Or in the words of Buffett – don’t ask your barber if you need a haircut. Or in still simpler words – don’t ask the faculty of a GMAT training centre about the career prospects after MBA. His incentive is to get you enrolled, and thus would create a bias in his mind no matter how honest he is as a person. continue reading…
a comment from pagalguy
http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-and-related-discussion/50219-fpm-2010-a-69.html
“Dear friend,
I am very sorry and sympathetic to you as you have to pay a huge tuition fee and part of which will go for business research.
But you know what, it is the way of looking into things that’s different between you ( or normal MBA s) and researchers ( Phd s). continue reading…
I am not into teaching. I am mainly into research.
- A professor to a classroom in a B School
The above quote is from a world class researcher (or so he claimed ) offered as a pre emptive explanation to his students in the beginning of a semester course at a leading B school. As you know me – I don’t like to take names or point fingers. The explanation was for lack of teaching skills , basic verbal skills , low self esteem , women issues and other many things that were painfully on display for mind numbingly dreadful 22 sessions. So can a B school professor really claim that it is research that matters and not teaching. continue reading…
“Are you not serious about getting a job. Or you would declare yourself an entrepreneur”. These words were spoken to me by a dean of a leading management institute (let us not take names or point fingers). IIMs , ISB’s and other “pioneering” institutes of our country talk a lot about encouraging students to start ventures on their own but it is essentially giving lip service to something which is largely ignored and looked down upon. continue reading…
“Put yourself in the customer shoe and think”. You will be told this in many marketing classes if you ever go for the sorry education that is MBA. They forget to tell you that –think but think like the customer and not like yourself.
Actually I am being rude.You are indeed told by the professors that think like them and not like yourselves but It is easier said that done. It is like many of those mistakes which you end up doing even if you are told over and over again not to. Like in cricket no matter how much you tell the batsman not to fiddle with the delivery slightly outside the off stump and rising , he will end up doing it over and over. What makes this mistake particularly delightful is that more smart the marketing guy is – more likely he is to commit it.
First things first; this book is about 1000 pages. So, you may think that by completing the mammoth task of finishing this book you will accomplish the mammoth task of understanding Warren Buffett. After all he is a business man and not some complicated artist and Warren himself has always made things easy to understand. But the thing about Warren Buffett is that he is easy to understand for a beginner, but has profound depth that will continue to amaze an “expert”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnTm2F6kiRQ&feature=related
Remember the Tom Sawyer story in which Tom convinces a bunch of neighbourhood kids, what a delight it is to meaninglessly paint fences for a paltry reward. In the recruitment season, at B schools every gonna be wanna be recruiter tells the job seeker how much he loves his company. And how much he hated his previous job. And how it will be great if the wanna be MBAs join him and see it for themselves. He is of course on a quest to be a great salesman. Forever testing the sample audience against his previous conversion rate. But is there something more to his “lies”. continue reading…
So investment bankers work 100 hours a week and their life is consumed by their work. Analysts don’t analyze anything , associates are not really associated with the deal and basically they are both paying their dues so they get to be senior vice presidents and MD’s some day who are actually the investment bankers. Their work is a drudgery ( at times the most important part of the job is to make sure that the font size is correct) and a whole lot of things, I already knew before I picked up this.Yet, I managed to pick up a lot of wisdom. continue reading…
In an episode of Seinfeld, the gang is bantering at their café hangout about the ugliest world leader of all time. It is the show about nothing after all. Dare I raise the question of ugliest corporate leader of all times – I think it begins and ends with N R Narayana Murthy. But jokes aside I admire the person and businessmen are not usually admirable.
Next time your flight is about to take off, pay close attention to the captain’s address. Is he an Indian pilot with a firangi subordinate. You can relax. Is it an Indian pilot with an Indian subordinate. Pay close attention to the emergency guidelines given by the stewardess. Is it a firangi pilot with Indian subordinate. Offer your most earnest prayer to the almighty and call your most near and dear ones. continue reading…
