Today was an interesting day for two reasons - the first being a session on India, and second because I am quite eager to listen to HBS Dean Nitin Nohria.
Yesterday, during our living group preparation, I spoke passionately about India, its history, the caste system, the political system, corruption and the challenges. To illustrate the diversity and complexity of the country, I came up with this five dimensional view of the country. These five dimensions are : Religion, language, State, caste and political affiliation. There is a disproportionate interest in the caste system among people here - probably because it is written about more in the media.
In the class, the discussion was quite lively - as was expected there were disagreements among the Indian colleagues ! As I keep joking, if there are four Indians in a room, on any topic there will be five views. Prof. Vietor was quite passionate and has obviously met and spoken to many Indians. Incidentally, HBS has a India Research Centre (IRC) in Mumbai. It was established in 2006 by Prof. Vietor and the India centre joins HBS international research centers in Latin America (Buenos Aires), Asia-Pacific (Hong Kong and Tokyo), and Europe (Paris). A China centre has been established earlier this year. The India centre has been set up with significant contribution from Mahindra and Mahindra and is located in Mahindra Towers. During the dinner with the HBS Dean today, Prof. Vietor recalled how Mr. Ratan Tata was so generous and when approached by the Proffessor for financial help, all he asked was "how much ?" ! I was also quite proud to know that Mr. Ratan Tata was a AMP graduate at HBS before he became the Chairman of the Tata group.
Dean Nitin was quite lively and very articulate in his short speech during the dinner reception today. He spoke quite a lot on India, Mr. Ratan Tata and his reaction to the 26/11 attack on the Taj Hotel, and the globalization of the world. He spoke on the need for business leaders to be people with "character and competence" (interesting choice of words) and regain the trust of the people. Regain, because given all that has happened in the world, people have lost trust in Business Leaders and people are almost equating Business Leaders to politicians. Dean Nitin is a very short person physically, but stood high today with his ideas, articulation and vision.
Class on valuation today was on expected lines. The session on Negotiation is something I feel is being stretched. And I think a disproportionate amount of time is being spent on this - maybe it is needed for other businesses, but I felt otherwise. We did some some actual negotiations with asymmetric information being made available to the buyer and seller - this happens in real life as well, where either the buyer or seller know more than other. In a way this is important, because we're constantly negotiating in our lives something or the other with someone - be it colleagues, friends, kids or spouse. A good and strongly recommended book is " Getting to Yes: Negotiating agreement without Giving In" by Roger Fisher (Author), William L. Ury (Author), Bruce Patton (Editor).
Interesting other points:
- Always know what your BATNA is - Best Alternative To Negotiated Agreement; this is the event you would pursue if the deal does not go through
- There will always be many alternatives, but BATNA is the Best alternative; analysis of the BATNA will give you the Reservation Price (RP)
- RP is the point at which you are indifferent between accepting the deal and walking away
- ZOPA - stands for Zone Of Possible Agreement - and this is the zone between the seller's RP and buyers RP
- The starting value - or Anchor Value, has a powerful effect. This is especially true if the anchor value is close to the other side's RP
Classes ended today only at 4:30 and it was a long tiring day - the effect of a tough week was also showing in people and the whole team is waiting for the weekend. Since we had the dinner reception with the Dean today at 5:45, our Living Group meeting was shifted to 9 PM. We prepared for two cases which were China and Intel (Marketing Module). Living Group preparations are becoming more streamlined with groups coming with an executive summary, which makes it easier to discuss. Looking forward to the weekend ... a football game, long run, and Boston tour is the plan. More later ....
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