For The Final Countdown

Talk all you want about management, management studies, corporate ethics & all suck philosophies in a classroom or on the college campus, the reality of it on-ground is similar to India’s Commonwealth Games debacle. It’s full of politics, dirty & someone or the other is always getting fleeced.  All the learning’s till then has to be un-learnt and re-learnt to adjust yourself into becoming a screw in huge working mechanism. But then there are a lot of things you can do to make this whole process simpler & more effective like being confident, enterprising & blah blah.

Now every management fresher in the big bad world of corporate tries his/her level best to fit in. And like every enthusiastic individual, they try really hard to do things the right way. But my experiences have taught me that more than the do’s; it’s the don’ts that matter in such cases. So listing down a few don’ts that should be avoided for a faster growth .

Sweating- Tough decisions or angry retorts may make you feel nervous or incompetent but putting a brave face shows character. Chewing nails, wiping forehead or teary eyes are signs of some one who can’t handle the pressure.

“I don’t know”- If you really don’t know, then say “give me some time, I shall find out”, not acting like a government employee helps in the corporate world

PMSing – Now this is not just for the female category but the males as well because the lord knows how moody a lot of us are. Grumpy faces, rude replies, pondering looks do not inspire a lot of confidence into a young professional who is acting like suicide bomber.

“No”- A clear cut no that ends the conversations. Never say no. The idea is simple, you do everything that’s asked, making you the man of the hour, the Yes Man, is the best growth plan.

Now these are 4 don’ts that can make a negative impression right from day one so try your best to avoid them. Of course then there are personal hygiene and common sense don’ts which most of us are well aware of. It’s mandatory that we try to do our best and be at the right place at the right time. If after all this, you’re still unable to make a decent impression on your seniors then its better to change the company than change yourself. All don’t try to hard and don’t give up too easily and always keep your eyes & ears open. Like I say, “Life teaches you how to live, all you need to do is listen”.

50-45-5%

Bored and got nothing productive to do? Try strolling on a management institute campus and notice the reactions and expressions of those around you. You will be amazed by the variations you see, a major chunk of the crowd seems as if they are all set to dismantle a live bomb and then there are a chosen few who fit the rebel without a cause category. A survey states that almost 50% of management students around the globe take a life way too seriously and the rest 55% is on the other extreme of acting so cool that you think they are from Iceland. And well there is that 5% which we shouldn’t bother ourselves with.

This is a not a surprise considering that many management students think that this is point in life their seriousness is directly proportional to their successful future.  The big question to be asked is, if the pressure of studying management makes you so serious, what will be your reaction when you are actually managing something? Many students believe that their seriousness in studies translates to being serious in life. A frown, a competitive look and a hostile personality is something that many students tend to unleash on a frequent basis. Well not generalizing the entire lot but many of those believes that this is the perfect time to re-invent themselves into the corporate mode of life.

Now that we have spoken about the scary and the studious let’s come to the chilled and casual. These are the lot who don’t care, actually they do but then that is a well kept secret. Somewhere deep inside they are a terrified and petrified yet they prefer to keep it cool. In short they are prepared for nothing but have the perfect facade of being something. And don’t be surprised if you catch them studying while the serious lot sleeps because even they know that coolness doesn’t translate into good grades.

Both the above categories of students are right in their own way in developing a personality that will help their future. But does it actually help? In real life and in the corporate world, it’s not the serious guy or the cool dude who makes the best manager. The best manager is someone who can manage efficiently and for all you know he was in neither extremely cool nor too serious…he is that 5%, we didn’t want to be bothered about!!

The Blind Vision

Visionary- a person of unusually keen foresight

How many times have you come across this word while reading, getting lectured or in a packed management classroom? A lot of you might have just heard it in the passing, whereas a few maybe a bit more frequently but a poor me had to bear it quite exclusively due to his slow understanding syndrome. Somehow professors, parents and guest lecturers think management students should be continuously drilled with this word to understand its gravity and importance. Especially because the guy in the last row (me!) becomes the perfect example of an anti-visionary (like the opposite of Guru-bhai). And by the way, the usual examples of visionaries, the Ambanis & Tatas are a bit outdated so try googling some new ones!

So is management an exclusive field that will make a visionary out you? Do the Maslows & Kotlers of the world teach you to see what your colleague sitting next to you can’t? Well sadly they don’t, or should I say, for me that was not the case (maybe I was the colleague instead of the “guy”). But then why teach me to be a visionary and expect me to learn it thinking that management will help me become one. The good news is, today’s management institutions don’t stress much on making their students visionaries but bad news is, nowadays the students themselves have raised their bar to level of wanting to be one. There isn’t anything wrong with such a feeling, but these feelings shouldn’t accelerate the power of desires over the power of your poor mind. In short pushing yourself to become the extraordinary will only make you more average.

Saying a lot on topics like these usually act as reverse psychology for those who have already set their minds on being unique so the less said is better. But the question here is, if your idols are the visionaries of today aren’t you a bit shortsighted in your vision by borrowing someone else’s. A visionary would be the one who has his own foresight and which might be influenced and inspired but cannot be an imitation. Our whole life we will have apparitions of great ideas for a brilliant future but only a few us turn into reality.

The real visionaries will be those few “who see the dream, seize the moment & do their own thing”…After all if only financial success is the benchmark for your vision’s success, then its time you get the reality lens on.

THE NUMBERS GAME

Since the completion of my business studies graduation, I have always held a certain level respect for those who pursue the specialization in the field of financial studies. The admiration and respect both stems out of the fact that financial studies is one of the most toughest and demanding courses in the management curriculum. The numbers game is never easy especially when you are dealing with someone else’s money. In addition to all this, adding a management perspective to the numbers game gives it a whole new level of complexity.

Most of the reputed management institutes leave no stone unturned to train their students expertly and deftly in the field of finance. Statistical analysis, corporate analysis and other heavy area of finance becomes a routine for these candidates. All this and more is to train a candidate to be good with numbers but what a candidate has to develop in himself, is a sense to understand the numbers. The reason behind saying so is because of the fact that the application of financial knowledge is much different that its education.

A corporate business firmly placed a strong financial pillar is ever subject to random fluctuations which may or may not be foreseen. Many other professions have the advantage of making excuses on the pretext of these fluctuations but a financial manager can’t do the same. He/She is responsible for every penny that will go out of the company’s pocket and it’s his duty to not only save it but multiply it. The recent economic recession is a great example to understand that this particular phenomenon, while it affected most corporates, a few not only stayed put but also managed to ensure profits during the recession. The financial managers of these few institutions though didn’t foresee the recession were able enough to handle the numbers stress and take rationale decisions in times of peril.  For all the pains taken by a finance guy, he reaps rich dividends in form of a meaty pay package. While all this doesn’t come easy, it is definitely an exhilarating experience for those who have the stomach for it.

As mentioned above, the educational institutions do their best to educate the students to the maximum and at the end of the day most of them are quite proficient in doing so. After a certain point of time, the difference between the good, the average and the excellent can be only decided by their applications in the real world. Though all the three variations prevail in the corporate world, most of them always strive to reach the level of excellence. That my friend is a small number, a small number that excels, those few who have a real appetite for numbers.

Karma of Colleges

A few days back, I was entrusted with a huge responsibility by folks & they made it sound like a matter of life & death. The job in hand was to help my not- so-smart cousin secure a seat in a decent college with the help of his not-so-great grades. Now according to me its not necessary to mention what course or in what field of education my cousin was fighting his battle because then we lose focus of the bigger issue in hand. So began the legendary hunt to find a college that would give my dear cousin a chance to prove that intellect & education is everyone’s birthright.

A few days later I realized that there is no dearth for colleges that admit students with low grades but the bigger question is that are they even close to offering what the best institutes offer? It becomes very necessary to get adequate research about these institutions so that students like my cousin get a fair chance of getting the best of resources to redeem themselves. Setting aside a few, most of these institutes do try their best to offer the best facilities to their students. Also it is necessary to understand that the institutions we are talking about are registered government affiliated courses and not some rundown shack that promises you a degree faster than instant noodles. Now short listing a college can be quite a tricky process as you need to be clear about your requirements academically & infrastructure wise.

Being a bit old school, me and my cousin decided to go all out searching for colleges through the net, personal visits & review’s from friends and family. You might feel that my life would have been much simpler, if I had just logged on to the net and checked the reviews and got the necessary details. But smart as I am, doing that gave me a fair idea but not the complete picture. The point is, each course demands a set of necessary infrastructural facilities in a college and the web can be quite misleading while providing these details. I mean, I ran into a few colleges which still had first generation computers which will ensure that my cousin will be married with 2 kids by the time the system boots.

All in all, a college can be graded on its reputation and the success rate of its students but it is not necessary that top college produce the top lot of professionals. It is necessary that the college provides you with all the essentials and the rest is up to you. In my case, the hard work did finally pay off as my cousin got into a reputed institute and is currently overloaded with his projects but the whole exercise did teach me one thing, a college doesn’t choose you, you choose a college!

The Studies of Business

In life, lots of us want a lot of things and there isn’t anything wrong with being greedy for more. But the problem starts when it becomes necessary to choose one thing over the other. Now if it’s a choice of what burger would you prefer, it isn’t a life changing choice unless that’s the last burger you would ever get to eat. But when choices like choosing the area of specialization for your future studies come your way, it’s a whole new ball game. So for a student trying to choose the area of business studies he wants specialize in, one can only try to imagine his trauma. In situation like these a course like BA (Hons) in Business Studies can be a very intelligent choice.
This 3 year course is designed to give students a complete overview of the various aspects of business education. In simple words its gives you an in depth tour of the business world, its nuances & its elements. It acts like the founding stone for a career which can head into any direction of the business world. Not to be misunderstood as a supplementary course, it does give you the required knowledge and mastery over certain topics of business management which are beneficial and applicable in all area of business. One of the major advantages of such courses is that it sets a firm base for those who wants to further specialize in specific areas & also for those who just want get on the job directly after the course. For example many students prefer to learn on the job while other go for higher studies before getting practical, in either cases the course won’t make you feel half learnt for your decided future.
Management institutions for such courses are dime a dozen but its up to a student to choose a course which gives him the ideal settings for the future. For example, Leeds Met India a UK based management institute setup in Bhopal offers its students a chance to study in Leeds UK for one whole semester. Now offers like these can be very handy for students who want to get a mix of Indian & International business education.
All said and done, choices will always come our way and we will have to choose, all we need to do is to evaluate & then nominate. A course which can make you jack of all trades & give you the choice to be the master of one should always be up for evaluation. After all at end, it’s your life and you shall be what you choose to be!

HRM: The Human Resource Misery

Through the sands of time & evolution mankind comes a profession so evil that it makes the bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki, the Hitler regime & even Mr. Laloo Prasad’s scams look like a child’s play. A job designation created by the forces of evil themselves, a true spawn of Satan who has no mercy & no spine! Well let’s not mistake these as my thoughts but the thoughts of an average employee about his office HR. Before I start getting personal with my HR issues, let’s get to the big question, is human resources management really a profession for the inhuman?

Human resource management a.k.a HRM is one of the most popular or should I say the most unpopular departments in most offices. The reason behind this is simple; most HR managers we have encountered are quite incapable of being resourceful in times of need. The day an Hr manager assumes that his job profile is to just listen to employee issues & keep listening, he is nothing more than a guy who can provide a shoulder to cry on. The problem is, many of us expect that the head above his shoulders can come up with solutions for our problems. Truth be said, no doubt that Hr is a challenging profession but for many the challenge is too big to be taken head-on and they end up compromising their job profiles. A lot of Hr managers we come across these days, are such hardcore loyal employees of their company that they end becoming “Khufiya khabris” of the top level bosses. Their job profile doesn’t go beyond organizing office outings and keeping the bosses in loop about office affairs & gossip.

It so happens that management institutions teach their graduates all the necessary skills needed for effective HRM but unfortunately no institution can actually teach these future Hr managers to grow a backbone. That is what necessarily makes a successful hr manager, the ability to decide or to make tough choices. Fortunately or unfortunately the hr field has enough space for the talented and the spineless, hence aspirations & ambitions easily get dwindled into a hollow nothingness in due course of time for many.

All said & done, HRM is & will always be a challenging field and for those who have fire in their belly it is a ladder of success & fortune. It is, if taken in the actual sense, the profession of servicing the people, the question is, What does the definition of people mean to a hr manager, the boss or the employee?

All said & done, HRM is & will always be a challenging field and for those who have fire in their belly it is a ladder of success & fortune. It is, if taken in the actual sense, the profession of servicing the people, the question is, What does the definition of people mean to a hr manager, the boss or the employee?

Seva with awesome Mewa !!

Started in the late 90’s, a course named hospitality management seemed to catch every one’s attentions… and why would it? It’s a course that eventually sees you mingling with the rich people, surrounded by good food and gives you a glimpse of the life that most of us salivate for… That’s a dream job for me at least, but sadly I was could never control myself around good food… the Bakasura attitude does kick in eventually!!! Well but today the Indian youth seems to be attracted towards this course like moths to a flame or guys towards Yana Gupta. It is definitely a course with perks that many politicians don’t enjoy these days. But I am sure; the youth of the nation does think like me & actually enrolls in a hospitality management course with a much more noble intention.

Now to my minute audience I would like to make a major point…The ones who assume a hospitality management course to be a training to become the next Ramu Kaka or for that matter Sanjeev Kapoor they should immediately stop reading the blog. It’s a course that teaches you to keep the Ramu Kakas & Sanjeev Kapoor’s of the hospitality business under a check. The hospitality industry which encompasses field of the food, travel, tourism and many more is constantly in search for the whiz kids who can give their business a competitive edge. The course itself focuses on teaching their students the major and micro elements of the hospitality industry with subject ranging from Principles of Food and Beverage Operations to The Global Hospitality Industry and from Small Business to International Strategic Human Resource Management. In short it teaches you the in and out of a business that is committed for customer satisfaction.

Institutes have realized the potential this industry holds & hence the elaborate studies are chalked out keeping the global opportunities in mind. A majority of these institutes also send their students on various outdoor assignments to learn from the best in the business…and by best I don’t mean “Raam Bharose Hindu hotel” but a thousand notches higher than that. For example Leeds Met India, a management institute in Bhopal boasts of getting their students interned from places like La Briz Resorts-Seychelles, Mahiwela Reach Hotel- Sri Lanka & ITC Grand Maratha-Mumbai among many other. So I think its time we take the hospitality industry and the courses related to it a bit more seriously because after all one day all of us dream of staying at such extravagant places. And if that day comes, I pray to god that our sarcasm doesn’t catch up with us…

An Event to remember

A decade ago if someone had told my dad that he was about to do a BA in Events Management my father would have patted his back and then would have turned around to tell me to never see this person again because he is retarded and a social evil. So when a couple of days back he ran into the room like Archimedes (but with his clothes on)  waving an event management course brochure at my face asking, “Idiot, why didn’t you do this course?”, I was caught completely off guard. Well, his age and fading memory may not help him remembering the rage he unleashed on me when I told him about my creative thoughts but his all time favorite tag for me “idiot” still did not miss its mark. So I picked up the brochure and had a look at what were these event management courses offering to make my dear old man so wild.

My field of studies and work does keep quite close to the events world and so I have always noticed the industry and its employees with extreme scrutiny. But like every outsider to an unknown profession, I assumed that event management is more of a practical approach than a theoretical one. Now staring at the brochure I realized 2 things, one that I was badly mistaken and second that I needed spectacles to see clearly! Keeping ourselves focused on the subject in hand, the brochure mentioned about the subjects in the event management course pointed out to what a detailed profession event management has grown into. With subjects like Management of Event Organizations, Event Marketing Activities, The Event Environment & Event Planning Process, management institutions have cracked a way of teaching their students about the entire process in detail and in depth.

Now many assume that events are not a routine affair and hence the exclusivity doesn’t allow consistent jobs and consistent pays. Many also assume that events majorly consist of Bollywood award functions that we see on the idiot box on a seasonal basis. But from experience and examples I can firmly say that in today’s world events are a 24/7 affair. From charity shows to music concerts and from birthday parties to political rallies, based on their extravagance and budget, everything roughly fall in the events category. A set of these events may be heavily promoted or on the other some of them maybe quite low profile but in any case there is a focused & well trained workgroup behind it making it happen. Management institutions have tried to cover almost every aspect of event management in their syllabus keeping in mind the vastness of the field and also provide their students with ample opportunities of gaining practical experience by leasing them to various event companies periodically. In comparison to the age old correspondence courses today a BA or MSC in event management is a certified full time course with a detailed study structure and you can see it to believe it. http://leedsmetindia.in/study/BA(Hons)EventManagement.php

But this didn’t justify why our Archimedes got so excited and I had to wait a few days for the answer. See, someone did tell my dad that he did a BA in Event management and my dad did think he is retard. The same guy had invited my dad for his new event management company’s opening, because he felt my dad was a person with liberal thoughts. Well, I may not have a company today but after this event I have developed full faith in the saying, “What goes around, comes around and sometimes it bites you in the rear”!!!

The Marketing Trends

It is widely believed that the concept of a trend basically means that something which begins abruptly, is very low key and virtually unknown, becomes extremely popular and one day like its start it ends abruptly too. Every area of life from food to films and fashion to education is dominated by a particular trend making some things extremely popular during that course of time. In India, especially in the field of education where the early 90’s were dominated with charted accountancy, the present era has made way for business studies and its allied courses. And undoubtedly the most popular or the most approached course in the field of management studies is a subject called marketing.

Due to the consistent and continuous use of the word marketing in our daily lives many of us assume that marketing is an inborn quality and nothing new can be taught in it. A considerable section of us also believe that marketing experience can be learn better in the field than in a room. Well frankly speaking both the assumptions are true, some of us are born with the marketing skills and the field is a good place to learn marketing. But both these aspects don’t necessarily mean that educational courses on marketing have nothing new or important to offer. In fact the courses of marketing have more to offer than field experience or inborn skills can provide. A simple case and example would be, a field experience works on the motto “try, try till you succeed” but the marketing subjects of strategic management and buyer behavior will help you make a deal with lesser attempts and higher success rate. If inborn marketing is being blessed with the art of communication and a strong business mind, then a marketing course will turn those arts into usable techniques.

A debatable point that has forever dominated the minds of students pursuing marketing is that the field being so popular they might have minimal chance of existence. Since the concept of marketing stems from the word market it is safe to assume that every variable change in the markets will directly or indirectly affect marketing on the whole. But this won’t change the fact that marketing will exist and flourish till the markets exist and flourish. It is a field that has the capacity to employ thousands of applicants every year and that capacity will just keep growing. This thought can be well justified with the influx of management institutes in our nation and the specialized courses on marketing offered by them.

Marketing is no longer an additional subject in the elaborate management studies curriculum; it is in fact a study and a specialization on its own. Courses like BA(Hons) Marketing strengthen the fact that marketing need to understood as complete art rather than knowing it as an additional subject. Subjects like Principles of Consumer Law, Business Analysis & Practice, Organizational Behavior, Economic Awareness etc prepare you for the corporate marketing world. And for those who are interested in field experiences, the ample internship opportunities and dedicated job placement cells set up by the institutions give a much better and definite head start to candidates.

Marketing guru Philip Kotler had quoted that, “Marketing takes day to learn. Unfortunately it takes a lifetime to master”. Fortunately many of us today have colleges and courses that give us a chance to learn faster so that we take little less than a lifetime to master.