China calling

When in times of doubt, stay put, don't make hasty moves. This is what life has taught me. I have successfully bidded for the CEIBS exchange program. CEIBS is ranked 11th by Financial Times.

The rationale behind my decision to choose China over Europe and America is two-fold. First is the obvious one, China is the fastest growing economy in the world and there is a lot that can be learnt from China.

Second, the not so obvious one, we can expect a lot of learning from India to China and China to India. It would be a great advantage to understand the similarities and differences between these ecoomies.

One of my key goals at ISB was to get International exposure. I know that this decision would not make sense to lot of people I know but somehow I have a feeling that it would work and help me achieving my long-term goals.

I still have a day to finalize this. This whole episode reminds me of the famous historical chinese visitir - Huan Tsang and makes my inner explorer very excited.

Games - Sports and Business

I used to think that Game means a sport. But slowly I have realized that there is a Game in every aspect of life, in fact, life itself is a game. Only difference between a sport and real life is in terms of the rules. In sports, rules are clearly laid out but in the games of real life the rules are not clear and are dynamic. The rules keep changing.

Coming to sports, watching tennis is a great thing. I had been watching tennins from the time of Boris Becker, and Steffigraf. It's an individual event and you can see what's going on in the minds of the players by looking at the way they play. But it is pleasure to watch Federer and Nadal play in the final. I think this is the third consecutive time Federe and Nadal faced each other in the Final.

Earler it was Sampras and it was a delight to watch the way he used to play. Sampras was so accurate in his game and showed very little emotion. But Federer is different, the way he comes back and the elegance with which he plays is awesome.

Like in sports, in real life too, we often think that the person playing should have done it differently but when our chance comes we play our game instinctively. Sometimes our instincts are good enough but many times it may need improvement. It is easy to watch someone and comment how they can do well but when it comes to self it is so difficult to change.

Onething I have learnt right at the begining of my career is to identify and understand the rules of the game at each place I worked. Once you identify what the rules are, you have understand how these rules came into place.Many times the rules have been laid out due to certain practices or constraints that may have long gone and are no more valid. But people are attached to customs more than to the objectives. Thinking about objectives and evaluating action is a difficult thing to do and human mind chooses whichever is easy to do.

In business and in personal life, if you can change the rules by influencing the stakeholders, there is a great chance that you will create an impact. Many times I have observed that it is best to stick to the basic goals and objectives and evaluate everything using them as yardsticks. This helps in you not getting binded by the rules and instead you will be able to change the rules according to the new situation.

I have not been successful in getting the exchange program seat in the college I wanted but i will try again in the second round. It is difficult to fight with irrational bidders but sometimes passion overtakes rationale. For me exchange is important but not as important as the courses that I would like to take. I would like to take courses that will help me develop an overall expertise in Business Management. I have chosen not to go after the finance electives and instead would chose electives that would benefit me the most.

Next week is going to be a tough week as we have the term end exams from 16th July. Let me start preparing for the tough challenge lying ahead.