Random Thoughts

As I sit in the first row and listen to another of dry subjects I can’t help but question whether I’ve achieved things that I set out to achieve. There were days when I would endlessly dream of how MBA would sort out all my career problems and set me on a high growth trajectory. I have no such illusions now.

Where am I headed? Will I find a job of my choice? What are my choices?

The idea has grown up, that job should not be just a means to an end a way to make money, support a family, or gain social prestige but should provide a rich and fulfilling experience in and of itself.

In recent years, I seem to have grown up to a culture of discontent something that seems to flare up, every now and then. It arises not from frustration caused by lack of opportunity, as may have been true in the past, but from an excess of possibilities. I carry a sense of disappointment: that for all the opportunities, freedoms and achievements, life has not delivered quite what I had hoped.

The notion that I can do anything is clearly liberating. But life without constraints proves to be a recipe for endless searching, endless questioning of aspirations. It has made me obsessed with self and self-development.

Why don’t I realize that living is as much about closing possibilities as it is about creating them?

-- Raghuram S

Future without RFID: Is it Possible?

Situation: You go to the loo and get lost. Your family members are anxious and initiate a search.
Solution: If you had RFID chip embedded up your ass then it would have transmitted radio signals and the search party would have found it easier to locate you.

Bizarre, down right crazy you might think. But that’s how far the application of RFID has been stretched. Apologies for this gross exaggeration

“The future is in RFID” thunders a faculty, and gives a frozen stare to the entire class as if he is responsible for writing the future. Little does he know that anyone who talks about the future of any domain ends up relating it to RFID in one way or the other.

In the past 8 months of my MBA, I have been made to believe that RFID has application in every god damn domain. An incomplete list of where RFID can find useful applications are Banking, Healthcare, Hospitality, Logistics, Retail, Supply Chain, Telecom, Automobiles, Manufacturing etc . Some speakers have gone to the extent of embedding RFID in to the human body and tacitly suggest that RFID could be the panacea to most problems that mankind faces today. Give me a break!

The problem is that very rarely people take a balanced approach. No one talks about the limitations or the practical difficulties involved with RFID’s and in the process they end up painting a skewed picture.

RFID is much like a yeti, which everyone talks about but very few actually know what it is. I only hope that this RFID becomes a compelling reality and finds its rightful place under the sun lest management students would go nuts listening to this clichéd acronym.

For the uninitiated, please check the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID

--Raghuram S

$#&% DE - INDIA

The latest mania that seems to have gripped the B Schools in India is to watch Chak De India and draw leadership lessons from it.

How much can a movie teach you about leadership? Or does it teach anything at all. Or is it more an academic stunt masqueraded as “Innovative Pedagogy”? I concede that some movies make you feel good and leave you inspired but at the end of it, too much off a good thing leaves a bad aftertaste.

Picture this scenario, the entire class watches the movie for 3 hrs, and then does a group assignment for 2 hrs and an individual assignment for another hour. The ordeal doesn’t end there then the professors get involved, old management theories are revisited new ones are constructed. The whole movie is dissected, bisected and beaten to death. Inferences and conclusions are drawn where none exist. Meanings are attached and stupid things are glorified all in the name of Case Analysis. “Sounding Intelligent” becomes a norm and gets contagious.

Pardon my dumbness despite spending 7 hours I couldn’t figure out anything beyond Preeti Sabharwal’s looks and Komal Chautala’s flicks, while others in the institution seem to have learnt a great deal about transformational and transactional leadership. On completion of the whole exercise I ended up hating a movie which I liked initially and even more I have developed an aversion towards “Leadership Building” sessions.

When young MBA’s spew jargons and talk about leadership with more aplomb and assurance than a Narayan Murthy or a Ratan Tata, you begin to wonder whether you are listening to great leaders of tomorrow or confused jackass/jenny ass who don’t know what they are talking. More likely the latter, I guess.

Then again may be that’s what an MBA is all about. BULL SHIT your way to glory!!!

--Raghuram S


PS: Sorry Ma’am, I’ve let you down yet again. After hot puris and a free movie I surely should have learnt something more. Sincere Apologies.