The Apple Way

This book by Jeffrey Cruikshank gives insights into management lessons of the world's greatest innovative company.

The book is written around 2005, which is just after the magnanimous success of ipods and just before iphones were launched by Apple (The year is more or less 2005, but the period is certain!), so that the supporting evidence for these lessons are based on these examples- The Apple1,2,WOZ, LISA,Mac and the ipod.

The book is a cross between management text books and non fiction books.

Apple is a company which when is successful is a great success and when fails, fails miserably. The author begins the book by giving this understanding through the examples of ipod and Lisa respectively.

• Make the customer and the product king
• Balance manufacturing with delivery logistics
• Motivate and inspire people outside the company to do your marketing and public relations
• Invent new distribution channels
• Decide on your company image and stick to your guns
• Leapfrog the competition
• Learn from both successes and missteps

The basic lessons learnt from the book is based on these aspects.

Steve jobs stays a prominent figure in the book.

“We don’t underestimate people…Rather than making a far inferior product for a hundred dollars less, we gave the people the product that they want and that will serve them for years, even though it’s a little pricier. People are smart; they figure these things out.” – Steve jobs

Goodbyes are never so good and never for Good!

Changes are inevitable. But this man taught me how to manage them by simply being the change himself. Good teachers are what I have always been blessed with and it has always hurt me to bid them farewell. (Ironically, I was always the chosen one to deliver the farewell speech. This time too, it was me, though I decided to opt out. However positively we package it, farewells are always agonizing.)

It’s only darkness which aptly conveys the beauty of light.

PROF PRABHAKARAN PALERI is unlike all my other favourite teachers and to comprehend the reason for that, you need to know him!

He taught me how to THINK and inspite of this occassion of his farewell, I am happy dwelling on what I learnt from him

Dear Sir, this is an excerpt from the message I had prepared to be delivered on your farewell, but could not.

It is an honour for us to be your students. Thank you for being our inspiration. Thank you for teaching us how to think.

You taught us how to face the world, how to turn our backs against problems and say ‘SBW’, how to have a drink and relax while others are fretting about you, how to respect others and how to understand people in a larger way, how to invest people in the right tasks, how to grow younger every minute, how BLOODY to manage life!

I hope we could put into practice even half of what we learnt from you.

We are still in awe of your personality and sir, you simply ROCK!

The only reason I wouldn’t have written this would have been my laziness. This post is a celebration of the victory of my inspiration over my laziness!

The Engineer Syndrome

If I say the last few days have been hectic, it would just be an understatement.

4 project presentations in 2 days is the synopsis of the situation.

And Oh, My! did I enjoy it!!! To the hilt!

I attribute it to the engineer in me.

Why the Engineer? Such is the conditioning of an engineering student and that is what gave me that High.

The last minute ppt preparation, report perusal, the 11 th hour project hunt (and I mean quite literally! After almost 2 hours of feasibility study on a project, we decided to change it at 11p.m the day before the presentation) I enjoyed every bit of them.

This is what I call the Engineer- Syndrome, the 11th hour adrenaline rush!

We engineers are known for quite a number of syndromes, and I found I could add this to the list as well. We do things Just In Time and somehow things work and most of the time they work the best! Minimum effort, maximum result, now, that is what I call efficiency!

(May be others do it the same way too, but I found all engineering graduates inevitably belong to this category subjected to a 5% error on my hypothesis)

I remember getting a forward message during my Engineering days(and I find it is being circulated even now!).

You give a 1000 pages book to a lawyer and ask him how many days he would take to finish reading it and he would say may be XX days, You ask the same to a doctor and he would say YY days, You ask the same to an engineer and he would ask, "when is the exam?"

Managing Examz

I have finished the initial set of exams after my first trimester and these are my valuable findings :

1. You can always attempt a management exam , except statistics and accounting, without actually studying for it. All these years of your existence would have given you some insight into the subject to pull it off! There is always an option for new theories. Management is all about innovation.

2. Open-book exams are not really helpful unless you actually know which page (or which book?) to open.

(Blink!).

3. A manager should always update herself with the latest technology.

Mobile phones are out, smart phones are in.

Earlier concept of management : getting work done through people.

Modern existence/survival theory in management : getting work done through Google. (I told you, it's easy to formulate new theories).

4. Group discussions are confined not only to classrooms. Take them beyond classrooms to exam halls.

5. Thank God it's relative grading. Make sure you know everything your neighbour knows.

PS: Note the time I am posting this. Exams can still give you sleepless nights

Try it!!

How much do we really know ourselves.

We are the closest to ourselves, yet it's so less that we really know about us. :-(

Don't take my word?Find it out yourselves.

We were given an assignment recently to reflect on our values.

The activity was extremely difficult and confusing.But it has surely got me pondering..

Perhaps you could try it on yourselves too.

Dig deep into yourselves and find out that single value that drives you. Your core value. The value that affects all your decisions and of course your actions.

The game is not over :-)

Then justify your choice of the value with your actions. ie, Give examples of your actions which identifies with your value.

Simple is it? Give a deep and honest shot!

And may be you could share it with me too :-)

:-)

I met a student today whose reverence and respect for his teacher touched me a lot. :-)

He was to give us some presentation and his first slide was a dedication to his professor who had taught him the subject. A gesture which really made me very emotional.

And I am happy to say that the student is one of our lecturers here. :-)

I have arrived.

Well, finally I'm here.

Had always looked forward to being here and am happy that finally I'm here. ;-)

So perhaps the coming blogs might some how be related to NIT-C and MBA.

Ah!! That reminds me, let me put across my MBA experience so far.

I seriously believe an MBA is better done after an initial industry experience. It helps you connect so much with what you are studying. I do that. For everything I learn here, I try to find some sort of an example or relation from my previous life! And many a time, I can find it. :-).

Hey, but all work ex people in the class could be really boring yaar.

It is those people right out of college who are the real charm of the class.

For one thing, they take me down a year or two or more along my ageline ;-), but more seriously they proclaim aloud the innocence and naivety of life. And I simply love being around them, happy that I can share their zeal.

And about the pedagogy, what more do I say than that I have never looked forward to attending a lecture though the subject may not be my favourite ones. :-).

As they rightly claim they teach us such that we don't even realize that we are being taught.

What I find the most attractive about the course is that we are taught how to think. We are taught to be better people. We are taught to understand ourselves better. We are taught to relate to us and to everyone around us better. But what gets me wondering is why this delay yaar? Why did it take all these years for our educational system to give me these wisdom? Some may disagree, blame my choice of institutions. But the fact is that there have been people like me affected. It would have made a lot better if in our school curricula we were taught at least HOW TO THINK.

Perhaps everybody should be doing an MBA. Or atleast every professional.Management is something we all do throughout our lives, then why not be a little scientific? The course is hectic, but it is not tough. It requires hardwork and daily effort, but it doesn't have tough equations or formula.

Well, really looking forward to the time here.