The best of Sauder and IIMB!

Speaking with my cohorts at IIMB, I was impressed by their steadfast belief that India was on the cusp of real greatness. The shackles of colonialism had been taken off decades ago but it’s only recently that the country is really beginning to realize it’s full potential. With 3,000 business students out of a pool of 200,000(!) the IIM Business Schools produce some of the finest business students in the world.

MBAs learn a lot of the same techniques, tools and analyses the world over. My biggest learnings were from a cultural standpoint. I was fascinated to observe the reasoning process my two cohorts used to arrive at decisions within our case. They would debate points over and over again, which at first seemed to me to be extremely circular and inefficient. However, I began to understand that what seemed like inefficiency was in fact detailed and methodical process by exploring every nuance of every issue from every angle.

Watching this debate ensue reinforced to me the learnings of patience; people come to their own conclusions in their own time. When I first tried to force the issue or stick with a point I received the infamous Indian head bobble which meant in this context “I hear what you’re saying”. So, my Sauder partner and I worked on our section and let our cohorts banter back and forth until they came to an agreement. This occurred after a moment of silence, when we would interject and then ask what their results were. This reinforced the importance of knowing when to guide the conversation to a conclusion. As detailed as their reasoning may have been, at times I felt that the differences between polychronicity and monochronicity were challenging.

My cohorts’ ability to research large amounts of data in a short time frame was nothing short of amazing. But as impressive as the IIMB students were at research and reasoning, the Sauder team stood out for pulling insights out of data. Our students excelled at fusing together disparate ideas from data and telling the story behind the numbers. I’m also biased, but I found the IIMB style of presenting to be incredibly…dull. Many of their students were graded on the amount of information you could cram into a slide, which made it completely illegible and almost useless to the members of the audience. Granted, this is chalked up to cultural differences but I prefer a succint presentation that tells a story rather than one that merely regurgitates facts.

My experience with IIMB taught me that a strong cultural mix is a huge asset on any team as diversity leads to new approaches towards problem-solving and reasoning. The key to success with this makeup is patience, communication and an understanding of contextual body gestures!

“We ran out of regular scaffolding…”

In his book The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman states that global commerce now operates on a “flat” world where businesses can operate across the globe more easily and efficiently. He postulates that recent technological, political and cultural changes have enabled companies to communicate information and integrate far-flung geographical locations greater than ever before. Friedman sees this as a new revolution, that will change how business is done not only in developed countries, but also (and especially) in developed ones as well.

I do agree that the world is “flatter” in many respects. The ubiquitousness of technology (Friedman calls this flattener “The Steroids”) has given people the ability to collaborate and share information in ways never thought possible. This revolution has helped to create new value chains, new opportunities and new challenges.

However, like any great revolution there is a mixture of truth and hype. Revolutions never quite live up to expectations as unintended side effects occur to those who believe they will only be beneficiaries. India may find itself in this position.

My recent Global Immersion trip to Bangalore was eye-opening in many respects. It introduced me to the massive potential and opportunity of India, a developing country that has grabbed the reins of globalization and is riding it to the land of new opportunity. Growth is everywhere. When I asked a construction worker why they were using bamboo scaffolding his reply was a blunt “We ran out of regular scaffolding. Too many things built, too fast.”

Visiting 2Adpro and Nine Stars introduced me to the scale of outsourcing, one of the ten flatteners Friedman mentions. A model of efficiency, Nine Stars now face themselves with the challenging prospect of moving up the value chain as other low-cost providers threaten their competitive advantage. Having worked in the newspaper industry, I saw wave after wave of designers, copyeditors and ad pros see their jobs be outsourced. It’s ugly watching people who have spent 20+ years in a career suddenly find themselves out on their asses because someone in another country can do it cheaper and just as efficiently.

However as Friedman states, workers in developed countries need to be adaptive and agile to survive in today’s business ecosystem. The same rings true for the countries that have seen the benefits of technology and outsourcing. Unless India follows suit and learns to embrace the “Flat World” revolution from the “developed” side, it may become a victim of its own success and find itself flat footed and left behind as its former competitive advantages move to cheaper and more efficient shores.