A fun in the class

A question to the class to make them understand the importance of extreme values in certain context: You are told that the average depth of the river is one meter. You know that you cannot swim. Will you cross the river?

A student: No, sir.

Me: Why?

The student: I will get wet.

I could not stop my laugh at this.

Managing Service Organizations

Service organizations including academic institutions are confronted with unprecedented challenge of attracting and retaining capable people for past many years. The people who excel in serving are hard to find and harder to retain. My latest research in India Organization (Paper is yet to finalized), I found that managers look for:

a) Economic well being, thus leading to economic bond with the organization

b) Emotional well being, thus leading to emotional bond with the organization

Managers at senior level value emotional bond derived from openness, trust, empowerment, experimentation, collegial relations, recognition, vision and brand of the organization, fulfillment of psychological contract, enjoyment at work, and a sense of social contribution. Creation of such culture requires visionary leadership. Managers with strong emotional bond stay longer, take pride in their work and employment in the organization. They also excel in their work, provided economic well being is perceived to be reasonable by them.

Most of the service organizations including academic institutions need to adopt this approach. Institutions will have to pay reasonable compensation. Compensation need not be the best in the Industry. However, they will have to undertake various activities to ensure above stated culture through visionary leadership to ensure strong emotional bond. Unfortunately, my study also indicates that organizations are confronted with leadership crisis. Visionary leaders like E. Sreedharan of DMRC, who can create such culture, are few and hard to find. 

My teaching experiences - Fixed versus variable cost

Some interesting discussion on a case in the class two days back:

Student: Salary is the fixed cost.

Me: Why do you say that? Why is it not a variable cost?

Student: It does not change.

Me: What if I decide to grant increments every month. Now it will change every month.

Student: It still remains same for a month.

Me: We grant raise every Week.

Student: Confused but holds the argument: It is still fixed for the week.

Me: We decide to grant increment every day.

Student: Really confused now. Yes, it will be a variable cost now.

Another student: It will actually be variable fixed cost.

I could not stop my laugh at this point.

IIM Review Committee

There has been fair amount of criticism in IIM fraternity about certain provisions in the report of IIM Review Committee. One of such provisions relates to creation of PAN IIM Board. I personally believe that creation of PAN IIM Board is a step in right direction.

IIMs, though have common ownership, have left some critical areas that need better coordination. It is widely known that IIMs (especially the older ones) do poach faculty members from the newer ones. Consequently, older IIMs are able to maintain reasonable faculty strength. However, the new IIMs suffer acute shortage of faculty. I personally would like older IIMs to display leadership in grooming faculty and help the new IIMs to the extent possible.

PAN IIM Board will facilitate better coordination of key administrative matters and better understanding between IIMs. We must not forget that we need Cabinet despite having independent ministries for making decisions.