As I mentioned in my previous comments “MBA – More supply OR less demand“, I am eager to answer this question, “Aji, should I go for MBA?“. In last few years I had opportunity to work with various team members with and without MBA and from good B-school to average ones. I was a part of 2 year fully residential MBA from NIMC/AIMK. I have seen and worked with over 6 MBA batches myself. MBA is a course that can really fine tune but you need to do it REALLY RIGHT.

2 reasons why MBAs are were preferred:

1. Brilliant minds were entering it. People’s first choice was top MBA institutes. Companies visits such institute to get the top brains not the MBA students. All the students were brilliant and MBA is just collecting them at one place. Some of the best minds I worked owned a MBA degree from good B-schools.
2. For their existing educational background: Every time a company visited us they preferred a combination like “BCom+MBA”, “Engg+MBA” or “BCA+MBA(HR)” etc. Same happened with MCA, “Maths+MCA” or “PHY+MCA” were preferred over all other combinations. The three or four years of your graduation/engg is where you build some strong and basic foundations (Your thinking process and analytical skills are developed during the graduation phase). I never preferred BCA+MCA or BBA+MBA combination for that reason.

What MBA is (in general)?

1. It is not about piling knowledge but about actions and approaches. (For MBA knowledge you can read some 20 to 30 books and get everything better than what is taught. You can try these books as well.)
2. It is not about efficiency but effectiveness. (It sharpens your mind to be quick and to focus. How to work and think in a systematic way. It increases the output with the same level of efficiency.)
3. It is not about syllabus but about out of syllabus activities (Read the interview with NITISH JAIN, President, S.P. Jain Centre of Management, where he talks about exposure and other activities) .
4. It is not about work (or Net work) but about network (You can do that outside/without the campus as well but the college network is vast and fast).
5. It is not about degree but about confidence and attitude (Be aware of the thin line between confidence and arrogance, almost everyone complains about it.).
6. It is not 2 years of daylight classes but about 2 years of sleepless but full of masti nights (It makes you really bold, you can’t achieve this outside.).
7. It is not about books and semesters but about people (wearing almost nothing at night) and team (well dressed in borrowed tie, stolen trousers and proudly owned jockey). (Different team tasks with varied team members teaches you more.)
8. It is not about the classes by management teachers/gurus but about classes by management student (who happens to own companies and still learning the latest). (I always liked entrepreneurs/industry people teaching us than qualified professors.)
9. It is not about CV but about first placement (Trust me, first placement sets the benchmark for many and a good institute can give you the best start but later its upt o you).
10. It is not about preparing a secure career but about preparing you for risky decisions. (Confidence in you helps you take bigger decisions)

When to do MBA?

I am running my hands really quick on the keyboard to summarize my thoughts.

1. For a better job: Indian Industry works on degrees for promotions/jobs (Sometimes it helps in getting shortlisted). I have some of my friends doing MBA just to fulfill their criteria for further promotions. Still there is no mantra for success so there is nothing to follow except “Whatever You Think, Think The Opposite“. MBA can put you in a well planned career stream with a better cash flow.
2. If you are not a self motivator: If you are a self motivator (with enough confidence) then you can read the books and understand most of it in less than an year. If you lack self motivation then it is good to read the needed subject forcefully (as the classes and exams will force you to learn atleast some part of it).
3. If you don’t know what MBAs actually study: What to study is 90% of the task. MBA curriculum are designed to give you (a quick) direction in a very systematic way.
4. Not enough exposure/platforms: I been very lucky. When I was 19 I got a regional team of young people to lead. Even from very early I had opportunity to lead different sports team, school houses (school as vice-captain). It is not about your ability but about the opportunity that is available for you (There is another thought that you can make opportunity for yourself). If you don’t have enough exposure to team work, public speaking, presentations, paper presentation, documentation etc then MBA can act as a great platform to start with. I got enough exposure at NIMC.
5. Continuation of your studies: If you are continuing your student life, MBA can do wonders (giving you an initial break and a network to float).

When not to do MBA

1. Everyone is doing it: Don’t follow the crowd as most of them might not know what they do.
2. When you want to learn something magical or at concrete/core level for success.
3. When you don’t want a monotonous job.
4. When you want to try something new.
5. When you want to start a company of your own. (MBA is not needed to start a company, all you need is an attitude to fail and fight, MBA can just help you connect to a network of people with like minds..)

Related Posts:

• Steve Jobs at Stanford
• Indra Nooyi at B-School Graduation
• Is MBA waste of money and time?
• MBA curriculum – Books for Techno-Managers.

Oh Aji! Why! Why do you break rules? You are not suppose to come to office late! You were suppose to join %$%% (designing compilers) not Grmtech (getting links and cheapo work) ! You are not suppose to put such a crappy title for your blog post “MBA is not about $%$%$% but about ^%^%^^“! (thats my next post) You are suppose to put the books in the library not in your cabin! You are suppose to sleep at 12 why you wake up till 4! and so on and on. I keep asking myself, “Why do I break rules so often?“.

I too know that rules are for better manageability and scalability but still it is not what defines success and happiness (or the purpose). IF THERE WAS A MANTRA OF SUCCESS THROUGH CONVENTIONAL WISDOM THEN EVERYBODY WOULD HAVE FOLLOWED IT.

The latest to my crime is opening a library in my cabin

(Prabhat and Anirudh, early birds to the cabinet book stall)

(Zooooooooomm in)

Do I really break rules?
No, I don’t. I really don’t! I follow them more than others as I follow the purpose and sometimes follow the theme closer than others. People do break rules but I really don’t :), I redefine (fine tune) it. Let’s take the above example that why I didn’t break the rule here.

Rule: “All books should be bought through library process and kept in library”.
Broken: “Bought it myself, kept in cabin, did not make an entry in library and became librarian myself”.
Purpose of a library:

• People should read books, thats the only purpose. TRUST ME, thats the only purpose.

Purpose of a rule:

• When we lost some books, when there were too many books and when it became unmanageable we made the above said rules. It wasn’t needed initially but later it was introduced.

Purpose of redefining/breaking rule:

• People should read books, thats the only purpose. TRUST ME.

What about manageability?

• Let the problem arise but before that let’s focus on purpose :). Once the problem arises (a good problem to have) we will make a rule and later will break it again.

I think more purpose oriented than rule oriented and believe that rules are made for us not we for rules, break it (oops i mean redefine) more often so that the purpose is fulfilled. There are many examples where breaking the rules helped, just search around and you will get many many examples.

In recent times I have seen more companies developing a bad taste for MBAs. I have personally advised few of my friends not to enroll for MBA programs (correspondence mainly) as they could go with more inline courses. MBA is (or was) a buzz degree.

Here are some of the thoughts at Bnet about MBA programs:

• Five Hard Truths About the MBA:
  1. Hard Truth No. 1: The ROI isn’t what it used to be.
  2. Hard Truth No. 2: The training has become too theoretical.
  3. Hard Truth No. 3: Some of the people skills needed to be a manager today can’t be taught in the business school environment.
  4. Hard Truth No. 4: MBA programs propagate management fads.
  5. Hard Truth No. 5: The pressure to succeed inside MBA programs has weakened safeguards against cheating.
• The Secret Guide to the MBA Curriculum:
• What Executives Really Think of MBAs:
  1. Value the Program, Not the Degree
  2. Hard-Working, High-Maintenance
  3. Dropouts Make Better Entrepreneurs
  4. Practical Experience Is a Necessary Foundation for Theory
  5. Salespeople Don’t Need MBAs
  6. MBAs in IT

  “You Harvard guys don’t know crap about the way businesses really run.” – Howard Woolf, then a director of marketing at DEC, to a trio of consultants with Harvard MBAs as overheard by the author. Woolf is now president of the Converged Billing Solution Group at Comverse, a $1 billion-a-year provider of multimedia services.

• Three New Year’s Resolutions for MBA Students:
  1. Get (more) comfortable with public speaking.
  2. Dial back on the procrastination.
  3. Stop relying on school for the easy excuse.
• Three Things I Wish I’d Known Before Starting Grad School:
  1. Don’t stress over not having a business background.
  2. Three hours of class time at the end of a workday isn’t as bad as it sounds.
  3. Earning an MBA means more than mastering the coursework.
• Finding the Value in Wasted Time:

I call it restart option. It is such a wonderful day where you get a feel of restart. From your messy last month, last year you can give your life a restart. You can buy a new book for your finances, a new work report, a new way to start your love life, a better plan for your spiritual activities. All happens on the very first day.

Happy New Year!

I wish you and your family members a very happy new year. Last year was full of challenges and a lot of important devisions made. I have a lot to that. I take this opportunity to thank all of you for your support and love. Also I thank God Almighty for His presence in my life.

Resolutions
Everyone is suppose to take these and here I follow:

1. Will plan my finances better. Every morning I will add it to my budgeting section.
2. Will write 2 books: 1) Blogging – Anonymity to Identity 2) (name hidden) A book on Online marketing, covering almost all aspects of online marketing.
3. Will start a blog on spiritual experiences.

I want to make this year, year of Love, year of organizing and year of earning.

Afraid of making resolution?
As many, do you think resolutions are useless? Its a personal stuff then why do you say it in public? I can take these decisions anytime, why wait for the start of an year? What if I don’t make these resolutions happen?

Oh Man! Don’t worry! It’s the time to restart, you can do it anytime but its a mind game where you feel ITS REALLY A RESTART TIME (making it a little easier). When you make resolutions in public it helps you as a forced motivator. It helps you force yourself. You have personal commitments and the success of your decisions is completely personal but still a public resolution helps you put a little force on yourself. It also works as a reminder. So enjoy resolutions and have a very happy new year. May God bless you with all great things this year!

What is your resolution this year?

Recently I had an opportunity to talk to some of the great industry heads with great experiences and few patents. It was more fun than serious talk. Talked about web 2.0 stuffs, experiences in startup company, cluster for DBs, when technology can become bottleneck, social network technologies and many more things. It was great.

While talking, one of the technical head asked me, “Aji, where do you want to see yourself after 3 or 5 years“. This is quite a common question when you talk to a career oriented guy. It was a brainy session but some answers come out of your heart irrespective of your brain size, it was just another moment where it just came out of my heart. I almost answered it this way,

“Honey! I want to shrink my CV”

I was so happy that my heart answered so wonderfully (sometimes you should just allow your heart to flow). After the answer there was no further question about my career, goal or objective. Here is a small briefing for those who don’t understand what it actually means. In some years I want to shrink my CV to one line, “Aji Issac, Team/founder/Architect/blah, XYZ product, 200* – 20**“. Thats an advantage of working with product based companies.

This also answer few common questions thrown at me at various occasions by our Team members:

1. What will be my position after X years?.
2. I want to be senior programmer after 1 year, senior-senior programmer after 3 year, super-duper programmer after 5 years and many be programming guru after 10 years”, does your company allows that?
3. Why is my position the same for last 2 years?

In product based company your position keeps changing every moment:

• After one year – 2007: Aji Issac, ABC profile, XYZ product (Used by 2 people)
• After two years – 2008: Aji Issac, ABC profile, XYZ product (Used by 2000 people)
• After three years – 2009: Aji Issac, ABC profile, XYZ product (Used by 2 million people)
• After five years – 2011: Aji Issac, ABC profile, XYZ product (Used by almost every other people who uses web)

Thats the time when you can say, “Aji Issac, ABC profile, XYZ product, 2008 – 2011“. Take pride in working for products and product based companies. For selfish reasons make it work. If you are a company head/founder then make sure everyone working with you have have enough shares/stocks of your product (in black and white) else don’t expect the same commitment (This small move can create all the difference for your company). Enjoy the day!

This is a copy of the mail I sent to all company members. Since I am not blogging enough and don’t have the time to draft better posts so here we go with a slightly modified version of the company group email. As a company and as a person this is a culture we/I want to develop and promote. Decision making/responsibilities should flow to the roots of a company. Enjoy the copy of the email.

Don’t get me wrong when I say “Lets fail more often” as this is a muddy and not so clear mixture of two phrases “attempt more for more success” and “99 attempts out of 100 will fail”. So “Lets fail more often”.

Here are few things that you can start with at decision level (And I SERIOUSLY want you to do that)

1. Take a decision and implement it if you feel confident about it. Once it is implemented or once you have taken the decision throw a mail to the concerned group. I really want the decision making to flow to the roots of the company.
2. Mistakes are often mistaken: Know what a real mistake is, it will give you more confidence in decision making.
3. Grow good in decision-making: I debate with myself more often that I can eliminate obvious errors with decision making (for cumulative respect point). So while making the decision do debate it with yourself and if you feel it as correct, GO AHEAD. Either the decision will be correct or the learning will help you grow OR BOTH :). We just need to attempt honestly.
4. Your decision has a cumulative respect: Don’t expect people to respect your first/second/….. decision, they will be more calculative but once you start making better decision more often your cumulative respect count will grow up. There will be a time when you will ask a person to jump out of window and they will do that before asking “WHY?” but it will take time :), so have patience.
5. Start with small decisions: Don’t jump into bigger decisions until and unless it is to be done urgently. Start with small decisions and grow. A person who is good at decision making at any level, be it home, group of friends, office parties, .. will be good at company level decision making as well. All you need is to start slow and start as smart as possible.
6. Multi-dimension knowledge: Years will only add up physical weakness but proper observation will help you gain experience. A 2 month old team member can sometimes do better decision making than a 2 year old based on a better observational power/attitude. Get multi
   dimension knowledge (Knowledge from all related field). A person who is able to think from various dimensions to the problem can do better at decision making, so get involved with different team works.
7. Ask for more opportunities: Your mouth is an open door to your thinking, talk wise. People give you more responsibilities based on your performance and talks reflects a lot of it. So talk wisely.
8. Make others comfortable: This will help others teach you. Learn from mistakes not necessarily only from yours, you can learn more from others mistakes as well. Keep your eyes wide open, dreams as high as possible and attitude down to earth for a better learning. Let others teach you more often.

Had a day off, made a debt calculator in excel and studied NPER again. Mom is a true diet killer, she made kaju upma with desi ghee and I couldn’t resist it, so had a lot of khanna and little workout. Had 12 hrs of sleep and now back with the series of stories that inspired me, I have learned a lot from these small stories and try to apply it. Thanks for all the appreciation.

There was a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’

But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

This story is not as interesting as many others but acts like a mirror. I have faced similar situations many times. (Sorry for taking a better position here, I am sure I also go wrong but at this blog I think I can take a little advantage, sorrrry). I had treated them very nicely when they joined work. I forgave their bigger mistake and never shown my anger. Always helped them improve. But when they get experience they fail to do the same and lose patience with their juniors. I get (nick-picked) silly silly complains by people who were at major fault at times and were allowed to sail smooth. I have defined mistakes in a different way and expected others to do the same. My seniors were kind to me and I tried to be the same as well. After traveling miles lets not forget the first step and the journey, help others make a better journey. Love you all!

Here I continue my series (1,2,3) of short stories. I heard this story during his Aug 15 competition. Here we go:

A successful business man was growing old and knew it was time to choose a successor to take over the business. Instead of choosing one of his directors or his children, he decided to do something different. He called all the young executives in his company together.

He said, “It is time for me to step down and choose the next CEO. I have decided to choose one of you.” The young executives were shocked, but the boss continued. “I am going to give each one of you a SEED today – one very special SEED. I want you to plant the seed, water it, and come back here one year from today with what you have grown from the seed I have given you. I will then judge the plants that you bring, and the one I choose will be the next CEO”.

One man, named Jim, was there that day and he, like the others, received a seed. He went home and excitedly, told his wife the story. She helped him get a pot, soil and compost and he planted the seed. Everyday, he would water it and watch to see if it had grown. After about three weeks, some of the other executives began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow. Jim kept checking his seed, but nothing ever grew.

Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks went by, still nothing. By now, others were talking about their plants, but Jim didn’t have a plant and he felt like a failure. Six months went by – still nothing in Jim’s pot. He just knew he had killed his seed. Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing. Jim didn’t say anything to his colleagues, however. He just kept watering and fertilizing the soil – he so wanted the seed to grow.

A year finally went by and all the young executives of the company brought their plants to the CEO for inspection. Jim told his wife that he wasn’t going to take an empty pot. But she asked him to be honest about what happened. Jim felt sick at his stomach, it was going to be the most embarrassing moment of his life, but he knew his wife was right. He took his empty pot to the board room.

When Jim arrived, he was amazed at the variety of plants grown by the other executives. They were beautiful– in all shapes and sizes. Jim put his empty pot on the floor and many of his colleagues laughed, a few felt sorry for him! When the CEO arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted his young executives. Jim just tried to hide in the back. “My, what great plants, trees, and flowers you have grown,” said the CEO.

“Today one of you will be appointed the next CEO!” All of a sudden, the CEO spotted Jim at the back of the room with his empty pot. He ordered the financial director to bring him to the front. Jim was terrified. He thought, “The CEO knows I’m a failure! Maybe he will have me fired!” When Jim got to the front, the CEO asked him what had happened to his seed- Jim told him the story.

The CEO asked everyone to sit down except Jim. He looked at Jim, and then announced to the young executives, “Behold your next Chief Executive! His name is Jim!” Jim couldn’t believe it. Jim couldn’t even grow his seed. How could he be the new CEO the others said? Then the CEO said, “One year ago today, I gave everyone in this room a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. But I gave you all boiled seeds; they were dead – it was not possible for them to grow.

Being honest is more important. I will always prefer to work with a honest below average guy than dishonest smart guy. Failure is not bad just attempt honestly and keep the transparency in life. Happy Monday!