Quarter 9 - Week 1

A month's vacation later, we hit the books hard! It's always invigorating to dive in after a good long break. You completely forget the internal struggle and heated brains that you've put up with and you set out to wrestle the courses again! I've apparently taken up some really hard courses this quarter, so I've prepared everyone back at office to forget me on Fridays while I bury my nose deep in the readings.

Consumer Behaviour

Easily the scariest subject in our electives list, mostly due to the feedback on the prof that we've received. Stuff like "You guys are screwed!", "He's >= Three demanding profs!" etc. tend to take their toll on you, so much so that you arrive an hour early to the class. A legend in the corridors of IIMB, this professor is known for the clarity that he draws out in the concepts, provided you're willing to give away a pound of flesh. And then we sit in class, trembling, waiting... when all of a sudden...

The man humbly welcomes us to the class, and sets forth his conditions. He describes the rigour with which he'll approach the content, and gives people one last chance to try and exit the course. He explains why he focuses so much on the theory, and with a smile wishes we understand the concepts clearly. A little difficult to draw parallels between the described and the description, but hey, it's just one week. Let's see what happens.

So this week, we study the basics of Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning , like a sort of primer, and then we start moving towards perceptions and how they affect the way people approach certain products. The brands that are created are worth their weight in gold, and he goes on to explain what brands used what strategies to what result. Cool stuff.

We did have one quiz on Saturday (so friggin' early??!?) and one extra class till 7 PM on Saturday. Strenuous, but manageable, that's what I say.

Strategic Leadership

Yet another celebrated professor takes us on a ride down the corridors of power, where he teases us unrelentingly. Dissing us this way and that, he tries to ask us, what do we hope to learn in Strategic Leadership that we wouldn't have picked up in Strategic Management from Q1. And then after a few feeble answers here and there, he says "You guys have spent two years in this programme, so tell me, what do you think you'll learn here that you didn't learn before?" Then this master of magic goes on to lead a presentation, where he actually shows us the difference between what we learnt, and what we would learn.

Then we begin with the case.

I've never seen a prof tear through a class so efficiently before. Within ten minutes, he had the entire class tongue-tied. Nothing anyone said was good enough. He pokes, he prods, he looks amused, and then he intentionally tries to misdirect people. On the second day, he must have teased us out till around 15 minutes before the class ended. And then finally, he unveils the presentation and explains to us what the difference is between the way a manager grows and the steps he chooses, and the way an organization grows and how these two don't usually mix. He ends saying that what you do for your growth need not be for the growth of the company. So then is the step the right one? What do you do, to take the company forward? What do you do, that sets the direction for the company, and makes it a little more certain about where it's going, even if you're not directing it? And doing the right thing for the company, my friends, is Strategic Leadership.

Nice!

Personal Interpersonal Effectiveness Workshop

A very different course from what the others are, this is being taken by a prof we're quite familiar with. And the same prof approaches this topic more gingerly and carefully than he did the previous one. A very exclusive course, only 20 people are allowed in it. And the motive? To learn from ourselves, and look inward to realize what we want to do, and where we want to go. We saw the application of a couple of very cool exercises, one of which sent shivers down my spine as a person practiced it in front of us all. At the beginning, everyone smiles as someone comes forward to volunteer for a class exercise. But within 3 minutes, everyone's quiet, looking down and serious as hell. 'Powerful' doesn't describe this tool.

Beyond that, there was just the fact that we were all sitting together, telling each other stuff out of our own experience. Seemed like only half the class was saying anything, the rest keeping entirely quiet. Guess we'll see how often this lasts before the prof gets the noisy guys to keep quiet.

The articles for this week were 'Knowing Yourself' and 'Winners and Losers'. They both seemed to look at what a person needs to do in order to realize what he is, and where he wants to be. Nice interesting emo stuff.

And so the first week drew to an end. Three of the most celebrated profs, all teaching intensive courses... I couldn't think a better way to start my final year.