MBA -Max Shady Arbit Fundaes

Went to judge this B School competition in a leading B school and had a chance to see presentations by teams from Indian Institute of Managements and other B Schools.It was a business Plan competition and the fellow judges were the Global Delivery Heads of two prominent Indian IT Companies and a greying Professor .I was slightly self conscious since I was the only "bacha" in the judging panel.When I used to take part in these competitions some time back,it was always a pleasure to kick the butt of other B Schools but was equally painful to get the kick back when we lost to others. Judging seemed to be an easier activity than participating and may be organisers could have improved the articulation of presentations by giving the judging critera to participants in the initial stage itself.It was surprising that all the judges arrived at a consenus in results . Some teams had real good presentations with insights on the implementation part as well.Most of them were arguing that "The fluttering of the wings of the butterlies caused enough wind to cause a rainfall" making me wonder how MBA's are able to pluck gas from thin air to fill the vaccum and this Advertisement from fedex tells me that so many people think so.

The corporate or rather MBA way of speaking is characterized by a faux-sophistication that makes the speaker feel powerful and dynamic when he actually has no influence on anything consequential. Sometimes I feel that somebody should do a study on the cultural implications of MBA jargon -- a combination of vapid slogans (e.g., "value creation" , "Opportunity Leverage","CCDV (Creating Communicating & Delivering Value) " and insidious euphemisms like " strategy " , "solutions" , "downsizing" , "right sizing " , "leveraging" ) that appears so prominently in PowerPoint presentations and conference calls happening in corporate offices everywhere.

Some of the things that were used after my MBA and the results were .

1.Telling my eX that Dating is test marketing and marriage is an acquisition. (She broke up and went for a sane guy)

2.Made some Suggestions to my sweet mother about the structural inefficiencies in the processes in Kitchen Set Up (She complained to my father that I am not makng any sense to her after my MBA and made me drink Ladies Finger Soup to make her son sane. Arrrrrgh...)

3.Told my Manager that there are no problems in work , just issues and improvement opportunities. (He asked me to do a six sigma implementation )


4.Explained to my Parents the benefits of leveraging with friends as opposed to renting the apartment, which is a sunk cost anyway (and father gave me that funny look ; which said that You were all right son two years back? )

5.Urged my darling Grand Mother to choose her favorite Pickle Brand as a rational choice rather than emotional choice (She stopped being a darling for sometime by saying her favorite Achar is not good for the health of young people)

6.Remarked to my brother that my favorite posters are those stock market charts in Wall Street Journal and Financial Times. (He claimed ownership for the Sexy poster of Priyanka Chopra , which was adorning my bedroom)

7.Lastly, when I explained to the local Kirana store Value Creator about 4P's, She muttered "Paavam , Nalla Payyanayirunnu , Enthu Patti Aavo" (The Young Boy was good , What happened in last two years?) to my aunt.

If you didn't make sense of half the things in ( I call it 7 Lessons of Max Shady Arbit Fundaes from an MBA ( Hail Covey) )Italics said out here , you have guessed it right . From being a MUMPS ( Mallu Under Management Process ) I have graduated to a seasoned MBA who can now claim core competency in judging B School competitions as well .