Uncharted Territory

Steven Henderson was one of the few renowned professors that lectured at the Southampton Institute. He was the Professor of Strategy at the Institute and known to be a tough task-master who rarely displayed much emotion.  Many of the alumni, who had managed to extend their visas to remain in the UK using some loophole or the other in the system, had further warned me about him being grumpy and cynical most of the time.

In the field of Strategy, he was known as one of Michael Porter’s most severe critics. Porters Five Forces Theory to understand Market Dynamics was hailed as one of the game-changing theories of its time and many still feel that it’s quite relevant. Henderson, though, felt that the theory was too simplistic and has debated its relevance at several Domestic and International forums on Strategy. Steven was due to impart knowledge to our group of MBA wannabes towards the end of the course.  He was one of the lecturers for our module named Management and Change and focused primarily on how leaders characteristics had a heavy influence on the overall nature and character of the organization.

Steven believed in books that carried myriad theories from various Management Experts but he was more keen on making a visual impact on his students. He started his lectures often by showing us a case study in the form of a movie. And not surprisingly, despite seeing the movie for the umpteenth time, it would still excite him. What excited him more, though, was the individual students interpretation of the various scenarios in the movie. He would always pass snide remarks for those who were almost entirely bookish. For example, if a student said ‘oh, this scene in the movie relates to what Johnson and Scholls said in their book Organizational Behaviour’, he wouldn’t exactly scoff at it, but he would make it quite obvious that he was disinterested in drawing comparisons between scenarios in his movie and the most obvious book that everyone read during their courses. He clearly wanted more. He wanted us to explore as much as we could and gather as much knowledge from the library rather than restricting it to one or two books. And boy, he could tell the difference between a student who has spent good quality time in the Library vis-à-vis a student who has just gone through one or two ‘popular’ books.

As his sessions came to a close, he, like all other lecturers/professors, gave us the standard assignment that the course leader had prepared. It involved a case study that was circulated a week before the assignment was handed over to us. We were to read, re-read and again re-read the case study and answer the questions in the end by correlating it to what we learnt from Steven’s classes. I vividly remember the sheer disinterest on Steven’s face as he went through the motions of giving instructions on what to do with the paper. What he thought was almost up in the form of a bubble, ‘Yeah well, you have your assignment, go ahead and do what you’ve been told, I couldn’t really care less’.

As he left the room, I decided to have a word with him regarding the assignment. His first question was “Is there anything you didn’t understand in my instructions?” I smiled and told him there weren’t any simply because I didn’t want to do the assignment that was given by the course leader. He seemed startled, ‘Well then, what do you want to do?’ I had his attention. I requested if I could do something a little more unconventional. He folded his hand and said “Go on, I’m listening”. I requested if I could scrap the existing assignment and instead create a new one from one of his favourite case study movies and use one of his favourite books called ‘The Neurotic Organization’ by Manfred Du Vries and Danny Miller. I would test the theories in the book against the situations in the movie. A few others warned me not to try and be ‘over-smart’ and ‘toe the line’ but when have I ever listened!!!

He stared at me blankly for a few seconds then let out a subtle smile and said ‘What’s your name again?’ Jaideep Gandhi, I said. “Jaideep, do you know that by doing this you are actually breaking the rules?” I guess I looked slightly flustered I guess but before I could say anything he quickly interjected “and that’s perfectly fine with me. Just so that you know, the movie and the book are amongst my favourites so just make sure you justice to them”. I promised him I would. Two weeks after submitting, we were called on by the course leader to collect the corrected coursework. When my turn came, she sat me down. I was a tad nervous because although I was sure of a decent mark for the assignment, I was not sure how the course leader would interpret my unconventional decision. She gave me back my assignment and said “You attempted something that no one did in your class and few have previously tried. And guess what, it’s paid off. Steven was delighted with the coursework and gave you a 70 and not surprisingly it’s the first time you’ve got a 70 all throughout your course. Well Done, young man”. I was elated. A 70 in a British MBA is equivalent to the 90’s here in India. Unless the coursework is exemplary, a student’s chances of scoring above 60 are few and far between. I looked at the cover page and in the comments section there was a something written in large capital Letter with a smile. It read ‘A VERY GOOD ATTEMPT. KEEP IT UP’.

Something happened that day. The experience changed me from being a person who was happy to be part of convention into a person who would love to venture into uncharted territory. Over the past decade, I have made most of my decisions against vox populi. Not because I'm defiant as a person. I'm not. But because, I felt the overwhelming need to push my limits and one cannot do that by remaining in one's comfort zone all the time. Be it my decision to stay back in India just a couple of hours before the departure of my plane to the UK; Be it my foray into Real Estate ('You're no good with numbers and you are too introverted to manage professional relationships' is what popular opinion was); Be it my move to Pune ('Why leave Chennai which is a much bigger market; besides you are well-established here' was the popular opinion); Be it my move to Legion ('You must be out of your mind to start off on your own and that too in a city which is relatively unknown to you' and 'You have no idea of the perils of going without business for months', were popular opinions. I'm glad I went with what I felt. Not only has it paid off richly, it has helped me take more seemingly ridiculous decisions :D 

Coming back to Steven, I am not in touch with him but I do believe that somewhere amongst the thousands of students he interacts with, he will most certainly remember me J