The journey begins - the Women In Business Club - ISB, CO2012

A quick routine, a careless smother of jelly on a partially toasted slice of bread, and an unbeaten hastily-stirred evening coffee, shoved down the throat, and off she is for another busy evening! Wait! Is it a Monday or a Thursday, a Friday or a Sunday? Does it even matter? There’s so many places to go to and not enough time in the world – LRC, classes, speaker session, tutorials, alum-on-campus sessions, peer-leaning sessions, event launches, CAS office, administrative lost-and-found department, and the list goes on and on.

But, this time she was off for a special cause – the ice-breaker event for the Women in Business Club, CO2012. She was striding fast to the Lecture Theater to meet the two accomplished women on campus. She had been looking forward to it all day. She had heard so much about them, and was keen on drawing inspiration to make it big in life. She got there just in time to find a seat in the front row, exchanged a smile with one of the speakers from a distance, and settled in.

The first speaker was Ms. Savita Mahajan, who was currently serving as the Deputy Dean and CEO of ISB’s Mohali campus. She completed her MBA in 1981 from IIM-Ahmedabad and got married to an IIM batch-mate. She has over 30 years of work experience with organizations like GE Capital, the Planning Commission of India, the World Bank, and the Tibetan government in exile of the Dalai Lama. She has two children – a son and a daughter, who are both studying away from home. This gives her the mobility and flexibility her current job calls for.

Ms. Mahajan started by gauging which stage in life each of the WIB members was at – single, married, motherhood. She, then, expressed how vital it is, as a working woman and a mother, to have a supporting husband - something she’s been extremely lucky about. She went on to share some lessons she has learnt by looking at her life in hindsight. The most important ones being:
• Let go of the desire to excel at everything, and prove capabilities to self and others
• Acknowledge changes in trade-offs at different stages in life
• Decide trade-offs based on what’s acceptable to you
• Be at peace with yourself
• Don’t negotiate less at work because you’re a woman – know your strengths
• Be persistent at work – express your expectations well. In other words, make no assumptions, that people around you would understand

The next speaker was Ms. Jayanti Rajgopalan, who has 13 years of experience, working in sales and marketing in organizations like Titan and Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, before she founded her theme-based travel tours venture “Detours” in Hyderabad in 2008. Ms. Rajgopalan completed her MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur in 1995.

Ms. Rajgopalan started off by pointing out that some jobs suit women better than men, for the simple reason that women draw feelings from the world around them. But, she also mentioned a caveat – often times, the world assumes a woman’s assertion to be aggression. She mentioned that successful women are still seen as an exception, and we all need to change that perception over the coming years.

Ms. Rajgopalan also shared a few lessons she has learnt by drawing experiences from her own life, as well as, the lives of women around her. The most important ones being:
• Never let your confidence drop because of criticism
• Follow your natural instinct
• Deal with internal pressure first
• Let go of the fear of being judged
• Don’t just get caught in your ideas – execute them
• Stop making excuses for not doing things you want to do, and do them already
• Be prepared for handling physical danger, if your job calls for it; but, don’t let it stop you

What a fruitful day it turned out to be! After all, who wouldn’t be inspired by these two influential women, and who wouldn’t want to learn from their life experiences. But, some things we all learn from our own mistakes. Off she goes, smiling out on the way home from the speaker session to make her own mistakes in life – determined, yet aware of the hurdles life might have to offer, but nonetheless, ready to fight them all.

DMOPed

In the last 5 weeks, I have decided whether Tina should apply for an internship in Meena's firm, whether Tina should take her friend to lunch to get insider information on her chances of getting the internship, whether Carol would loose her job if she follows strategy A, whether Tata Nano was a disruptive innovation, whether ZS Associates should add more people to its sales force, whether Barco should have taken Sony's challenge seriously, whether US Feds should have meddled in Thailand's real-estate crisis, whether Spain should decrease its goverment's expenditure, whether India's RBI should revise the repo rate, whether Seema should buy a new scooter on every birthday, whether the art gallery should hold a second price auction, whether Husky should have continued being a niche player, whether Microsoft should have launched XBox, whether the gambler would walk randomly, whether Sonites are a better investment than Vodites, whether to be a first mover, and the like. Guess they're right when they say life is short!

I feel a bit wiser after 2 grueling terms at the Indian School of Business, which reminds me of my dad. He always says to me "You are a wise head on young shoulders". [He might wanna rephrase that though - it's been quite a while since I've been young in his eyes :)] But, boy did I know, there's so much more to be done to acquire another worldly form of wisdom.

There were some other decisions to be made as well, but they were mere mortal issues in front of the ones above. Here's a few: whether sleep an extra 30 minutes or read the pile of papers next to the pillow on weekends, whether skip breakfast or pick up breakfast on the way to class, whether take a shower or be late to class (our little secret! Shh...), whether brush teeth at night or get 10 minutes of extra slumber, whether conduct the study group meeting late at night when half of us are asleep or conduct it in the morning when the other half of us are asleep. Piece of cake! Life inadvertently found the answers. You read through the pile of papers next to the pillow on the weekend, but got your picture posted on facebook for sleeping in class on Monday, you skipped breakfast and forgot your wallet at home while going to class, you skipped shower and got to class late, you did not brush you teeth at night, but you watched "Two and a half men" for 40 minutes before dozing off, you conducted study group meetings at '08 party lounge with a beer in hand and feet on the dance floor (bet everyone was awake then till 6 am).

Good or bad - we all make choices. And we learn to live with them, just like I am learning to live with a choice I made last year to come here :) I am going to kill me one day for doing this to me! Until then, I remain DMOPed.