Game, set and match!

The year of MBA at INSEAD is over! Time somehow seems to accelerate and fuel itself to faster speed. This year has rushed passed so fast - what did I want to achieve, what did I want to reflect on, what did I want to build into my personality - somehow all these questions still seem to be a blurr. May be time is the only solution.
How has his year impacted me? I've met some great people and also some not-so-good people. These friends will remain for life. I know that when I speak to some of them; their concern is genuine, their warmth is penetrative. Finally, management is about two things - people and negotiations. I think the business world just replicates these two simple factors of relationship management.
We have our graduation next week. This might be the last time I will be seeing many of my classmates. Some of them are on their path of become rich and famous; some of them are set out on journey to make a difference to the world; some of them as clueless as me and some of my mates. This year was supposed to be a year of reflection, a year to clear the muddle in my head. If anything else, I think the muddle's only increased; my confidence definitely been eroded. It'll take time to absorb the showers of knowledge blasted on this year; it will take time to know what the value of this MBA is; and most importantly, the message to be taken from this year will remain forever ...

Good job, bad job!

So we are entering the last day of classes at INSEAD. A bit nostalgic, a bit hurried, a bit weird and a lot more restless. This year has opened so many options for many of us, and at the same time we have priced ourselves out of some other jobs. This is an interesting point in life to reflect and think of jobs!

One of my first bosses at work told me once that work itself is a bad thing – so why do you differentiate between good and bad jobs. I had used this on some of my reportees too – it’s basically a tool that managers use to fend off questions on change and challenge. Coming out of b-school and especially now, one faces a set of choices – not that there are many in my case, but even to justify to myself on what is it that I would like to do in the long run …. I had yet another bunch of questions asking me why I thought I was suited for a particular role and I had to rant off my usual answers. it’s amazing how the human mind works vis-à-vis job search. If there are many obstacles, you get eliminated anyway. If the selection is easy and straight forward, the the mind suspects it’s not going to be a challenging job!

As a friend once pointed out, for the first time in the history of mankind, the upper classes wants to and will be working much more than the lower classes. There is this drive to work harder and do that bit extra to impress someone in the business organization to get that extra bit of recognition. There are going to be situations in our professional lives from now, when decision making will be key. Till now, I’ve had it easy in a lot of situations being in operational roles, but increasingly, I will be moving to more front line and top line roles. Where is everything headed, time shall unwind and reveal itself ….. till then, I have to complete coursework and a few residual interviews.

Desi Week - We like it hot!

Dec 4-8, we celebrated the Desi week at INSEAD. We called it Desi week to accommodate our neighbours Pakistan and Sri Lanka into the party. It was a lot of work by some people - but the end result was awesome.

Many thanks to the sponsors - Infosys, Nokia, Smirnoff and Taj Hotels. And very interestingly we got amazing help from India tourism with the Incredible India! posters, brochures and a bhangra troupe that cracked the show during the party. We had a splash of colours, desi-ness, food and party into one week.

The pinnacle of the week was on Wednesday when we had the Desi dinner and party. As part of the party arrangements, we scouted around the whole of Singapore looking for places for the party and finally zeroed in on the New Park hotel in Little India. It's a nice place for the occasion. The music was completely Punju types and all our friends from the whole world had a blast!

Some pictures that should speak for themselves.
















The decor in school for the Desi week - good number of posters from India, a few from Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The decor for the bazaar - where we brought vendors from Little India to setup stalls. We made a good impact in terms of the cultural exhibition, unfortunately couldn't plan enough for the business events.

With Abel during the party! We smacked every one's forehead with teekas. The party was a hit everyone swinging to bhangra numbers - we had an awesome bhangra group lent to us by India tourism office in Singapore.

Happiness and relief

And I have a job offerJ. It’s such a relief to be on the other side of the fence! So I got a job offer from Westpac bank in Sydney, Australia – the same place where Pooja already has an offer. So it’s a big relief and joy that we will be in the same city without compromising on our careers. Never thought at the beginning of the year that we would go to Australia. After all this roller-coaster, there is happiness and relief. I’m really looking forward to joining the labour market again to contribute to the GDP growth of the world.

So the role is in technology strategy of a retail bank. It sounds exciting and it covers functions across risk management, finance, marketing and HR. I still haven’t been to Australia but trust in my sweetheart’s judgement about the country, its people and specifically the people who we’ll be working with. So, this is a General management career path and that sounds pretty exciting. I have a chance to be a ‘leader’, thinker and do-er.

The interview process itself gave me time to reflect on what I want out of a career or a job. I realized that it was not the type of job that was important – but more of a list of criteria that should be satisfied by a career path. I will discuss those traits in a letr post. In the meantime, business school is meandering to an end. I will graduate with an MBA degree in 3 weeks’ time. It feels too sudden, but at the same time feels like it’s been a drag. It feels great to be part of a global community of big achievers and yet feels like we’re all shallow running after we don’t even know what! Or like a friend put it, it feels like a good movie that’s coming to an end. And a good movie is never the one where you can predict the end! I believe this is just another beginning. Career is important because we spend more than 70% of our waking time at work. But, at the same time, it’s good to enjoy the God of small things J… Sydney – here I come.