Author Archives: Jasnoor

Baraat @ ISB

Amid the chaos of life at ISB, you make friends in the short while who last for a lifetime. And there are occasions where you get a chance to celebrate with people who you share so much with in this one year. One of our batchmates, Nikhil, recently went off to get married during the 6th term. He plans to go off on exchange to New York, and apparently his parents decided the risk was too great and preponed his planned marriage 😉
Unfortunately, very few of us could make it to Indore for the marriage (during a term weekend). However, we did do the next best thing this weekend and celebrated Nikhil’s marriage ISB style with a dunking (of course!). The slight addition: A proper Baraat at night with a horse, dhol, basically all the necessary ingredients for the marriage party of a dear friend. It was a fun night, maybe the best yet!
Though photos cant do it justice, the following Youtube clip has a compilation of pics showing the fun we had:
Heres to you Nikhil and Priyanka!

Three parts to Life @ ISB

No, this is not the analysis of the different study terms we have here at ISB. What I am looking at is the three kinds of things we end up doing on any given day. The first thing you are warned about at ISB and you are expected to do is, well, study. Attend classes on the weekdays and try to finish assignments on the weekends. The weekdays actually end up being a lot more chill than the weekends, since we only have classes for 4 hours 4 days a week (in the core terms at least).
The weekends are much more hectic, with multiple assignments due early in the mornings. Most nights are spent completing the assignments, with scenes of people running all the way to the boxes placed in the atrium to submit them at the last minute, to people sitting on the submission box to stop anyone taking the box away till their group arrives after printing the assignment! Time, however, is snatched away for outings after a night-out or suddenly formed movie plans.
The second part of life here is the social part. This includes all the speaker sessions we keep having on campus, with a choice often required between multiple sessions going on simultaneously. That’s when you need to prioritise ruthlessly. Of course, then there are all the cultural events, weekend parties and short outings to just chill out and relax. And yes, we have a dedicated Student Life Council charged with organising such events, and they really do one helluva job!!
The third and equally important (Yeah, right!!) part of life here is…. sleep. Yes, something that we get precious little of much of the time. On an average, so long as you manage 5-6 hours you are good. This is also the most flexible component in the course, and the only place where you can compromise.
You can decide that you don’t care much about your grades, but that doesn’t mean you can just chill out. Attending classes is compulsory, and the same is the case with the assignments, unless, of course, you want to risk failing the course.
What invariably ends up happening is that sleep is usually the only thing you can be flexible on if you want to do everything else. For example, today there was an interactive session with Rahul Bose. So in addition to classes, studying/preparing reports and the session, if I want to write this post, that’s another half an hour of sleep sacrificed.
PS: Also posted on www.isbweblog.com, ISB’s official student blog.

Contemplation….old friends and the world outside ISB

Theres nothing like sitting in front of the 24hr CCD (yes, we have one on campus…) in the cold, at 1AM at night, coffee in hand, doing nothing, but talking on the phone to a really really old friend. I know there are deadlines to meet, people to see, but theres nothing like talking to someone after such a long long time, someone whos not from ISB, someone not bothered about what assignment needs to be finished this week.

It makes one think about the world outside ISB, about old friendships/relationships, things to do that dont involve pre-reads/cases/assignments/speaker series/case competitions/resumes.
Yes, I know I am supposed to be busy, working away, but you know what, the one thing you can always adjust in ISB is time, with sleep the only thing thats going to take a hit, the only thing one can compromise on here in ISB in fact!

National Geographic’s International Photography Contest

National Geographic hosts their international photography contest every year showcasing images submitted by readers from all over the world. The photographs are then voted on by readers and the top ones are selected.

25 images from among this year’s entries are featured here: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/11/national_geographics_internati.html
If you are into photography, its a must view to get an idea on the different ways photographs can be taken at the most unlikely (and even the most beautiful) locations….

Employee Motivation and the 2-Factor Theory

One of the courses in Term 6 is the Managing Teams course taught by Prof. Henry Moon from the London Business School. While the course started later than the other courses (schedule/visa issues) and we are only 2 classes in, the course is a whole lot of fun and has the capacity to make one really think!
Employee motivation was today’s topic and I really liked the way it went. One of the factors discussed really got me thinking and is the reason for this post. The Two Factor Theory or Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory essentially believes that factors that affect job satisfaction as well as factors that affect job dissatisfaction in the workplace are separate from each other. While this may not be directly obvious, what it believes is that factors like salary are the bare minimum you look for in your job. Having more of it does not really mean you have higher job satisfaction! Of course this will not hold true for everyone. Someone may of course be motivated solely by a monetary incentive, but you know what I am getting at.
While there has been some debate over the years on the exact validity of this theory (refer to Wiki links above), there is empirical evidence that shows the very same thing and is what got me interested in blogging about it.
Apologies for the black and white image, the ppt hasn’t been uploaded yet, and I didn’t want to wait. 🙂
This really is food for thought. What does it mean? That people are most easily dissatisfied by different kinds of company bureaucracy, something that I am sure the majority of us knew already, but the way the whole thing was explained …. lets say we can see why he teaches at LBS!