February 5th , 2024

The course at INSEAD I paid least attention to was Organizational Behavior. There was this American Professor who, while being very friendly in an easygoing American way, was nevertheless regarded as somewhat arrogant by a large section of the class. There was an altercation between him and a Swedish student in the class - and this led to a set of embarrassing moments during the lesson. The next day, the Professor apologized for his behavior and donated a bottle of Champagne to the class- which would be duly consumed in one of the innumerable parties that were always on. 

 Personally, I did not have a problem with him- at least not until the end of the term. I was an Indian national who had lived in the American Midwest for the past 6 or 7 years- hence, I was always pleasantly surprised to come across an American Professor while in alien France.  Just to hear that all too familiar accent was so heartwarming and reminded me of home. It was still home, although I had somehow escaped it momentarily. The wife was still back in Fort Wayne, and living all by herself- awaiting further instructions from me, to make her next move. Oh what a passage of time that was. I had no idea what I would do post MBA- I had no set options. I could not go back to my old job per se. That would mean they'd have to generate yet another H1B visa. I had no Green Card, something that also had much to do with me extricating myself out of the US- out of spite, if nothing else. I had not a work permit anywhere else, so if I did land a job in , say , London then I would need a visa. Fortunately, in those days, London was definitely a real option because they had just come up with the HSMP ( Highly skilled Migrant program) for which INSEAD MBAs typically qualified easily.  I, however, had no fixed plans. I was ready to fly wherever the wind blowed, and laugh at life like a side-show. Not the typical MBA profile at a top school. Prior to applying to INSEAD, I had read somewhere that one should not go to business school to find one's self. It is way too expensive and option to do so, especially if you find that you are not cut our for whatever it is meant to set you up for. In my case, this is exactly what was unfolding. All in all, I felt isolated and lonely, not because I did not have friends or was not having a decent enough time. But I realized that I was surrounded by hyper-competitive people who had distinct plans and were keen to work hard to get somewhere. There were little or no hitch-hikers like me who had seemingly showed up at Fontainebleau just to check it out. I learnt so much about the world in those few months. Cocooned in the midwest, I was so unaware of all the opportunities that someone of my pedigree could  rightfully pursue. High Finance, Management Consulting, Private Equity, Marketing, Operations, General Management and leadership positions- the list was exciting, daunting and at the same time, as was revealed to myself, completely incongruous to my needs. I didn't know what I needed, but I could not get energy from any of these fields. I wasn't really aware , but even when I became aware I could not get myself to focus on any area and do the work. So sure enough, I did not make it to most companies I applied to. But I did get an offer or two in the end, so the investment itself would be salvaged. But it is not easy- even when I started to work in a very famous Energy company, I was not able to to fit in with other MBAs in the company. I chose to work in Supply Chain, which is not an MBA heavy area. I thought maybe I'd stand out here. As it happened, I did anything but. What I learnt was that if you have an MBA in a space where there aren't any, especially at the top, then you don't get any leverage whatsoever. The guy at the top do not regard you as anything special and actually look at you with some degree of contempt- as if to say " so you have an MBA, so big deal what have you really achieved and how are you any more special than any one else?". It worked in reverse. In retrospect it would have been far better to be at the bottom of the barrel in a space that was at least infested with MBAs. There, at least I'd belong even if I did not end up shining.  The 15 years I spent at the MNC, if truth be told, gave me a wide array of opportunity across geographies. All I essentially learnt about was Organizational Behavior- the one course I did not pay any heed to in the first period at INSEAD. 

 It was all on the job learning, in fact I did not remember a word of what was taught. Back then it was all fuzzy, and for an engineer like me, it felt like it was not worth my attention. I was not the only one, most everyone was trying to get immersed in Finance courses- Derivatives, Applied Corporate Finance, Credit Risk and so on. Alternately in marketing, branding and so on. Still others in Statistics, Economics and Operations. All of which was precision material based firmly on a foundation of math. The  organizational behavior course seemed abstract- although there was a redeeming simulation game at the end , which I only vaguely remember as being moderately interesting. As I mention, I was not unhappy with the much maligned professor.  Until I realized he gave me a very poor grade ( I think a D) which brought down my average score for period 1 significantly. Overall I had done all right in the other courses. I still am unaware why we ( everyone in our study team) were marked so poorly. We must have missed something very major in our final exam team submission. Still nothing like learning the hard way, on the job, over a long period of time, with a significant price paid towards career stagnation. Upon introspection, this is also the main reason ( there are others) that I had gotten interested in Psychology- which to me was one of the key forces to understand when analyzing organizational behavior because, after all, an organization is nothing but a commune of human beings, warts and all.