Knowing, Doing and Being

Prof. Anantharaman, ex-Provost of XIME has been a practicing manager for about 40 years and has been teaching management for about 20 years. He had taught in three prestigious business schools viz. Harvard, INSEAD and ISB. He started his lecture with congratulating the students who have been selected for XIME PGDM program. He asked students as to what is management and then gave a story to narrate management in a funny way. He talked about a man travelling by a hot air balloon and who called out to a man below him to find out where he was. The man below explained the location using latitudes and longitudes and the height above the ground level. The man from the hot balloon called out to him and said that you must be an engineer as you are giving me a lot of facts in numbers that are not serving me any purpose. The man from the ground shouted back you must be a manager as you have gone up only with hot air inside and nothing else, you have made promises that you no way will deliver and you are blaming people below you for no fault of theirs.

There are several forces of change that are transforming the world of business. The forces like VUCA world, internet, knowledge economy, demographic changes and industry restructuring and deregulation. Forty years ago the IT industry was very different from what it is today. From being vertically integrated 40 years ago it has become horizontally fragmented today. The drastic cultural change in the world from the example of the temple: where once one could not carry mobile phones, then it was permissible to carry it with silent mode and today one can make a special offering and take a selfie with the God. Today no more past is the predictor of change or of the future. Internet has shifted the power from the producer to consumer. Knowledge change has become so rapid that it gets outdated even in 5 years time. Wael Ghonim the hero of 2011 Egyptian Uprising?said how much Facebook, Twitter and Instagram were supportive and instrumental for their success. Twenty years ago they didn’t even exist.

Today’s Management has shifted from Administrative domain to Entrepreneurship domain. What used to be resource based today is performance based fining one’s own resources. From individual focus to team focus we have transitioned. Being just optimizers to be achievers, is today’s expectation. Managing men is not the key today rather leading them. Today’s managers are expected to: ask the right questions, to be problem finders, identify the problem sources, know how to react and respond to newer situations, have a helicopter view and a bifocal perspective and also to make decisions from incomplete facts. The case of COVID has a great similarity to today’s management. Do we have enough hospitals, enough beds, enough vaccines, enough medical professionals, etc. are all unknown and yet COVID needs to be managed and addressed. Albert Einstein as Professor of Oxford gave the same question paper to students of two consecutive years. When asked why, he responded that the answer has changed over the year.

He emphasise that there was a need to create islands of excellence as there is rapid change happening requiring rapid responses, shift from administrative domain to entrepreneurial domain, there is cross disciplinary mode requirement, increasing demand for sectoral management and altered learning map of the Generation Z. Prof. Srikant Dattar wanted B Schools to take a leap of faith. He identified the unmet needs of B-School education: gaining a global perspective, developing leadership skills, having integration skills, recognizing organization realities and implementing effectively, acting creatively and innovatively, thinking critically and communicating clearly, understanding the roles, responsibilities and purpose of a business. B Schools face the test of faith with the growing imperative for change, understanding the rebalancing and reshaping curriculum. Knowing, Doing and Being is crucial. Mission, Vision and Values of XIME are closely aligned to the knowing, doing and being principles of Datar.

He closed the session with the life of Steve Jobs who at 17 years of age learnt to consider every day of his life as the last day and work accordingly and fifty years later he could turn back and see how he had no fear of death but had always followed his heart. It is important to practice the knowing, doing, being leadership. Leadership learning must be eclectic, extensive and ex