It was indeed a great experience @ Roorkee. We had participants from many of the top B Schools in India. The program started at 10:00 AM wherein we got to know that our presentation will be the 10th one to be shown. Students from MICA, XLRI, IIT ROORKEE, WELINGKAR took the stage in the first half. Some of the points that were noticed were:
1. The focus of every B School was on Making Managers and not Leaders.
2. Every comparison that was made was by benchmarking B Schools like IIM – A and HBS.
3. There was no one who focused on the society aspect and there by innovation and leadership.
4. All the PPT’s were based on the new practices that could be adopted by the B Schools like IIM’s, HBS, Stanford.
5. The presentations focused on more data aspects, objectivity and already existing practices and nothing new.
6. No one used the power of videos/photographs.
7. There was no focus on the Rural India.
This set the platform for us to bring the unique model of innovation in front of everyone. Swati started the proceedings with 2 videos. One that showed “The future of India we are moving towards (Which is full of poverty, unemployment, terrorism, illiteracy)” and other “The Future of India that we want (which is full of peace, prosperity, celebrations, love, affection)”. These 2 videos stunned the entire audience and everyone was geared up to see what will follow.
Swati focused on how B Schools play an important role in shaping up the individuals and thereby impacting the society. She also focused on the difference between a manager and a leader and how the B Schools in India have to make this transformation in them so as to produce Leaders and not Managers. She also spoke about the problems that the current management education in India is facing and what are the unmet needs of management education.
Focusing on the unmet needs, I took over the stage by bringing in the concept of INSPIRED LEADER (The one who has Character, Competence & Enthusiasm). I made them understand the 5 pillars of INSPIRED LEADERSHIP and how they can be taught using the Learning Interventions. I also made them go through a graph that shows how an individual grows to become an INSPIRED LEADER by understanding his actions in phase 1 (Doing phase) and the higher purpose of his life in phase 2 (Being phase) thereby linking them together to reach the highest level.
We made them go through the SOIL Ecosystem and concluded the presentation with a powerful video “THE TOI – LEADERSHIP” in which a kid displays Inspired Leadership by showing character, competence and enthusiasm.
Then started the Q & A session. A few questions that were put up were:
1. How can you make the learning interventions a part of the program?
2. How can we say that India is moving towards poverty, illiteracy, terrorism (The judges related it to the Novel – “The White Tiger”)?
3. How can we look at the quantitative aspect of making an individual learn the 5 pillars?
4. We have thousands of people in IIT’s and IIM’s but they are not given a chance to become a leader. How would you defend that?
The Q & A helped us make a much more deeper impact on the audience as we explained to them the difference between India & Bharat and how an inspired leader is not just the one who is working as a VP or a CEO in any MNC. He is rather the one who gets down from his car in a traffic jam and helps to clear the traffic. We got a huge round of applause for this answer.
A few more observations were:
1. No one in the panel of judges was a practitioner.
2. They were looking out for objectivity in the approach, a method that can be evaluated on end of the day.
After the presentation, our collaborators appreciated us and asked a lot about the college. The HOD and all the judges approached us and were very excited to know more and more about the college. We also gave them a brief on the P.A.P.A. initiative and that made them stand on their feet and indeed share their Business Cards. :)
After the results were announced, we came to know the statistics. We were just behind 0.125 marks. :(
One thing that we have realized after being a part of such a prestigious event is that, SOIL is teaching us what people in many colleges dream about. SOIL has all the necessary elements in its ecosystem that people have been suggesting for the B Schools in India (NGO, Industry Consortium, Consulting, Executive education, A good faculty network).
The values that are being taught to us are priceless and they stand way above than what we think. It made us realize that the platform that we have got at SOIL is in no way less than any B School. These values have helped us to grow and develop in the way we are.
To us , it was a grand recognition of what SOIL is and the values that we share. Thanks to Anil Sir for encouraging us to do what we do best and believing in each one of us. It was his Idea (SOIL) that made us stand in front of the top B Schools with a feeling of pride in our hearts.
-Dakshdeep Singh (HRLP 2011)