Next Move: Shanghai, China

I have been planning to write this for a few weeks now, but never got down to it. Thanks to the unexpected day-off from work this Thursday that gave me enough time for this note. By the way, Thursday was a day-off because of the General Elections in India for which all establishments – public and private – have to be shut, so that people can go and cast their votes. But, because I am currently not in Jaipur, where I am registered as a voter, I could not/did not have to vote. The first point suggests how serious India is about this democratic exercise, and the second suggests that we still have some systems to put in place, considering the fact that more and more people will be moving to different parts of the country to work.

Anyways, the real purpose of writing this is to inform you all that I am moving to Shanghai in the first week of July to study further. I will be doing my Masters in Business Administration (MBA) at the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS). http://www.ceibs.edu/

For those of you who do not know, I am currently working in the leadership development function of UBS in Hyderabad, India. I would be completing two years here in June, when I leave. I took this role a little less than a year after finishing at AIESEC International, in the Netherlands.

A commonly held belief about leadership is that you become a complete leader when you know what to do and also – what not to do – in any given situation. I think ‘this’ experience has helped me in completing that circle, at least for this stage of my life. I believe through my experiences in AIESEC I learnt what to do as a leader, and ‘this’ experience has mostly helped me understand what not to do as a leader. I am in no ways suggesting that my leadership education is over.

I applied to a total of seven MBA programs this year (three in the US, two in Europe and two in Asia). I was accepted at both the Asian programs (the Indian School of Business and the China Europe International Business School), and was waitlisted at INSEAD. So, the choice was limited, but I think this has worked out to be a blessing in disguise. Primarily for two reasons – (1) The American and the European programs are 3-4 times more expensive than CEIBS (I got a scholarship from them as well). Under the current circumstances, I would like as small a loan on my head as possible. (2) I think Asia is the place to be for business now. Asia is definitely where some of the most exciting business opportunities will be in the coming 15-20 years. I did not completely believe in this idea till very recently, but my experiences and readings in the last six months have confirmed this notion.

So – why CEIBS? (Over ISB – I guess – as that program was the only other option I had)

(1) CEIBS is a very reputed in the region, and its global stature is only going to grow in the coming years. It has been ranked as the best MBA program in Asia consecutively for the last six years by Financial Times, and was ranked No. 8 in the world in their 2009 global MBA rankings. http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/global-mba-rankings

(2) The money I will be spending from my pocket works out to be the same at ISB and CEIBS (after the CEIBS scholarship). So, I just went by ‘Where will I learn and grow more as an individual?’ Studying at ISB was not exciting at all – being in India, I would be in a certain comfort zone, the class is not very international, etc. I think studying at CEIBS will be much more challenging, plus it would be a great set of new experiences.

(3) The ‘story’ – being an Indian, having lived and traveled in Central and Eastern Europe, and having studied (and hopefully worked) in China – I think will position me uniquely, especially as I want my work to focus on business in the different emerging economies and regions of the world.

(4) There is so much to be learnt from the China story. Also, from what I understand, CEIBS attracts some of the most talented business minds from across the region, if not the world. This is a great opportunity to build an influential network here.

(5) The opportunity to learn Mandarin. At some levels, I think I regret the fact that I did not learn any new language while I lived in Europe. This is my opportunity to make up for that. Someone recently pointed out that by learning Mandarin, I would be speaking the three most spoken languages in the world – Hindi, English and Mandarin. Honestly, my first preference was to learn Spanish. But, I guess that would have to wait for a few more years.

(6) It is an 18-month course (almost 20 months, if you include the language and the other elements). I do not think I am the kind of person who would make the most of a 10/11 month ‘quick’ MBA. So, this works out to be just right. Plus, in this way I would graduate in 2011 and not 2010.

I am eagerly looking forward to this experience. And, I would love to hear/read your thoughts on what I have written here.

Kudos Andrew Miller

This article on Cricinfo is one of the best articles I have read in a long long time about a cricket match. It is titled 'A gap too wide' and analyses the difference in the approaches of the Indian and the English cricket teams during last Sunday's game. It is a good read before reading my post on the game.
http://content-eap.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/current/story/379482.html#postacomment

Andrew Miller, the reporter, is the UK Editor of Cricinfo.

This 'Man Of The Match' Business In Cricket

In cricket, like in most other sports, one player is adjudged the 'Player Of The Match' at the end of every game. In cricketing parlance he is called the 'Man Of The Match'. This award is meant for person who has had the biggest impact on the match and usually, this player is from winning team. So, basically the award is for the person who has helped his team win the game.

The award is adjudicated by the Match Referee, a person appointed by the ICC: the International Cricket Council, the international governing body of cricket, to oversee the match and to ensure that the game is being played in the right spirit and within the defined Code Of Conduct of cricket.

Now, this blog post has been triggered by the 'Man Of The Match' decision that was made for the one-day match between India and England on the 23rd of November 2008. The game was shortened to 22 overs because of rain, so it literally turned into a 20-20 fixture. Now, the rules of the shorter versions of the game (the 50 over and the 20 over game) are infamous for being too batsmen friendly, because the understanding is that the batsmen create greater entertainment value. This was proven again by the ‘Man Of The Match’ decision as well.

India won this game and the ‘Man Of The Match’ award was given to an Indian batsman called Virender Sehwag. But the fact is, and this I am sure was visible to anyone who follows the game, the man who had the biggest impact on the game was an Indian bowler called Zaheer Khan. Zaheer bowled with great maturity and control during two critical stages of the game and mentored the other junior fast bowlers through the game. He was the difference between India and England; his bowling average for the game, compared to the other five bowlers who were used by India, contributed the 20-odd runs that England lost the game by.

I think it is about time that we changed another rule in cricket. Like in American Football, where the winning coach hands the ‘Game Ball’ to the player of his team who he thinks made the biggest contribution to the team’s win, I think the adjudication of the ‘Man Of The Match’ in cricket should be done by the winning captain. He is in the best position to make a decision of this nature. More importantly, I think this change would do two things: (1) the players and spectators will start respecting this award a little more, because right now everyone sees the post-match ceremony where the award is handed out as another marketing event for the sponsors, and (2) having to make this decision will help the captain in further establishing himself as the leader of the team.

If I were in the team, I would be more proud of this achievement if it was my captain’s decision rather than a match referee’s.

Wikipedia link on Cricket - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket

How cruel is this?

England lost 12-13 in a dramatic penalty shoot-out, in the semi-final of the European Under-21 Football (Soccer) Championship to Holland after having lead the game 1-0 till the 89th minute of regular time.

It seems that the English FA needs to contract Rafael Benitez to train its players and teams, at all levels, on winning games through spot kicks, as he is the only Manager on that island who seems to have figured it out.

Read the full story about the semi-final - http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/internationals/6766603.stm

What's up with these emblems?

One phrase that was consistently used to describe the Cricket World Cup that got over earlier this year was 'it was a farce', especially after what happened in the final game. I am actually very surprised that people at large were 'surprised' by how poorly this tournament was organized. Honestly, I saw it coming!

One of the first signs for me was the official emblem of the tournament. I remember having a big laugh about this when one of my very good friends forwarded it to me in the summer of 2005, when it was first released. I kept asking myself if this was the best that they could come up with; especially keeping in mind that the International Cricket Council (ICC) wanted to use this World Cup as a show case event to position cricket as a 'serious' global sport.

Since the Cricket World Cup got over, the next event that I have been reading a lot about, with a lot of expectations, is the London Olympics. Well I honestly thought that the English were really committed to hosting a great event in one of the greatest cities on earth. Till the official emblem of the 2012 London Olympics was released.

Needless to say, I am apalled. Again, is this the best that we could come up with?

There are very few events in the world that can truly claim to be global. Olympics is quite naturally one of them and it calls for something a lot better.

The organizers of these events would be better served by opening the 'official emblem' to the public at large to send in entries, like bids are opened for any other aspect of the event. Then either a small panel of people, representing all walks of life, OR the people of the hosting city can pick the emblem by a simple majority vote.

For one, this would help them save some much needed money and I am very sure that the end product would be far better than what we have come to see in the recent past.

What's next?

So, I was quite desperate today! I heard back from UBS this evening that they cannot go forward with my internship, which had only been confirmed last week. This is the second time something of this sort has happened to me in the last couple of months. Apparently, I am over-qualified according to their internal internship policies, since I left University about 3.5 years ago and their internships are only for 'recent graduates'. Now, why was this not brought up in the last 2 months, while I was participating in different selection processes of UBS, is beyond my understanding. But what I find most amazing is, had I been in a situation where I went back to University for 6 months, after my AIESEC International term, to complete my course (as some of my team mates from AI did) I would have been eligible for this internship :).

So during dinner, my dad had some words of wisdom for me, which I think are worth sharing. He told me the story of an old Indian King, which goes something like this -

"So there was a King who went to hunt one day. He was obviously accompanied by a troop of his soldiers and some other ministers from his court. He also had his doctor with him, for any emergencies.

One day, while chasing a deer on foot, the King was bitten by a snake on one of his toes and was left unconscious. The King's doctor amputated the toe as that was the only way of ensuring that the snake's poison didn't spread to the rest of the body. The King was very angry when he learnt about the amputation and without giving the doctor an opportunity to explain, he ordered for the doctor to be sent to prison for life.

Now, a few year's later, on another one of his hunting expeditions, the King lost his way in the forest and separated from his company of soldiers. He was then caught by a group of tribesmen to be offered as a human sacrifice to their Goddess. At the altar, when the King's shoes were taken off, the tribesman realized that one of his toes was missing. They let him go as the sacrifice of an incomplete man is not acceptable to the Goddess.

The King found his way back to his Kingdom and the first thing that he did was he ordered for his doctor to be set free from prison. He was extremely apologetic to the doctor when he met him next but the doctor seemed unperturbed about the time spent in prison. He actually thanked the King for putting him in the prison. The King was thus very confused.

The doctor explained by saying - Oh good King! Had I not been in prison I would have been by your side when you were caught by the tribesman and I would have surely been the person to be sacrificed. So you saved my life by putting me in prison."

The moral of the story - whatever does happen, happens for the best. It might not seem that way at that particular moment, but in hindsight we come to understand it. As Steve Jobs very rightly said in his very famous 2005 commencement speech at Stanford - "You cannot connect the dots of life looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards."

So I ask - what's next? As I am very sure whatever is next is for the better.

The Flattening World & YOU

So one of the things that I have spent a fair bit of my time on in the last few weeks is this presentation and guest speech that I have been asked to do in one of the local MBA institutes. I am actually doing the talk tomorrow and thought that I would share a copy of that presentation here as well.

I am basically talking about how I think business is changing around the world and what do these changes mean for the role of the 21st century business leader/manager, which I think would be the most valuable for most of the students.

Now, most of the ideas in the presentation are not necessarily orignial, they have been developed over a period of time from my travels, from my discussions with people of all walks of life, from the books I have read and from my observations. I think amongst other things, one thing that this presentation would do for people is help them structure their understanding of some of the changes in the world around us.

You can download the presentation from this link - http://www.mediamax.com/shantanubawari/Links/B74C9C91F8. If you do decide to download, be sure to read the speaker's notes as well because some of the slides do not make sense on their own. And make sure that you share your thoughts and comments here :).

He is a HERO!

"Slovenian marathon swimmer Martin Strel became on Friday the first person to swim the entire length of the Amazon."

He swam the nearly 5,400km (3,375 miles) from Peru to Brazil in about 66 days.

I have followed his progress over the last 2 months through the BBC website. You can read his weekly journal on this link - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/6389845.stm

He is a champion and an inspiration to anyone with slightly unusual ambitions. A great story of how with a certain level of mental & physical discipline you can achieve the most challenging feats.

He is my HERO!