Women and work!

Hypocrisy and being critical could be just millimetres apart! People hate subsidies. They say it takes us toward the Stone Age. But many of them, at least from my generation, have forgotten that they could complete higher studies with the meagre salary that their parents used to earn in the eighties and early nineties. Many of those cheap educational programs came from subsidies. (Though, I can understand the millennial generation hating subsidies because they hardly have enjoyed them.) Second, people hate political and corporate leaders who talk about philanthro-capitalism. However, when Michael Porter lectures about creating shared value, i.e., simultaneously creating economic and socio-environmental values, the very same people applaud in the audience. (Though I can understand the millennial generation getting confused encountering this new form of capitalism.) Third, people look at Prof. Md. Yunus and Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam with awe and appreciation for their gener...

Have today’s PhD programs become avenues to write (any) article, instead of gaining (some) knowledge? Once, while sharing lunch with a PhD student, I discussed about the progress of his thesis. He said that he was more concerned with publishing articles to get selected by a premier B-school (on completing the PhD program). I asked whether a PhD program was meant for publishing articles? (That was under the premise that my professors had emphasized on gathering knowledge to write a decent dissertation than writing articles.) However, he argued that to join an ivey league university, he needed to publish. He said that his CV may not move to the shortlisting phase, if he didn't have publications. He also said that he wanted to study and gain as much knowledge as he could, but writing articles was an imperative for him to get a decent job. Then I said, "Well, I don't have any problems with your aspirations to join an ivey league university. In that case, please acce...

4Ps of Professional Excellence in the Organization " Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit ." -- Aristotle Professionals act to excel. Be it budgeting, recruiting, producing, or selling, craving for excellence has become the buzzword across the corporate corridors. However, professional excellence isn't achieved by everyone. We see professionals dejected about failures, cribbing about, "You know what! That guy knows how to palm grease the boss; I don't know." "That girl, you know! Boss is pleased with her because she smiles at him every now and then; that's not my type." Many such discussions flood our office spaces and off-office places like cafeterias and pubs everyday. However, after seeing the professionaldom for over 25 yea...

When an airline company's staff became law-enforcers! 17 April 2018, 8.00 a.m., Sahar Airport, Mumbai, India! I entered the airport and headed to the Ethiopian Airlines counter. [I was scheduled to fly at 11.05 a.m. IST by Ethiopian Airlines flight number ET 641 to Johannesburg; my ticket confirmation number was RXBZVY.] I stood in the queue. At 8.30 a.m., the booking clerk at the desk called, "Next." I moved forward to finish the check-in formalities. He looked at my passport and my tickets, and said, "You can't board our flight." "What?" I exclaimed. He repeated, "You can't board our flight." I was appalled and asked, "Why?" He replied, "You don't have a valid return ticket." "Come on, are you kidding me?" I politely retorted. He was thoroughly impolite and said, "You've a Kenya Airways return ticket. I can't find the confirmation of your return ticket. I therefore can't issue ...

Business ethics demand versus supply and B-schools Indian banking industry at present is in the midst of controversies. The recent high profile scandals notably PNB fraud involving the Gitanjali Group and ICICI bad loans involving Videocon, have created tremors across corporate corridors, e.g., change in leadership in both the banks. It seems business ethics is once again on the Board Room agenda, as always at the time of crisis. However, these instances of surface surfing unfortunately are far from the deeper realities. In 2012, in an article entitled: Do Business Schools Incubate Criminals? Luigi G. Zingales, a finance professor at the University of Chicago, had argued that the scandals that expose corruption and deception in business were not merely the doing of isolated crooks; rather they were the result of an amoral culture that business-schools helped foster. He emphasized that the cleansing should start from B-school classrooms, which is a herculean task consideri...

In Search of the Motherly Manager: Unlocking the KADAMBINI code " All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother. " - Abraham Lincoln (the 16th President of the United States of America) " Achieving the highest possible return on human capital must be every manager's goal ." - Brian Tracy (Canadian-American motivational public speaker and self-development author) 'M' for Mother, 'M' for Manager! Mother! She conceptualizes us during her marital bliss, being unaware of who we are or will become. She bears us in our embryonic state, compromising with many of her normal ways of living. She gives birth to us, being in unbearable pain. She grooms us, sacrificing much of her comforts. She wipes our tears away, even if she's chocking inside. She attends us when we are sick and weak, spending sleepless nights. She ties our shoelaces, enduring back pain at times. She helps us in our homework, forgetting her favorite soap ope...

Apathy toward business ethics! Are we confused between the message and the messenger? “ Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do .” — Potter Stewart (Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, serving from 1958 to 1981) While teaching the MBA Oath 1  (Nohria & Khurana, 2008), I mentioned Prof. Nitin Nohria, the first Asian Dean of the Harvard Business School, as one of the pioneers of teaching business ethics and discussed what MBA Oath referred, why it should be administered, and how to create ethical conduct in leaders and managers. Many of the students were not convinced. One of the reason could be the composition of the class (nearly 85-90 percent of the students have engineering background); they mostly believe that the crux of scientific causality is (traditional) positivism 2  and many aspects of ethics are based on antipositivism 3  and/or constructionism 4  paradigms. Hence, wh...