In Search of Your Purpose - Go Within – B-Schools

Now that having a social purpose is essential for those of the b-schools which want to sustain the confidence of their stakeholders and attract quality employees and worthy customers, more and more heads of schools are looking for ways to jump in. Busy with daily housekeeping, shrinking revenue streams, spiralling costs and crimped careers, some are turning to expensive “thought leaders” for advice.

But beware of those who create slick or tight slogans making a case for the issues your stakeholders care about; and why you should care about them, too. This is a backwards way of going about finding your school’s purpose.

Just because some of your more visible and extra vocal stakeholders such as your students or your target corporations care about certain issues does not mean these should dictate your school’s social mission. Even if you find a social cause and a not-for-profit organisation for a potentially glorified partnership, the campaign will not be effective if it does not stem from something true to who you are.

A far more efficient and authentic process to finding your school’s purpose is to first go within. Start by asking your faculty and your employees questions such as:

 “Without quoting any brochures or marketing materials or official statements, what do you think this school is all about?”

 “When was a time you were proud to work here?”

 “What do you want your work to be known for?”

These types of open-ended conversation-starters often lead to emotional responses, and always reveal a foundational truth about an institution. This is the crucial first step in becoming purposeful. From this process, ideas about how to generate positive social impact will naturally emerge that will resonate with your stakeholders, precisely because they are authentic.

What happens if you proceed with purpose initiatives before understanding what your school is truly about? You could end up with failed, superficial campaigns that are a big waste of everybody’s time and money — or worse, alienate your target audience.

The other benefit of leading with purpose from the inside out is that fear of failure should not be a factor. If the cause feels true to your institution, go for it. Don’t over think. Be proud and confident enough to take a stand without worrying about the response.

Abide by the mantra of the old “ham honge kaamyaab ek din” ["We Shall Overcome" is a gospel song which became a protest song and a key anthem of the Civil Rights Movement. The song is most commonly attributed as being lyrically descended from "I'll Overcome Some Day", a hymn by Charles Albert Tindley that was first published in 1900. It was translated to “ham honge kaamyaab ek din” by Girija Kumar Mathur].

In other words, believe in yourself.

Your institution’s or school’s purpose will not be found by commissioning a thoroughly researched white paper or creating a complicated strategy document; but rather, by unearthing what it already is. It will emerge organically from an honest interrogation of what you’re truly about, what your people are about, and what feels easy to stand behind. From there, get to work putting the idea on its feet by designing real-world engagements and activations. Then evaluate to see what worked, and what can be improved. But don’t ever digress from the core of who you are, as that is your institutional purpose.

Action driven by purpose creates impact. Devoid of impact, all vision statements are illusions or delusions.

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Perceptual Authenticity of B-Schools

Business schools train their students in specialised fields: management and economics. Over time, their alumni often reach high positions in the business world. Higher visibility of a b-school is often a result of the age of the b-school coupled with its presence in the media – whether earned or bought.

More often than not, increase in visibility of a b-school is also triggered by unpleasant incidents like questionable administrative overheads; mal-practices of teachers and students like plagiarism; moonlighting and conflicts of interest between private consulting and research by the professors; allegations of misconduct by alumni in management positions; offenses against academic and social integrity; and so on.

Of the 3000 plus legitimate (within the legal framework) b-schools in India, some 300 of them have visibility beyond their location.  The legitimacy is provided by the approval to their existence being granted by AICTE, an institution with deficient capacity, suspect calibre and lack of imagination at least in so far as the Business-Management education is concerned.

Many among these B-schools have been making “me-too” investments in topics such as ethics, sustainability and responsibility. Naturally therefore, these values have begun to act as elements of their own public self-description. It is only fair that both the public and the media check these schools and their representatives, especially school leadership and professors, against these self-imposed high standards.

Positive news from the private sector has become rather a rare phenomenon in the last few years. In the media, top managers are often presented as technocrats maximising their company’s wealth and their own earnings. A failing top manager is an easy prey for the journalists. The rhetoric of ethics, sustainability and responsibility is not lived up to in research, teaching and practice, and b-schools can easily – and rightly – be reproached with paying lip service to key values of the 21st century.

Most of these “top” b-schools operate in a space that is remote from social realities of the country. They function like closed entities. They try to set high admission thresholds for students and thereby promote “elitism.”

Barring an exceptional few, most of these B-schools have been in a rat race of seeking accreditation from “Gora sahib” agencies. In confirming to the expectations of such accreditation agencies, many b-schools are insanely chasing “internationalisation” as called for by and others which is taking its toll. For “internationalisation” a b-school is expected to have a considerable share of international students, international professors and even international administrative staff. This raises a social and political question whether a b-school should chase “internationalisation” when contact between “normal” citizens of the region, their students and graduates, and the b-school is rather limited.

These are not merely theoretical propounding.  There are interesting cases like the Management Development Institute in Gurgaon which is a pioneer in seeking and succeeding in obtaining the AMBA accreditation from UK. While the b-school is third time reaccredited by AMBA, it has suffered deterioration in its domestic accreditation by the National Board of Accreditation (NBA).

Most IIMs are chasing international Accreditations like the EQUIS, AMBA and AACSB but none of them is willing to be subjected to NBA. Within the domestic system, they are the “Bada Sahibs” who control the NBA, dominate its policies and systems but never undergo self-tests. And then there are the coveted b-schools like the FMS or the IIFT or DMS-IIT which seek no accreditation, domestic or international, yet succeed through protecting their social legitimacy.

Many of the B-schools of high visibility are capable of handling normal questioning from the media. They may not be prepared for a serious problem, very often starting with a single and sometimes minor issue, in which social and public media identify a narrative pattern that can lead to scandal.

If a business school has an excellent national and international reputation, delivers relevant results in research, and attracts talented students, it will be able to cope with negative headlines over a certain period of time. However, bad news can severely harm a weak brand. Given the right light, more public scrutiny should increase the social legitimacy of b-schools.

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The 'Slow Death' Of MDI in Gurgaon

Every year, more than 20000 bright, young people used to aspire to get admitted into one of the many graduate management programmes of Management Development Institute in Gurgaon. Every year, more than 2000 middle and senior managers from the public and private sector businesses used to throng the portals of Management Development Institute in Gurgaon for updating their knowledge and skills through recapitulating, reflecting, refurbishing and renovating thereby reinventing themselves through Executive Education.

Over the last 5-years the number of applicants to the graduate programmes is down to less than 8000 and the Executive Education participation is down to a measly few hundreds.

While Management Development Institute is constantly increasing the number of Professors among its faculty through inbreeding and “gratis promotions” in the garb of career advancement; the competitive forces in the business education space have hammered the institution out of any reckoning in teaching, engagement, relevance and impact. The loss of favour is unprecedented, thereby triggering a sinking whirlpool of morale and commitment of the faculty and staff.

There has been a relentless subversion of transparency, objectivity, fairness and ethical behaviour in decision making resulting into a vehement subversion of legitimate processes and administrative-action directed mostly against the majority of honest, competent and fair academics. As part of this campaign against legitimate work and legitimate academics, several initiatives and innovations have been closed.

The world grows through the contribution of the majority of progressive people but is brought down to its knees by a few terrorists. Majority is never able to rein in such minority. Likewise, institutions are built through the contributions from the majority, but they drown due to caustic selfishness of the minority.

Management Development Institute in Gurgaon is being subjected to ‘slow death’ by the handful of illegitimate appointees on the faculty who owe their legitimacy, allegiance and identity to one former Director of the institute who has not been able to come to terms with his superannuation.

If a gangrenous limb is not amputated, the death is imminent. Same is true for Management Development Institute in Gurgaon. If these malignant tumours inside are not excised and expelled, the death of the institution is a certainty. The road to such death is like the “boiling frog” story.

[The boiling frog is a fable describing a frog being slowly boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put in tepid water which is then brought to a boil slowly; it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability or unwillingness of people to react to or be aware of sinister threats that arise gradually rather than suddenly.]

Is Management Development Institute in Gurgaon slowly getting into hot water?

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Strangulated by a Cult and an Occupier

All the educational institutions of the world have a leader by whatever name called – President, Provost, Principal, Rector, Director, Vice Chancellor, Dean, Director General – the titles vary. But Management Development Institute (MDI) is unique that one ex-leader has pocketed this institution. This unique situation gives rise to many questions; why one of its ex-leaders developed into a cult force instead of a leader-for-the-time-being? Why this ex-leader needs puppets to survive and thrive? What’s the relationship between this ex-leader and the employees of the Institution? Why every successor to this ex-leader, from Devi Singh to Atmanand, needs to pay obeisance to this ex-leader and his coterie to survive as a Director of MDI Gurgaon?

There were many geo-political, physical and administrative factors inherent in the inception of MDI which gave rise to the occupying force state of MDI. Industrial Finance Corporation of India as the promoter and financier which later morphed into IFCI Limited is the occupant. With bulk of members comprising the MDI Society and majority of constituents of the Governing body of the MDI Society being its representatives, IFCI has autocratic control over the affairs of MDI.  To exacerbate the tyranny, the control by IFCI is effectively the control by Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer of IFCI. This puts MDI under the despotic control of one individual who has no stakes in MDI but enjoys all the freedom to exploit the institution without any accountability. This command and control structure makes MDI extremely susceptible to the mischievous mechanics of someone who is neither qualified nor competent nor even answerable for the affairs of MDI.

However, here we want to exclusively see the relationship between the cult of this ex-leader and the occupant.

First we need to look at the defining characteristics of the word, “Cult.” The word cult is defined as “a forged religion," "great devotion to a person or idea" as well as "persons united by devotion or allegiance to any movement or figure."

Cults are mostly destructive in nature. Psychology tells us that the three most common features shared by destructive cults are:

1.       A charismatic leader, who increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may have originally sustained the group lose power. That is a living leader, who has no meaningful accountability and becomes the single most defining element of the group and its source of power and authority.

2.       A process [of indoctrination or education is in use that can be seen as] coercive persuasion or thought reform [commonly called "brainwashing"]. The culmination of this process can be seen by members of the group often doing things that are not in their own best interest, but consistently in the best interest of the group and its leader.

3.       Social, psychological, economic, physical, sexual or other exploitation of members of the group, by the leader and the ruling coterie.

There is a lot more common between the occupant and the cult of this ex-leader of MDI than what meets the eye.

By a stroke of luck, the cult-leader was on the selection committee of Executive Director in all public sector banks In India for a long time. He obliged candidates by ensuring their selection and then ensured that they become his personal followers and pets.

With such grip on the top-management of all banks, he did not hesitate in currying favours for MDI as well as for himself.

As Director of IIM Lucknow, he lobbied and hobnobbed with the politicians to bag the first Padma-Shri from the B-School fraternity in 2003.

Armed with the political and financial patronage, he started projecting himself as THE academic leader, fruits of which he continues to enjoy until today, even at the age of 77 years.

IFCI, the occupying force at MDI, always has leadership from the Banking sector. Influence of the Cult-leader over the leadership of IFCI ensures that it is his writ which runs large at MDI.

Any impartial seeker of truth will reach the conclusion that MDI is in the morbid grip of two destructive energies. Cult of this ex-leader and the occupation of IFCI are the double-helix strands in the DNA of MDI, with pliant directors, faculty, staff, bureaucracy, politicians, bankers and ex-bankers forming the rungs of the DNA ladder.

Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton's seminal book "Thought Reform and Psychology of Totalism" explains this process in considerable detail.

There are a few warning signs of a potentially unsafe occupant or a cult.

• Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.

• No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry.

• No meaningful financial disclosure.

• Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions.

• There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil.

• Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances.

• There are records, books, news articles, or broadcast reports that document the abuses of the occupier/cult-leader.

• Followers feel they can never be "good enough".

• The occupier/cult-leader is always right.

• The occupier/cult-leader is the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible.

For MDI to flourish, bloom and soar high, it has to get rid of both, the cult and the occupant. Otherwise, it will over time, get dilapidated in terms of capabilities and reputation, the two essentials which attract opportunities.

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