Kenan Flagler in action

It is good to read and try to understand the various business aspect as a MBA applicant and most importantly, as an aspiring Entreprenuer. Recently, I read the article where Professor Daniel Cable of Kenan Flagler Business School joined the team of researchers to find out the organization style of various theater companies. You can read the full article at http://www.bnet.com/blog/business-research/the-surprising-effect-of-company-culture-on-innovation/492. Dr. Cable is one of the renowned professors in the domain of Organization Behavior. He has several publications to his credit, the most well-known of them being “Change to Strange: Creating a Great Organization by Building a Strange Workforce (Wharton School Publishing, 2007)”.

I tried analyzing the three styles of prevalent organization cultures in my own way:

• communal culture: Personally, I feel that it is very hard to define and more difficult to implement. The reason is communal means everyone grows in harmony but then a firm is not a state because even a state requires certain guidelines and rules. And when these terms come, it is not necessary that one rule may be same for everyone. Said that, I will completely agree that being in a friendly and open culture help in innovation and in turn, the firm.
• hierarchical culture: The most prominent one that I see around. Let me tell you, it sucks and it sucks big time. Reason is the person who hates and criticizes one’s position is often found to be part of the same system when he joins the herd. On number of occasions, I have seen how drastically it has failed. Honestly, we Indians, in general, love it but i hate it. It is a fact. Here, there is a time limit to every position. Earlier government firms only used to have these rules. but one would surprisingly find the same culture in private firms. Stay 5 years to get position X, 10 years for Y and 25 to be a Director and so on.
• “market pricing” or “star” culture:  Here staff are compensated according to the economic value of their contributions. Now, this is the most lovable culture at the Wall Street. Well, I would also like to have the same but at the same time, I cannot agree to the term “economic value” completely. The reason is there are nature of jobs that cannot give economical value such as the case in the software development. but yes, the nature of work and clear parameters of quality of delivery of applications can be of immense economic value in the long term. So, one needs to set very clear and transparent parameters to judge the “Economic Value” of the employees’ contributions.

Personally, I feel the last culture is a win-win situation for both the firm and the employee, provided the criteria are defined clearly and made transparent across the organizations. Additionally, one should not forget the collaborative environment that could make wonders because gone are those days when Thomas Elva Edison used to define the course of innovation; this is an era of Google where groups come together to innovate.

Happy New Year

Wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year

Whatever Miles to MBA achieved last year was all due to your consistent support. I hope that the support continues.

I know a lot of you might be looking for some updates from me. So, here they are:

• Got Dinged from Stanford GSB and it hurt  me the most.
• Wait-Listed at Kenan Flagler.
• Still waiting to hear from others.
• Good News: I have a small web based initiative in making and it should be up in a month. I assure you that it is going to be of immense use to you all. So keep looking information for that in future. This is what has tied me for sometime now. The good point is I have got a friend as a partner here and we are now moving at a nice pace.
• Yet another good news is my my first short film movie script is nearing completion. Simultaneously, I have started work on a story of a full-length Bollywood movie script. Now, both of these scripts are incomplete with my one of my dearest friends, Samarth. We are co-directing, co-scripting and co…

So, with a hope that 2011 will open up good opportunities for me and I would get an opportunity to finish my MBA, see you in the next post.

And don’t forget to take care of your health this year

Upcoming Webinar: B-School Despite the Odds by Kaneisha Grayson

Hi Guys, Recently, I received a promotion offer through a forwarded email from my friend, Marquis Parker. People who have been reading my blog for sometime do know Marquis Parker and his blog. In fact, anyone serious about his MBA would have definitely heard him at some moment of time. Anyways, this post is all about an upcoming Webinar on “B-School Despite Odds” by Kaneisha Grayson. Kaneisha is a 2010 graduate of Harvard Business School and has jumped into her Entrepreneurial pursuits after winning $10K grant from Harvard Business School Rock Center for Entrepreneurship. You can find details about her here and you can also follow her at twitter too. The webinar details are at this page. I am going to attend this webinar and I would strongly recommend everyone reading this post. Do refer my name or blog when you choose to register (would help me build my reputation, you know ).

Timing of the Webinar: Thursday, July-08-2010, 5.15 PM PST

Register for the event at http://theartofapplying.com/2010/07/b-school-odds-webinar/

I will definitely be posting a debrief about the webinar later. Watch out for it.

The Updates…

Well, how have you been guys? Hope all of you are doing well. There are quite a lot of updates from my side. So, I am not going to go in details but with bullet them and share with you all.

1. I got promoted mid of last month, getting the fastest promotion in the batch of guys joining the organization around June-Sept 2007. Well, I am happy but at the same bit let down as the whole process took almost 6 months, which is quite surprising and discouraging being in the private sector. But, I am very satisfied with my performance.
2. My GMAT is round the corner with around 20 days more to go. I have been much occupied with its preparations and the life has really gone bit crazy with the company’s product release also almost at the same time.
3. I talked to my manager and communicated that I will be applying this season and seek his recommendation, to which he agreed without any hesitation. It was a real good sign, considering the fact that we are distant apart and are in two completely opposite different time zones.
4. I am almost there with my final list of first round of schools and I am happy with the overall mixture. Now, I am definitely inclined to Entrepreneurship and VC/PE Courses as that is target industry after my post-MBA and there has been no doubt in any form about the “ENTREPRENEURSHIP” in the long term goal. One thing that is very important for me while selecting the B-Schools is: How well I feel connected with the culture and academics of the school. A lot of top B-Schools do not feature in my lost due to my “feeling”. So, I am applying only to those schools that I feel I can fall in love with and can picture myself spending glorious 2 years of my life.
5. I have started working on my essays also but I am planning to hold them for some time now as the GMAT D-day is approaching fast.
6. As you remember, I won a book and got “Great Application Essays for Business School” by Paul Bodine couriered to me at my desk all for free. Thanks to Accepted.com and Twitter. As I am reading it, I am finding it very useful and self-revealing. As soon as I read it, I am going to post its review very soon.
7. I also got an ebook “Complete Start to Finish Guide” . Thanks to mbaMission and Twitter (again). Twitter is a great resource in all forms, if used judiciously.
8. I am trying to reach some alumni and current students to get some more detail insights about my schools and some of the responses were quite encouraging and motivating.
9. Well, I also registered for Stanford GSB admission event to be held in Bangalore on September 17 and the MBATour to be held on September 19-20. All prospective applicants can take it up because it will be a very good platform to interact and know about your schools. So, go and book your seats now if you have done it.

So, that’s it pretty much form my side. I am getting bit nervous and excited for my GMAT. The last two mocks that I took, I scored 680 and 670. I am yet to see that magical figure of 7xx. I hope that I would be able to make it. Verbal is bit annoying me, basically testing my patience. Let’s see. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Essay 16

The most important information does not come from books.

Time changes as the world grows. There were times when books were considered to be the best companions of the students and people. Books, magazines, novels, newspapers, libraries, etc. were considered to be the best sources of information. Today Internet techonolgy revolution has taken over it. Google is busy scanning old newspapers now to create the biggest archive of the newspapers after successfully doing so for Google Books.

But still one source of learning remains constant, the mother of all learnings-The Life. Books make us aware of the external world and prepares us to face it confidently. Life throws challenges that makes us think and act in real practical sense. Most successful persons are thos people who understand that LIFE is the real challenge of all and the biggest ever school that can have vaious subjects in a single book itself. For example, Thomas Edison was thrown out of his school after haviing being said that he had poor IQ, worse than the normal. The same poor IQ guy later went on to create a never-forgettabe history by his invention. People like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Steve Ballmer were all school-drop-outs but all went on to pursue their dreams despite all odds to become sucessful in their own areas.

Scientific challenges are better known with the experiments rather than than the books. Similarly, geography can have long lasting impact when we go around places understanding its environment, culture and traditions. Therefore, all subjects come to its true color when we understand it from the books to apply them practically and intelligently to solve the real life problems. This is where the information is learnt rather than just mugging up just the books.

Essay 14

You have received a full scholarship to a good university in your country. You have also been offered a full scholarship to a top university in another country. Which of these two scholarships would you accept?

I would prefer to study in the university of my country rather than going to any another country, if I qualify to get full scholarship at both the universities.

Inida has come up as a strong economic pwerhouse in the past two decades after economic liberalization. It is now considered to be one of the fastest growing and emerging economies. With the future looking good and prosperous for the country, I would prefer to study and work here rather than going abroad to study.

Moreover, top universities like Indian School of Business, Indian Institutes of Managements, Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Information Technology has become global brands with their alumni having established as graduates at par with any other good universities of the world and has been now constantly been ranked at the world level.

Additionally, being in the country helps to be within the reach of my relatives and friends in mutual needs. And I strongly believe that joy of success will be in its true color if we share that joy with our loved near and dear ones.

As I am keenly interested to take my country tot he nect level of its development and see the dream of our past President Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam of India becoming a developed country by 2020, I would like to help it from here be lending a hand in its course in every possible way.

Essay 9

Some people believe that schools should primarily teach students how to best compete with others. Other people believe that schools should primarily teach students how to cooperate with others.

In today’s world of competence, the one who becomes successful is the one who have used his/her opprotunity as and when it came. In these circumstances, ideally one should be always up for the struggle to face challenges confidently. And this is where schools pitch in to mould the people from their childhood. But categorizing this struggle as competition will not be fair enough for several reasons.

Competition cannot be always be defined as thirst of an individual againt another one. It could be a group, a family, an organization or a society. So, it is very essential to judge the thin difference between the self-interest and a group-difference. So, it is very necessary to fight along with the group for a common cause. Let us take an example of say, a company for which we work. we may be competing against each other each and every day to putsmart each other and be ahead of race for perks and promotion but when it comes to selling the company’s product in the market, we should try to be ONE, cooperating each other in increasing the brand value and recognition of the company, which in turn helps all the workers of the organization. Here, I feel schools should have moulded the people to understand the timing and context of a competition.

Additionally one must not always forget that one finger of hand has no pwer at all and can be broken down by anyone more pwerful but when five fingers of a hand combine, they generate the pwer of a punch which is much much more powerful and harder to break than a single finger. Therefore, I strongly believe that schools should teach people how to compete, with whom to compete and the power of making judgements of competing in which manner at what instant of time in a situation.

Essay 8

Imagine that you can talk for one hour with any person who has lived at any time in history. Which person would you choose to meet?

I would like to meet Abraham Lincoln. Apart from being one of the greatest man of his period and making history in the world, there are few things that I would like to sit with him to ask.

Firstly, what makes a man so special like him? It needs a lot of guts and courage to break the general conventions of one’s living time. Nad there can be no beter person than him to give this answer than Abraham Lincoln, who failed multiple number of times and despite his failures, he went on to finally become one of the greatest President and leader, the world has ever got.

Secondly, if he would have born in this time, what are the things he would have wanted to change or atleast would have fought for? This answer could give a lot of youngsters to live their lives for a cause rather than being lost in finding them for whole life.

Thirdly, though short, but his talk about his experiences would have given enthusiastic people like us, a light of hope of following a path to contributing their life for a good cause. Nevertheless, not to forget the quotes of a famous person “The purpose of Life is to have a Life with a purpose”.

Essay 6

Failure often leads to success.

Thomas Elva Edison having failed 100 times to build the bulb once said “By failing 100 times, I came to know 100 ways not possible to build the bulb”. So, yes failure always shows the path not to be taken and try a different path that could give the solution to the problem.

Let us take the example of Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln became the Presidnet of the United States after a lot of failures in his life. His famous failure in his early career attempt to do business made him debted for almost 15-20 years but he once said, those failures made him more stronger to achieve success as Success was eluding him.

Similarly, failures are the milestones which one should always remember in their lives. They  demonstrate the real-life classrooms of the university which we call the LIFE. These are those mistakes and learnings, which become our experiences in our later part of our career and lives. These are the FAILURES only that have made people like Steve Jobs to come back to his own-founded company Apple after he was fired in 10 long years of struggle.

Moreover, its due to failures only that makes some people to stay and maintain their success levels after they achieve becuase they understand the pain and the hard work it takes to reach the level of success. Additionally, successful person tries to work for the major masses when they understnad what failures teach them and try to better the society by the experience is their failures.

AWA2

The economic penetration by multinational corporations shapes and distorts cultural patterns in developing countries. The Westernization, particularly, the Americanization, of culture presents a formidable threat to the cultural integrity of the non-Western world. Nevertheless, the know-how of these corporations is necessary to fuel the economic development of the developing countries.

Which of the attributes of the multinational corporation do you agree with: a contributor to growth or a threat to culture? Support your point of view with specific reasons or examples that you have observed or read about.

Response:

Economic development without change is inevitable. Every change comes both with some great benefits and drawbacks. The multinational corporations bring a great diversity in their culture with the economic development of the developing countries.

We will consider the case of India to strike out the examples of each point. First of all, we cannot deny the fact that the multinational corporations bring economic development as observed in India, with India becoming a major economic superpower now in just more than a decade after liberalization achieving about 8% growth every year now. At the same time, they bring the notion of an attitude to do business in the global arena. For example, when Indian companies were doing business only in India, now companies like TATA are becoming more global with acquisitions of Corus, Land Rover and many more. Thirdly, they bring a change in the culture of doing business by introducing the nature of risk-taking attitude, accepting responsibilities and making commitments to them and thus, dare to follow their dreams to become successful Entrepreneurs like Narayana Murthy of Infosys. Hence, they make people more open-minded and view a same thing in various different angles and then, not only criticize but also appreciate them, if needed.

At the same time, Western culture like that of America brings some too much openness mindset, which contradicts the prevailing tradition of a developing country like India. As talking about Sex, losing virginity before marriage and controversial topics like same-sex marriages is strictly a “NO” in the Indian society, the Western culture puts the whole society in a chaos mindset. While younger generation seems to accept it, the older generation still fights with such topics and ultimately, creating an environment of a generation gap and miscommunication and misunderstandings among the blood relations. At one point, it generates awareness but at the same time, exposing the young generation to too much sex and violence turns out to be as spiritual spoilsport in developing countries like India. Sometimes, such scenarios result in extreme form of lust, thereby increasing the rate of crimes like rape, sexual assault and many more, resulting in more exploitation of feminine gender. The cross-religious beliefs also play chaos. As changing and believing religions become more acceptable, it sometimes results in dangerous riots killing innocent people.

Thus, the multinational corporations bring both good and bad cultures to the developing countries but at the same time, they show us the ways to strengthen our character and values, thus, accepting what is good and rejecting what is bad. After all, the development of the economy is for the good of the society, people and both the developing and the developed country for their economies and culture, thus, creating a space for mutual learning and improvement.