"Why you should not buy Vitamin Water at the Greyhound bus terminal at Port Authority, New York" and other lessons I have learnt from my MBA.

Lesson 1: Don't try to buy Vitamin Water at the vending machine at the Greyhound Bus station in New York. First, the cost is $2.75, a huge premium over the regular cost which is less than a dollar if you bought it bulk at Costco. Second, the machine accepts coins but does not register their acceptance, which means it just sawllows them. So after I meticulously put in two dollar notes and 3 quarters to make up the sum, I realised that I had now only $2 worth in the machine. So though I wanted to stay health conscious and drink vitamin water, I ended buying a regular Coke, thanks to the "SUNK COST". Managerial Economics, Term 1, Core.

Lesson 2: Watch the movie Chandni Chowk to China. As much as it sunk without a trace at the Box Office, it certainly taught me something. The chinese dad of Deepika Padukone alias Miaow teaches Akshay Kumar that what matters is not the 10,000 things he has done once in life, but the ONE THING he has done thousands of times in his life. Cut to Arvind Eye Hospital in Madurai (and other parts of Tamil Nadu). Dr V (as the founder of this great institution was affectionately called) must have certainly got a credit line for the flop film and I am surprised he did not. For, through his hospital, he has communicated the exact same lesson this film taught me. Arvind Eye Hosptial focuses on cataract, THE SINGLE LARGEST CAUSE OF blindness in India and performs cataract surgeries at a rate that the rest of the medical world has not even envisioned (pun unintended). An average of 20 mins per surgery and as soon as one surgery is completed the patient is moved out and the next patient, who was being prepared in the last 20 minutes, is now on the operation table, ready for his. And the surgeon goes on and on and on. Late Dr V, is obviously a phenomenon and Arvind Eye Hospital is an Ivy-Leauge Business School case study. Operations Management. Term 2. Core.

Lesson 3: Off late, I have been kicking and screaming within my company. All these lessons I am learning from my MBA have got me excited and I have been eager to show it at my workplace. In a workshop with a client recently, I asked the client some questions which were really not within the scope of the project. The client appreciated it, no doubt, because I gave them a perspective that they had not thought of, but my own peers thought I was just k...... a... So much for the knowledge! Even more recently, I ventured to work on a project that was not only out of my direct responsibility, but also involved visibility to the C-level in the company. Though my ideas were good and my intentions honest, I seem to have inadvertently created a feeling of caution or even insecurity among some of my colleagues. My biggest advice to those who go to B-school with the honorable intention of applying what you learnt in class to the current workplace is, "Do so by all means, but be careful what you are saying to whom. Think through things from the other person's perspective before you do something like that. Everyone is not going to like what you think or say, so even do whatever good you want to do, quietly." When you have a competitive advantage that you think others don't, don't go around sharing that information in public. Make your entry discretely and work diligently to gain customer captivity. Strategy. Term 3. Elective.

I'm learning...