improving their employees or their products; they have been unable to separate the business’ and the family’s interests—but, I think, their biggest failing is that they are following the wrong strategy.
It is unrealistic to expect Indian companies to become technology leaders. This is not because Indian scientists are not capable, but because Indian companies will take time to mobilise the power of science and create a technology driven culture. The companies of Korea and Taiwan still do not have a technology edge. Eventually, some will become innovation-driven, but it will take us 10-15 years to get there after sustained investments in R&D.
The right strategy for Indian companies is the third--to differentiate themselves by offering unparalleled service. This is a far cheaper strategy than to invest in R&D or in cutting prices. In the competitive global market, the quality and price of most products have narrowed to the point where it is only service that distinguishes companies. A survey in the U.S. found that 68 per cent of customers are lost not because of quality or price but because of service. Service builds on the proven capability of Indian traders in the competitive bazaar economy.
Anyone who has shopped in a sari store or eaten in an Udipi restaurant knows the Indian traders' ability to deliver superior service. The employee in a typical sari store opens a hundred saris within five minutes in an attempt to sell a single one. Similarly, the waiter in a typical restaurant or dhaba delivers the customer's thali in two minutes. Among larger companies, HDFC and Sundaram Finance are good examples of superior service. Everyone recalls the positive experience of dealing with HDFC for a housing loan. The legendary loyalty of truck customers to Sundaram Finance is based on excellent service.
Commitment to a service strategy means that you hire new employees on the basis of their attitude and train them on skills. Most companies do the opposite. No matter which of the three strategies you adopt, however, you have to deliver a threshold level of quality, price, and service in order to exist. But in order to gain advantage over others, you must choose one and stay with it.
A strategy based on superior service can be especially powerful where the value added is high. Superior service delivered by highly trained “knowledge” workers—scientists, engineers, market researchers, salesmen—provides a powerful insulation against competition. Not only can knowledge workers harness the power of information technology, they can also be trained to benchmark their deliverables against competition and against customers’ needs.
Creating competitive advantage takes years of painstaking effort and few Indian companies have had the patience or the inclination to do so. It requires the ability of the top management to penetrate into the messy details of the business, without losing sight of the big picture. Most Indian businesses have found themselves hopelessly unequal to this task. Until 1991, they could blame the Socialist Raj. Now, a decade after the reforms, they have no one but themselves to blame.

one country one destination

Arun Maira-One Country, One Destiny

I wanted to study economics but I studied physics in St. Stephen's College because the Principal would not let me switch from physics to economics. He said physics would teach me to think clearly, which would stand me in good stead through life. For 40 years, I have worked as a manager and a consultant to business corporations. I have thought a lot about the role of corporations in society. For the past few years, I have been reading and thinking a lot about economics. I was at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month. At the commencement, several hundred business leaders voted in a 'global town hall' meeting to determine issues uppermost on their minds. Clear winners were: 'poverty', 'equitable globalisation', and 'climate change'. "The World Economic Forum now sounds like the World Social Forum", a journalist commented. While some people would be delighted with this apparent change of heart amongst profit-obsessed businessmen, others, like The Economist, would be aghast. In its recent issue focussing on Corporate Social Responsibility, the journal argues that good economics (citing Adam Smith to explain good economics, as it often does) requires that corporate leaders' social responsibility must be limited to the pursuit of profits for their shareholders and nothing else.On the same January days, meeting in warm Porto Alegre, far from frigid Davos, participants at the World Social Forum slept on the ground in tents and railed against the corporations of the world and berated their erstwhile hero, President Lula of Brazil, for betraying them by going to Davos. And at Davos, a prominent social worker (from India) chastised business leaders for not coming down to earth to listen to the people on the ground. Perhaps the time has come for the two forums to listen to each other and shape one World Forum. And for fundamentalist economists to question their orthodoxies and build more real models of the world, rather than abstractions based on false assumptions about the nature of man. Perhaps the most erroneous assumption in economics is that men and women take purely rational decisions driven only by self-interest. If this were so, why do economists, like those who write for The Economist, and financial analysts who believe in the sagacity of markets, have to explain the changes in market indices with words such as 'moods', 'sentiment', 'fear' and 'confidence'-words more associated with emotions than pure reason? They do this because they do not have models to explain even economic phenomena such as the 'behaviour' (another tricky word) of stock markets in purely rational terms.Economists tend to over-simplify their assumptions to enable mathematical modelling. For example, The Economist says, 'Measuring profits is fairly straightforward; measuring environmental protection and social justice is not. The difficulty is partly that there is no single yardstick for measuring progress in those. How is any given success for environmental action to be weighed against any given advance in social justice-or for that matter, against any given change in profits? Measuring profits-the good old single bottom line-offers a pretty clear test of business success." This is sheer intellectual laziness. If Newton had decided to ignore the concept of gravity merely because, when it occurred to him, he did not have the means to measure it, or Faraday ignored the force of electro-magnetic induction because he did not have instruments to gauge it, physics could not have developed its power to change man's world.Market movements are caused by perceptions, as well as perceptions about others' perceptions. Which causes markets to swing up and down, even when there is no change in the 'fundamentals' (to use another popular term amongst financial analysts and economists, and also a vague term because they cannot agree what these fundamentals are). Businessmen and investors cite the need for confidence and trust as factors that influence their investment decisions. And businessmen would like their stakeholders, be they investors, customers, suppliers, or employees, to have confidence and trust in them because this gives their business economic advantage by way of lower costs in attracting capital, acquiring customers, and retaining employees. Hence they spend time and money in confidence building measures, such as brand creation and advertising, which are considered necessary for business. Then why are 'corporate social responsibility' programmes, which aim to build bridges between corporations and society, dismissed by some economists as bad for business?In his book, "Complexity", M. Mitchell Waldrop describes a meeting between physicists and economists (including some Nobel Prize winners on both sides) that took place at the Santa Fe Institute some years ago. "As the axioms and theorems and proofs marched across the overhead projection screen, the physicists could only be awestruck at (the economists) mathematical prowess-awestruck and appalled. "They were almost too good," says one young physicist, who remembers shaking his head in disbelief. "It seemed as though they were dazzling themselves with fancy mathematics, until they couldn't see the forest for the trees…I thought they often weren't looking at what the models were for, and what they did, and whether the underlying assumptions were any good. In a lot of cases, what was required was just common sense."Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a fundamentalist school of capitalism has dominated both politics and management practice: the school in which markets are supreme, nations are merely economies, corporations are merely profit-making machines, and citizens are merely consumers. This school traces its recent political roots to Thatcherism and Reaganomics, named after the two leaders who together stood against the 'Evil Empire' which, in their minds was as much the military empire of the Soviet Union as it was the socialist view of economics prevailing within their own countries. With the collapse of the Berlin Wall, Fukuyama claimed that history had ended because there was no longer any threat to capitalism, and the Washington Consensus of capitalism prevailed unchallenged. But there are as many schools of capitalism as there are varieties of Heinz pickles, said Harold Minskey, the economist. Therefore, why cannot a country that provides social services through the public sector and does not privatise in a big bang, describe itself as capitalist without an apology to The Economist? Fundamentalist economists who came to reign after 1989, and against whose domination civil society has begun to react, should read the book, "20:21 Vision, Twentieth-Century Lessons For The Twenty-First Century", by Bill Emmott, the editor-in-chief of The Economist, no less. Emmott says that capitalism has to evolve much further, and if it does not it will remain under threat, because the predominant school of capitalism is "unpopular, unstable, unequal, and unclean".'Human society is also about respect and relationships, not merely profits', says Francisco Whitaker, founder of the World Social Forum. A better model of human society (and business corporation) can emerge from a dialogue between experts who, like the blind men confronting the elephant, see only a narrow view of reality from the perspective of their own discipline. For a better world to emerge, as well as a more credible, scientific, and human model of economics, the participants of the World Social Forum and the World Economics Forum must enter into a dialogue, rather than harangue and denigrate each other, as they are wont to. My hope is that India will take the lead to sponsor this integrative World Forum and also create an inclusive model for development for its own development, integrating the country's social, economic, and political development. A better idea is needed than what economic theory has been able to provide so far.The next piece, following this, will question whether economists have gone too far in their influence on human society. And whether one should venture, like the little child watching the imperial procession, to ask whether the present day emperor-the profession of economics-is wearing any clothes. (This could be heresy and I may be compelled to drink the hemlock cup, I fear!) The concept of homo economicus, of man as a rational decision-maker acting in his self-interest, suits mathematical modelling. The reality is that we that we do not take decisions rationally (whatever that means!), that our emotions play a strong part, and that very often our decisions emerge without any rational application of mind.Economists are wont to describe countries as economies, in terms of their GDP, the sizes of various economic sectors, and the flows of trade between them. And we listen in awe to their evaluations of nations' strengths and prospects.But nations are not merely economies. They are also societies, communities, and polities: in fact they are a complex amalgam of many facets, and therefore their trajectories cannot be explained by the equations of econometricians that factor only those variables that economists understand. No wonder there is so much acrimonious debate between economists themselves about the fundamental solutions for a country's progress. Do physicists and engineers need to argue as much about the right way to build and maintain a structure? Therefore, should we not take the priests of economics less seriously than we do?I think we should also talk about what is the proper role of 'scientific' approaches. I have been working with the International Futures Forum, which is a small group of thoughtful people from many disciplines who have been meeting for three years to understand the power of scientific approaches that have led to the so-called Enlightenment of mankind, as well as the inherent limitations of scientific approaches to solve major problems facing mankind, such as persistent poverty in spite of the scientific means and the material resources at disposal to eradicate it. Scientific approaches run into difficulty when confronted by complex phenomena in which many different aspects of a system (that are subjects of different scientific disciplines) interact. And when one thing does not lead to another in a linear, cause-and-effect relationship but things just 'come with' each other and 'mutually arise'. Like chickens and eggs and yin and yang. Our lives are surrounded by such wonderful phenomena. Systems thinking is a more useful way to comprehend them. It can give better insights than many prevalent scientific approaches. So let me talk about systems thinking in my third article. In that conversation, I also want to comment on man's desire to play god-to change the state of systems and alter their course. Stanley Kubrik's memorable opening scene in Space Odyssey 2001 put the idea eloquently: that human beings are more evolved than other animals because they have the desire to understand why things are the way they are with the desire to change them.In our fourth conversation, let's talk about freedom. And how societies of truly free people can shape a system that will benefit them all. Amartya Sen won a Noble prize for expanding the limits of materialistic economics to broader wants and needs of human beings with the concept of development as freedom. George Bush' drive to change the world, beginning with Iraq, is ostensibly about spreading democracy-the freedom for people everywhere to shape their own futures. The United Nations is struggling to develop an effective, yet democratic institution of nations. India's economic growth is supposedly hamstrung, when compared with China's, by India's democratic drag. I believe there is a fundamental clash of theories about how results can (or should) be produced. What mankind needs, and India maybe one of its' best laboratories, is a way to produce faster, all-round progress in societies that aspire to be both efficient and truly democratic at the same time. What does it mean to "manage" in such a system? And what is the relationship between those who manage and those who are managed?The fifth conversation maybe about how an outsider to a human system, whether it is a nation, a local community, or a business organisation, can help it become more capable and more free. This should be the objective of international aid organisations, social NGOs, management consultants, and even spiritual gurus! Let us talk about the motivations of such change agents and how these can complicate, and perhaps impede the process of development of freedom in the client system. Therefore what are principles for intervention with humility, recognising the Heisenberg-like interplay between observer and observed, 'intervener' and 'intervenee'? This is at the core of the learning agenda of the International Futures Forum, the International Society of Organisational Learning, and other forums.What shall the sixth article be about? Let us see what emerges as the conversation unfolds. Maybe some readers may have something to say as we talk that I could weave into my last piece.

Things they don't teach in MBA

2 April, 2003Mr. Kumar Mangalam

BirlaCorporate Dossier

Having traversed this trajectory, and learnt my lessons, I thought I would share with you six things that I believe an MBA does not or rather cannot teach you. There are no tailor-made solutions to the issues I raise. Rather, the intent is to draw attention to them, and make you aware of them. The shortcomings I talk about are generic - they apply across the board, across countries and institutions. The real world puts you at the deep end and you realise that the ground realities are radically different.
Lesson 1: Learning to work as part of a team
The first lesson, I believe, relates to the skills required to be able to work in teams. We tend to be very individualistic. This is partly an outcome of our educational system, which necessitates cut-throat competition. It puts a premium on individual achievement and brilliance, at the cost of team or organisational effectiveness. Individual stars are fine but, by themselves, they cannot create the brilliance of a galaxy.
In business, one constantly has to interact with people, and work in teams. Most business situations cut across a range of product, geographic and functional areas - and a full range of competencies needs to be deployed to deal with the situation at hand. No one person has all the answers. Naturally, teams are the predominant setting for work.
At different points in time, depending on the business needs, you may have to be engaged with multiple teams, move out of one team and connect with a new team. The challenge that confronts you in repeatedly emotionally switching on and off in such environs - and how to deal with it proactively has hitherto not been inked in textbooks. I believe that being able to work in teams requires a whole new set of skills.
First, one has to learn how to be a good listener. The greater the complexity of the issue, the greater is the tendency to view only facts and figures, neglecting the anxieties, expectations, the conflicts that underline the issue. In such a process, people need to unravel agendas, appreciate apprehensions and relate to the emotionally charged response. When this does not happen, the solutions that emanate are sub-optimal. Working within a team also requires learning the art of compromise and tact. One has to be able to spot good ideas and suggestions and weave them together.
The challenge is that of keeping an open mind, and not being saddled with a rigid position.
Progressive business leaders welcome constructive dissent as a process that leads to significant improvements in the quality of decisions made, as value-added inputs are embedded in it.
Learning to cope with the disappointment of not having your views factored in a team situation is necessary, as is getting on with 'business as usual'. B-Schools cannot tutor us on how to manage our emotional perspective.
I believe teaming is all about 'attuning' to others. Teaming is about bonding, about camaraderie and about creating a symphony. It is about not thinking 'what is in it for me' and instead graduating to 'what is in it for us?'.
Take 1 therefore is: Being team-spirited is critical to success in professional life.

Lesson 2: Learning to take care of the details

My next take is on the question of what business schools refer to as the 'helicopter view'. A management education encourages students to take the broad view, a top-down approach. This is fine, as far as it goes. But even the best perspective has to be backed up by action on the ground, and this requires getting down to the nitty-gritty.
At B-Schools, most of us develop a magnificent obsession with 'strategy'. We romanticise it because it seems so cerebral. What we conveniently overlook is that one arrives at a 'strategy' only after having paid meticulous attention to the minutest details. And this is required because without delving into details, a strategy can be fundamentally flawed.
One of the favourite exercises of Jack Welch - ex-CEO of GE - was to pick out an issue and do a 'deep dive' on it. He would spot a challenge where he thought he could make a difference - and then he would throw himself into the details of that. For instance, when GE began its push into the medical imaging business, Jack Welch would dive into the minutest details of the business and operations - right down from the quality of the X-ray tubes to buying the right components.
Take 2: Remember… God is in the details.

Lesson 3: Learning to work across cultures

The third issue that I wish to raise is that of working across cultures. Up to about a decade ago, most businesses in India were, by and large, inward looking, and oriented predominantly towards the domestic market. But globalisation has changed all that. Now we have to look at global competition, global benchmarks and global markets. And when business boundaries dissolve to this extent, people have to be able to bridge different cultures.
Today, there are many more organisations that offer you the opportunity - and more than that - require you to work in other areas of the world or with people who come from diverse cultures. It is for this reason that some of the best employers in the country are those who will reward you for your ability to straddle across different cultures in a seamless manner. And this need is much more pronounced now than it was a decade ago.
Let me mention the story of two businessmen, a Japanese and an American. The American was enthusiastic about finalising a business deal, and he kept on saying that his thinking - and the thinking of his Japanese counterpart - were in parallel. Yet, the Japanese was not happy, and he thought the deal had floundered. Why? Because, to a Japanese, the word 'parallel' connotes two straight lines that never meet!
Take 3: Respect different cultures and learn from them.

Lesson 4: Learning to make use of the gift of judgement and intuition
I come to the fourth point - about learning to make use of an asset that we have, but don't normally think about. In fact, this is an asset that, again, our education system conditions us to downplay, if not neglect. I am talking about the use of intuition and gut feel, what we call the 'sixth sense'. Actually, intuition is not as random as we make it out to be, nor can it be called unscientific; part of intuition is our knowledge and experiences, processed and distilled, and stored in our sub-conscious. Of course, intuition cannot be a substitute for facts, logic and sound analysis - but it can be a complement to our analytical and logical thought processes.
Earlier in my career, I always felt that management is a science. But as you go up the management ladder, you enter an arena where it evolves into an art and here there is nothing for you to go by except your gut feel, your intuition. Newcomers into an organisation often develop some kind of derision towards older and more experienced persons, who may not be in sync with modern concepts and tools. There will always be a generation gap. To be successful, esteeming the experience and expertise of seniors in an organisation is vitalTake 4 - then - is: Listen to your sixth sense. Also understand the touch and feel factor of the experienced.
Lesson 5: Using failure as a stepping stone to success
Let me turn to the fifth factor - the fear of failure. I believe that we have to get used to failure and learn how to get the best out of it. Too many of our organisations penalise or look down on those who have failed.
Regrettably we attach undue importance to failures. Many among you would have gone into depression at not being chosen on day one or day two for your summer placement or at having missed being selected by your dream company.Please do bear in mind that failure is by no means the end of the world. It is, in many cases, a precondition for success. Failure is the crucible in which success is created. It has to be seen as a learning experience, a process of trying out alternatives and eliminating them.
Take the example of the space shuttle Columbia. Shuttles have been America's space workhorses for now well over twenty years. Even as space shuttle Columbia crashed, America will be embarking on the mission again, but only after thoroughly scrutinising its failure and factoring the lessons learnt. I have often wondered whether we should expel the word 'failure' from our lexicon and instead talk of 'failed attempts'.Take 5 is: There's no success without failure.

Lesson 6: Learning a new, more holistic definition of success

Finally, I come to the last issue - that of the need for redefining success. Just as it is important to cope with failure, we all, in fact, each one of us, needs to reflect on what success really means and how do we measure it. Too many of us define success in terms of designation, how much we earn, the perquisites, and whether we are working in a 'prestigious' organisation or not.
I believe importantly success is how far you have traversed in life - from the starting point of the journey to where one is placed today. Using this metric, many of you will discover that you have come a long way indeed. If we probe even more, we might realise that perhaps it's not just success that we're really after. What most of us want is to be happy.Take 6: Let's define success more holistically. ConclusionI have walked you through six lessons that I believe cannot be adequately stressed in a business school education. I hope that just being aware of these will help you get started on acquiring those aspects of learning that may be missing. Each of us has different learning needs - we are better in some areas, while lacking in others. So it's up to each of us to take stock of ourselves, and identify which of these learnings we fall more short of - so that we can work to bridge the gaps. Look on your workplace as a continuing MBA that will help plug the gaps not learnt formally.I welcome you all to the real world. And don't forget to have fun along the way.

things they don't teach at MBA

5 things B-schools don't teach!!!

Stepping out of B-school into the real world is like learning golf from manuals, or like teaching yourself cricket online. You have all the required theoretical inputs; a clear understanding of the rule book, the jargon and concepts; a dash of history to boot; and anecdotes and trivia as fillers.
As this package comes in contact with reality, it goes through a range of emotions, starting with denial, wrath, angst, confusion, wonder, and finally settles into pragmatism, with bouts of nostalgia and a few clear learnings that are far removed from what the rule books preached.
The moral of the story: the real world teaches you some home truths that academia does not touch upon. In our journey down the road of experience, some of them get etched as gospels. If I were to pick a few of them, and share them here, they would be:

1. Brevity:
All the case studies, presentations, analysis and concept notes do not prepare you for the first reality of life. The world does not give you the opportunity to expound on theories over a 40-page Word document, or a 120-slide PowerPoint presentation.
In most real life situations, you get a tiny window in which you need to make your point, in as impactful a manner as possible. The more august the audience, the shorter the time.
From 10-second one-line summaries, to elevator pitches, to one paragraph e-mail, you need to cultivate the habit of being concise. There are no second opportunities in a real-time scenario.
Keeping that in mind, all your thinking needs to be crystallised and constantly carried around, to capitalise on the opportunity.
The clearer the thinking, the easier it is to say it succinctly. I would like to see the day when we put tight leashes around time, space and resources, and start recognising and appreciating brevity as a virtue in academics, instead of letting duration, length or aesthetics drive judgement.

2. People skills:
Real life is about real people. It involves dealing with diverse personalities, cultural backgrounds and competencies that you do not normally encounter in B-school. The challenge is, thus, compounded and you often see stars of academia unable to deal with this core reality.
Working with, dealing with, and successfully arriving at mutually beneficial and satisfactory decisions on a day-to-day basis is what the real world teaches you -- sometimes harshly.
Understanding, communication and appreciating someone else's point of view is difficult. It is seldom as the books expound, a clear rational process aided by the theories of people management.

3. Execution:
In B-school, all that you learn is from books, periodicals, case studies, which do not prepare you for the biggest differentiator in the real world: the ability to execute.
Perhaps the most understated competency needed, it hits you between the eyes the first time you try to execute a plan, a project or a campaign.
The various parameters you deal with and the fickle nature of the elements are not issues you think about in B-school.
The need to plan with buffers, with alternatives, and the need to keep an eye on the ball at all stages of execution, cannot be overemphasised.
Unfortunately, in our desire to move ourselves up the knowledge curve, there is a propensity to take this skill for granted, and most management programmes don't expose you to this harsh reality.

4. Dealing with failure:
Learning to live with failure is another of those often not realised truths. In the real world, we are constantly dealing with the fact that not all decisions, activities, interactions, strategies, or communication translate into success.
My favourite saying is that learning comes from experience and good learning from bad experience. But no B-school teaches you to take failure in your stride.
More often than not, there is enough time to mull over a failure or even lick your wounds. Facing it with grace and bracing yourself for the next set of decisions or actions is what the real world is all about.
We will still deal with the same environment where we failed; at times, lead the same team that could not pull it off, have the same limited facts and figures and information; and more importantly, yet have the same objectives to achieve. It can be a humbling experience, which no education with books or classrooms can simulate.
Dealing with failures is paramount. Otherwise, a propensity to shy away from decision and action for fear of failure can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

5. Multi-tasking: This is probably the most common, yet the most demanding task. Unlike academics, more often than not, executives have to deal with the very real implications of their ability or inability to multi-task.
Financial, organisational and people implications are the riders we contend with. On a day-to-day basis, the ability to multi-task, yet prioritise and drop a few tasks and live with the implications is something no classroom can teach in its entirety.
To quickly estimate the impact, segregate the critical, handle them with speed and calm, constantly scan the environment for changes, and build them into your thoughts and actions as you go through the day, is an experiential learning.
Add to this the fact that often, the information available is scant or incomplete, there are always a few angles no one knew about, the unpredictability of people we are dealing with -- and your hands are more than full. In hindsight, vision is often 20-20, but reality is not.
B-schools do give you an understanding of the tools, aids and theories with which you need to arm yourselves, but where they fall short is in correctly teaching the application and the virtues of experiential learning.

The author is senior vice president, sales and marketing, Prudential ICICI AMC Ltd. He graduated from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

philosphy of life

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/at/freud.htm

understanding china

HOW TO UNDERSAND CHINA
V. V. Paranjpe

There is supposed to be a Chinese curse which condemns men to live in “interesting” times. Perhaps one should call it a boon. I went to China in mid-1947 and lived ten long and “interesting” years in Beijing (Peking) -years which witnessed the freedom of India in 1947, collapse of the KMT rule in China in 1948 and the “awakening of the Chinese giant” under Mao in 1949, followed by a sudden but unfortunately short-lived bloom of Sine-Soviet and Sino-Indian friendships.
I reached Beijing at the end of July 1947, tasted the rigours of a coal-less and therefore bitter winter of 1948 when Beijing was besieged by the communist armies and the University’s coal supply lay inacessible to us outside the city walls. The siege fortunately lasted only about a month and on 22nd January 1948 we were “liberated”. The University continued to function in a desultory manner. I finally left Beijing in June 1950 ending my student career - only to return to Beijing a year later, in October 1951,, as a member of independent India’s Embassy in Beijing.
Beida
In those days to be a student of Peking University (more commonly known by its short name “Beida”) was a great honour. Because Beida symbolised the Chinese renaissance which began in 1919 and in which Beida students led the battle for “Science and Democracy” under the inspiring and patriotic leadership of great men like Tsai Yuan-pei (Cai Yuanpei), Hu Shih and Chen Tuhsiu (Chen Duxiu). In 1947, Dr. Hu Shih had again returned to Beida as its President and he had gathered a galaxy of Chinese scholars around him.
I thus had the opportunity and privilege of learning Chinese under scholars like Lo Changpei, Tang Lan, Zheng Zhenduo, Wu Xiaoling and Ren Jiyu at Beida. In addition, I attended classes of Professors Chen Mengjia andYu Min inYen Ching (vanjing) University, oi Professor Qi Gong in Furen University and of Professor Zhou Yiliang in Tsing Hua [Qinghua) University, Beida in those days was in its original location in the heart of the town, while Yen Ching and Tsing Hua universities were several kitomatres outside the town, and I used to cycle there for my lectures.
Two Beijings
Beijing in 1947 and Beijing today are two different things. Then, it was like a sleepy village which did not initially impress you except with its imposing city walls and watch-towers. But it grew on you with time, because it had character-a very Chinese city with single-storeyed Chinese style houses having many courtyards and red gates. The Forbidden Palace stood out with its shimmering yellow-blue-green tiles. (These tiles are called “liuli” in Chinese which is a transliteration of the Sanskrit word, Vaidurya”). Like other old capitals of China it had a symmetrical design with East-West and North-South lanes. Today’s Beijing, in contrast, has become a concrete jungle of high-rise apartments and crisscrossing flyovers like any big Western town. The old city wall is gone; the narrow “hutongs” (lanes) have made way for broad streets and the old historic landmarks of the city have virtually disappeared.
All embassies - and there were not many -were then situated in Dongjiao Minxiang, the erstwhile Legation Quarters. The Indian Embassy itself was housed in the Hong Kong-Shanghai Bank building, and I served under three successive Indian Ambasadors - Panikkar, Raghavan and R.K. Nehru - the last being the most successful.
As the only officer who knew Chinese in the Embassy, I became involved in all the VIP visits and talks between Indian and Chinese leaders including Pandit Nehru, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai.
Nehru and Mao
It was 40 odd years ago that Nehru visited China in 1954. It was a landmark event in Sino-lndian relations. Sino-Indian friendship reached its high point. Nehru was a sinophile and he had nothing but admiration for Chinese culture. Even the events of 1962 did not change that faith. He was the first leader to make friendship with China a cornerstone of free India’s foreign policy.
The Chinese leaders really unrolled the red carpet for Nehru and the massive arrangements for his welcome were overwhelming in their impact. Upon Nehru’s return to India it created a cloud-burst of friendly feelings for the Chinese all over India. No wonder, during his return visit to India in 1956, Zhou Enlai received a tumultuous welcome with skies reverberating with the lilting notes of “Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai”. This was pernaps the golden period of India-China relations. In Beijing, Indian Embassy received favoured treatment, bettered only by that shown to the Soviet Bloc countries. The degree of Chinese attention to India could be gauged from the number of occasions on which Mao met Indian delegations and graced the Indian Embassy with his presence.
There were at least five different occasions when we had long sessions with Mao.The first two long discussions between Mao and Nehru were during Nehru’s visit; then at a dinner in honour of Nehru at Xinqiao Hotel graced by Mao. Even after Prime Minister Nehru’s return to India, Mao accepted an invitation for a private dinner with Ambassador R.K. Nehru, a cousin of the Prime Minister. Mao came with Chen Yun and spent nearly four hours at the Embassy chatting away and watching the film “Jhanak Jhanak payal Baje” which had been specially flown from India for the occasion.
The last time I saw Mao was when Ambassador Nehru paid a farewell call on Mao in Canton in January 1957 and Mao, who was accompanied by Tao Zhu, entertained us to a private dinner with a special Chinese wine, called “snake spleen wine" (shedan jiu), strongly recommended by Mao for making the eyes “shining and bright”. During the dinner Mao spoke about his decision to relinquish Chairmanship of the Republic, and handing over power to his younger colleague Liu Shaoqi.
Mao’s poetic farewell to Nehru
My most unforgettable memory of Mao was when he bade goodbye to Pandit Nehru. We were in Zhongnanhai at Mao’s place. It was late in the evening, and the moon had come out. Mao escorted Nehru all the way to his car. While shaking Nehru’s hand, he suddenly came out with two lines from the Chinese classical poet, Qu Yuan. Quoting him Mao said:
"There is no greater sorrow than the sorrow of departing alive.
There is no greater joy than the joy of first meeting."
Alcohol In banquet
During Nehru’s visit another memorable thing happened. At Nehru’s return banquet for nearly 800 Chinese leaders at the Beijing Hotel, alcohol was served at an official function for perhaps the first and only time in recent times.
Nehru had put me in charge of the banquet arrangements, and it was decided to have a proper Chinese banquet with nearly fifteen courses. Since the Chinese guests were not teetotallers, t thought it would be appropriate to serve liquor, but the Indian government practice forbade it and Prime Minister Nehru himself disapproved of it. The then Indian Ambassador Raghavan did not dare raise the subject with the Prime Minister. However Mrs. Indira Gandhi agreed with me that alcohol should be served, and Nehru had such a soft corner for his daughter that it meant hall the battle was won! Through a very delicate manoeuvre, we got him to agree to serve drinks-but only mild ones like sherry. So, we sewed Chinese Yellow wine at all tables.
However, Zhou Enlai, who was the chief guest, preferred Maotai (which is stronger than whisky), and Nehru agreed that we serve it but only at the head table. Needless to say, the, dinner was a great success and Pandit Nehru was quite pleased about.
Zhou-Rajaji dialogue
During Zhou Enlai’s visit to India in 1956 his meeting with Rajaji in Madras was a memorable occasion. Rajaji came to call on him at Guindy and there ensued a very lively conversation between the world’s two sharp-witted leaders.
While Rajaji strongly advocated India leaving the British Commonwealth, Zhou Enlai, surprisingly argued, and more convincingly too, in favour of India’s remaining in the commonwealth.
Zhou on Gandhiji
I believe it was 2nd October 1957; a large Indian Communist Party delegation led by Mr. E.M.S. Namboodiripad was in Beijing. Ambassador Nehru had organised a meeting to commemorate Gandhi-Jayanti. Zhou Enlai himself came to the function. Namboodiripad made a rambling speech. Zhou Enlai spoke briefly but forcefully. Contrary to Soviet assessment, he lauded Gandhiji in eight words paying tribute to Gandhiji’s great spirit of simplicity, dedication and capacity to suffer hardships.
Zhou Attends Dr. Atal’s Cremation
Dr. Atal, leader of the Aid-China Medical Mission sent by the Indian National Congress and a distant relation of Nehru came to China for a visit and unfortunately died in Beijing. In his last days Zhou Enlai not only made repeated enquiries about his health, but saw him at the hospital and finally even attended his cremation. There were very few people at the electric crematorium. Ambassador Nehru, Zhou Enlai with an aide, and I .There was no Indian priest available. Because of my knowledge of Sanskrit, I had to officiate as a priest. I read a few verses from the Second Chapter of Gita and the ceremony ended.
Travails of an Interpreter
Good interpretation is always a difficult job but when it comes to political topics, it becomes even more so. In the case of the Chinese language, difficulties are compounded by dialectical differences and by the meaning of words being obscured by homonyms. Mao spoke with a very strong Hunan accent which was often difficult to decipher. I remember Mao’s telling an Indian delegation to “HO” with Pakistan and his interpreter was stuck because the Chinese sound ‘HO: stands for two different words, one meaning “peace” and the other meaning “to merge” or “unite”. The Chinese interpreter was naturally at a loss to decide whether Mao meant to say “Be at peace with Pakistan” or "Unite and merge with Pakistan”. Fortunately, Zhou Enlai, who was present, saw the difficulty and came to the rescue and wrote down the correct Chinese character, which meant “peace”.
While watching a Shanghai opera in Huairentang hall inside the Forbidden City, I also incurred Nehru’s displeasure because I told him that I could not understand the dialect of the opera. Nehru turned in disgust to Zhou’s Chinese interpreter, Mr. Pu Shouchang, and asked him, but the latter also pleaded ignorance and sought ChenYun’s assistance, only then was Nehru pacified.
The second occasion was in Shanghai, when Ihe Mayor held a special musical evening in Nehru’s honour. Before the commencement of the programme, the announcer talked at length about a young and talented musician who had returned from the US, and was giving the recital in Nehru’s honour. The announcer referred to the musician by the Chinese third personal pronoun “Ta”, which is the same word used for “he”, “she” or “it”. Not knowing the musician, I translated “ta” as “he”, but soon the curtain went up to reveal a very pretty female musician. Nehru, hardly able to contain his anger, turned to me and said “You have been referring to the musician as a man, actually it is a woman. What kind of Chinese do you know?” I explained to him that the word “ta” in Chinese did not differentiate the gender and I suggested that he might ask the Mayor if he did not believe me. Nehru did so but the Mayor could not understand what the fuss was all about, and just smiled.
“Standard Indian”
It is only recently that Indians and Chinese are getting to know each other. For hundreds of years there was virtually no contact. Even in the first half of this century, not many Indians had met a proper Chinese. They knew China only from the Chinese shoemakers and restaurateurs in Calcutta or hawkers who went around with bales of silk cloth on their backs and spoke pidgin English.
Similarly the Chinese apparently remembered Indians only from the bearded burly Sikhs who were brought in by the British as pdicemen in old concessions of Shanghai, Canton (Guangzhou) and Tientsin (Tinjin). So when I first went to Beijing in 1947, one of my Chinese hostel mates quizzically looked at me and asked “who are you?” I said “I am an Indian”. He laughed and said “But you are not the Standard Indian”. To him only a Sikh was a standard Indian, while a tiny, beardless weakling like me was not a proper Indian - perhaps a substandard one at best!
A professor in Peking University who came from Shanghai told me how the Chinese mothers in Shanghai used to put their babies to sleep by threatening them: “sleep quickly, otherwise I will throw you to the red-headed devil” (Hongtou Asan) meaning the Sikhs.
The Bond of Buddhism
As India and China have been the central theme of my life and career, my mind cannot stop reflecting on things that bind us and things that separate us. A correct appreciation of both would seem essential.
Buddhism has been our strongest bond. It brought India and China together nearly 2,000 years ago.
How the relatively insular Chinese, proud of their own cultural tradition and identity, came to accept a faith like Buddhism - totally foreign to Chinese idiom of thought and life - is in itself a small miracle. Buddhism not only found acceptance and took root in the whole of China but, over the centuries, it became an integral part of the Chinese psyche and social fabric.
It became so, evidently because it filled a vacuum in Chinese life and had something in it for each section of the population - from the plebeian to the poet to the prince. During many Chinese dynasties, Buddhism virtually enjoyed the status of a state religion.
Buddhism brought to China not only its own philosophy of evanescence and emptiness but the whole gamut of Hindu thought and ideas, Hindu social practices and superstitions like idol worship, concepts of heaven and hell, the doctrines of karma and rebirth, an organised order of monkhood, Jataka stories, the story of Hanuman and the Siddhis (or magical powers of sages) and vegetarianism.
To the common Chinese, idol worship (of Buddha) perhaps offered an easy way to enlist divine aid to fulfil their dreams and desires and to end their worries and problems through the inexpensive means of burning an incense! The ingenious doctrine of karma offered a plausible and satisfying explanation for the disparities of wealth in the world: the Jataka stories narrating the exploits of Buddha with some music thrown in, the story of the flying monkey (Hanuman) and the siddhis (magical powers of sages) all provided colourful entertainment diverting the plebeian mind from the boredom and hardships of daily life.
Buddhist metaphysics with its doctrines of evanescence and illusion (Maya) probably fascinated the poetic and the elite.
Chinese imperial rulers, many of whom were men of dubious origin, probably saw in Buddhist monks, willing helpmates who could bestow on them divine blessings and anoint them as “sons of heaven”, while Buddhist faith helped divert the minds of their subjects from the harsh realities of their oppressive rule to otherworldly concerns and channelise rebellious thoughts into non-violent ways.
But Buddhism would also seem to have done some real service to the people by bringing to China Ayurveda (Indian system of medicine) which bases its diagnosis on Nadi-Pariksha (examination of pulse) and Tridhatu (Three primary elements in the body viz. phlegm, bile and wind). These two also became the basic principles of Chinese medicines, Indian monks also carried Indian medicinal herbs to China as evidenced by texts of the Chinese Tripitakas and the Chinese work called “Bencao Gangmu” (or Herbal Pharmacopeia).
Since Buddhistic metaphysical thought came close to Taoist thought, it easily fused with it to create the school of “Qingtan” during the post-Han period from the third century onwards.
If Indian monks did succeed in spreading the gospel of Buddha throughout China and making it virtually a Buddhist country China, in a way, had it back on India by Sinifying Buddhism to an unrecognisable extent! Indian monks used to live in stone caves; the Chinese Buddhists built beautiful wooden monasteries with Chinese architectural designs. The Chinese virtually eschewed the intricate metaphysical dogmas of Indian Buddhism and stuck to more simple and often Tantric forms of worship. They converted Sanskrit adjectives of Buddha, like Amitabha (one of infinite lustre) and Avalokitesvara (Lord of all he surveys) into proper nouns and made them into separate Gods, Mistranslations and change of gender posed no problem for the Chinese. The most popular Chinese Buddhist idol Guarryin is a mistranslation of the original Sanskrit word Avalokitesvara (Chinese scholarXuanzang corrected the translation into “Guanzizar" but it failed to gain currency). He was made into a God of Mercy and since Mercy is more fittingty an attribute of women only, Guanyin became a female Bodhisattva! This transformation of gender was a Chinese masterstroke which would have left many orthodox Indian Buddhists dumb-founded. According to the Buddhist canon, no woman can aspire to become a Buddha or Bodhisattva unless she is reborn as a mate and even then Buddhahood would be a far cry. In a way China had returned the compliment!
All this is not to say that the dissemination of Buddhism in China was all smooth sailing. It had its ups and downs and its followers often faced persecution. Many Chinese (particularly Confucian) scholars found fault with the philosophical ideas and social implications of Buddhism.
As early as the end of the fifth century Fan Zhen challenged the idea of soul or spirit having a separate identity apart from the body. He maintained that the spirit is to the body what sharpness is to a knife. No knife, no sharpness. No body, no soul.
In Late Tang (8-9 Century A.D.) there was the famous memorial of Han Yu asking the Emperor to "Turn these monks into men and burn their books” (Buddhist monks being unproductive members of society, were not men).
The most recent and trenchant criticism came at the begining of this century from the veteran Chinese scholar, Dr. Hu Shih, who remarked “Buddhism brought to China not only eighteen heavens but thirty-three hells”.
Understanding China
There is a great deal of talk about building closer Sine-Indian friendship which is undoubtedly desirable and necessary, Yet, over the past four decades, we have failed to establish a true or lasting friendship. One of the main reasons, to my mind, is our very inadequate understanding of China and the Chinese people. Granted that it is not easy to understand a country of China’s magnitude, antiquity, complexity and cultural richness, serious effort seems to be lacking on our part and ignorance will not promote understanding and without understanding there can be no friendship - in fact, only mishaps!
Moreover, we tend to take Sine-Indian friendship for granted and only remember and harp on the common points, namely that we are both Asians, both are a warm and hospitable people who respect age and learning. But even two brothers can be very different and there are important differences in the ways of thought and expression of Indians and Chinese, Only if we take these differences into account and fashion our behaviour, then can we avoid the pitfalls and misunderstandings which have marred our relations in the recent past.
We are generally aware that the Chinese are a polite but proud and pragmatic people who attach importance to reason; that the Chinese, like the Vedic gods of yore, prefer the indirect to the direct.
Hindus, on the other hand, fend to be emotional, idealistic, voluble, rather vague and a little brash.
But these are only external manifestations of more basic differences rooted in our different world outlooks.
Since ancient times, Hindus. were fond of metaphysical speculation and they speculated about reality and life beyond death and put forward the concepts of Atma (individual soul) and Brahman (cosmic soul), and the ideal of Moksha (emancipation of the soul) or Amrittava, (immortality or deathlessness) as the ultimate aim of life.
The Chinese, on the other hand, confined themselves to the mundane affairs of this world, that is to say, the conduct of an individual in society. So, while Hindus produced intricate metaphysical dogmas, the Chinese confined themselves mainly to ethics and etiquette.
Hindus thus became more other-worldly treating this life as a mere preparatory platform for the next.
The Chinese, on the other hand, were firmly bound to this world. For them, there was hardly a world beyond. They lived in the present for the present.
The ideals of life also differed. To a Hindu, the main object of life is immortality or salvation of the Soul - which can only be attained through renunciation of all worldly desires and non-attachment. It cannot be attained by wealth or progeny.
Women and wealth thus became an anathema. Buddhism echoed the same sentiment when it called woman “Visattika” (poisonous).
The Chinese did not aim at any salvation of the Soul. In fact, they had hardly a word for soul and there was no soul without a body. So the body was more important. It was a sacred gift from the parents which must be nurtured with care. Body needs food, drink and sex. So these were accepted as the normal and natural urges of man.
To a Hindu the body was an impure appendage which impedes the emancipation of the Soul by imprisoning it. So the body is better despised or even discarded rather than decorated. Hindus thus believed in various Bratas (vows) to emaciate the body. Some Bratas prescribe penance wherein one sits among four fires under the blazing sun!
To a Hindu, the spirit is more important than the form; and intention, more important than expression. Thus a Hindu often tends to be informal to the extent of shoddiness. Although a Hindu feels thankful, he would think it too formal to thank some one in so many words. Expression would seem to devalue intention, Curiously enough, many Indian languages derived from Sanskrit had no word for “thank you” -- "Dhanyawad” etc. are modern coinages.
The Chinese have at least three or four different words to express thanks. To a Chinese, the form is as important, if not more, than the spirit. The Chinese tend to be sticklers for protocol and form. They are a more formal people and tend to be tidy and neat.
The Chinese seem to observe a strict reciprocity in human relations, If a Chinese works for you and is paid by you he will try to give you full worth of the money paid to him. The Chinese will not keep a dinner or a gift unreturned. What is received must: be returned.
This Chinese reciprocity also works in a vicious way. When it comes to war or feuds, it is eye-for-eye and tooth-for-tooth. As Confucius says “if injury is rewarded by kindness then what is the reward for kindness?” As Mao Zedong said: “If someone attacks me I must counter attack. If someone does not attack I do not attack him either”. The Chinese are evidently good friends but bad enemies.
Hindu attitude, on the other hand, tends to be more casual and tolerant. Indians may not be too meticulous in returning visits or gifts, not because of any lack of intention but due to a general laxity, Yet, he is willing to forgive and forget. And he seems to be lukewarm in both friendship and enmity.
A Chinese accepts responsibility for his actions and consequences thereof without “bearing a grudge to heaven or man”.
Indians seem prone to find an excuse or pass on the responsibility to some one else. Hindu religiosity may have played a part in it. For centuries the Bhakti cult in India encouraged an escapist attitude to life and society by transferring all responsibility to God. All that an Indian was asked to do was to repeat the name of God ad infinitum. God was there to do everything and shoulder all the burdens while man did nothing.
Hindus seem to have excessive faith in the efficacy of the written word and tend to be legalistic. Written word seems to give them a greater sense of security than the oral one. Indians regard word of “shabda” as a valid means of knowledge and elevate it to the status of a cosmic force (Shabda-Brahma).
To a Chinese, oral assurance is enough. Vice-Foreign Minister Zhang Hanfu was fond of telling us: "We mean what we say”. 19th century European traders described how all their big deals with the Chinese in Shanghai etc. were oral and yet there never was any default in payment. In the last days of KMT when inflation was sky-high found our grocer sticking to the price quoted by him in the morning, although we were making the payment in the evening when the Chinese Yuan had gone down by 50 per cent.
The Chinese are long-term planners and are deliberate in action. Indians seem often swayed by short term benefits and seem to react to situation as they come up and then act in haste.
In negotiations Indians would lay all their cards on the table; the Chinese take a much longer time to reveal their true hand. In fact as in Urdu poetry the real kick and twist comes last. In negotiating with China you need patience and perseverence.
As a mediaeval Chinese author has observed: “the Chinese are good with their eyes, Indians, good with their ears”. The Chinese are good at painting and handicrafts. Indians excel in music. The Chinese music is relatively simple and as Hirabai Badodekar once observed to me, “the Chinese music seems to have only two Ragas; Bhupa and Durgam”. It is said that Indian monks were the first to discover the tonal character of the Chinese language. This is not a complete catalogue but only some tentative observations which are open to correction. I have not gone into the faults or failings of each side. That would be a bigger and perhaps more bitter exercise.