Is good parenting the need of the century?

I recently read an article “Teaching Kids Patience”. "Today, parents cannot digest the idea of making their child wait for anything from a chocolate to a car. Most parents do not understand the psychological principle of delayed gratification because they themselves are a generation of impatient people. But impatience can cost you money, relations, pain and suffering. The best way to teach your children patience is to set an example and be patient in your own actions."

In another article on "Good parenting can stop teenagers from drinking", I read "Don't be too strict or too affectionate towards your children as it could double their chances of going wayward. Parents need to realize you need to have both accountability and support in your relationship with your kid. Make sure that it's not just about controlling their behaviour - you need to combine knowing how they spend their time away from home with a warm, loving relationship."

In another article I read about why Asian kids are stronger in maths than their American counterparts. It has been found in research that till they are around the age of 10, both the Asian and American kids are at par in their mathematical abilities. But it falls for American kids on an average after that. This is because when the American kid performs bad in maths, the parents tell him "That's ok, maybe you're not an engineer. You might be good at something else", but the Asian parents tell the kid "If you are willing to work hard, nothing is impossible".

In a speech by Dipak Jain, the former dean of Kellogg, I heard him say - "The biggest advantage of Asia, especially India and China is the parenting. It is very rare in other parts of the world to see a parent wake up at five in the morning, make coffee for the child and put him to study. Even when there is no money for the next meal, parents in these countries take pride in sending their children to school."

The world is changing, as it always does. There are so many great facets of the Western culture that I admire. It was when I went to the US that I understood what it means to follow one's heart. But I think it is so important to strike the balance. While we absorb all the good things, it's important to not give up what we're originally good at. This holds for many of us who treat life like a business too, because that's what we're taught in business schools anyway.

Is parenting mankind's core competency? If yes, let us continue to carry forward the parenthood we'd been blessed with.

What is your generation?

There are different generations of people we encounter and just as how many of us do, I too spend time analyzing the differences among generations - grandparents, parents, friends, and nephews and nieces. Today as I was watching some movie song in the cafeteria during dinner, I started attaching people to the different generations of songs. Most of what I've watched are Indian, so I started correlating generations of people with those of Indian movie songs.

I thought I'll classify Indian movies with regards to how the songs are shot. This is not a strict classification, because every movie or generation of movies has a mix of all of these, but if there was only one way to classify movies based on how the songs are shot, I would classify them this way.

The earliest generation was when most part of the movie was just songs. People didn't talk, they conversed in songs. Yes, this was the generation of my grandparents.
Wow, people had so much patience to just sit and watch all this!

The second generation of movies had songs where the hero and the heroine kept walking, now and then trotting or making some pleasant dance moves. Surely this was the generation of my parents.
"Well, the sitting people have started walking."

The third generation of movies had songs where you had no clue where the hero and heroine were running to, dancing all the way, but they kept dancing and running. Ah, this was my generation.
"Finally people have started running. Sometimes they had groups behind running and dancing too."

The latest generation of movies have songs that can wake you up in the middle of the night. They have the fast rhythm and impatient dance steps. Right, this belongs to my nephews and nieces.
"If you keep running, is this where you will end up?"

I don't have the time right now to analyze what I wanted to get at with all this, maybe I'll do it some other day.

Some things I had noted down long back

I wanted to write different posts on each of these, but I'm not sure if I'll find the time for it soon enough. So, let me at least note them down here. These are based on articles that I've read from different sources at different points in time. I didn't care to store the sources, so please excuse.

A) I've read about friendship and relationships at many places, but this one was different. This was not something unknown but it was very blatant and I liked it. You're not a great friend:

1. If you're friends with others only to use them
2. If you manipulate friends for your own benefit
3. If you spin stories to save your face
4. If you messed a relationship between two friends
5. If you complain about all your friends to every other friend

B) There are different degrees of selfishness. While with one logic you can classify any selfishness as selflessness, you can apply a counter-logic and classify any selflessness as selfishness:

1. I order: You can do anything for yourself
2. II order: You can do anything for your family
3. III order: You can do anything for your friends
4. IV order: You can do anything for anyone
   

C) There are different degrees of self-sufficiency. I don't know which one is better, but I feel the last one is the most difficult, because that's the self-sufficiency that comes out of an informed attempt to analyze both having and not having something, while you very well know what each of those mean:

1. Natural self-sufficiency: When you've sufficiently indulged in something, you get a natural feeling of cloyingness and then you no longer depend on that. That's a naturally stable state.
2. Artificial self-sufficiency: When you're self-restraining from the start, you've never indulged, but you're not sure how you'd handle given a chance to indulge. That's a metastable state.
3. Voluntary self-sufficiency: When you deliberately give up something after you very well know what it means to indulge, you reach a nobly stable state.

There is nothing I want to conclude nor are these related, I just felt like storing them, so I did.

Sometimes ...

Sometimes, peace is the most belligerent form of war
Sometimes, silence is the most powerful form of speech
Sometimes, modesty is the most appealing form of presentation
Sometimes, simplicity is the most sophisticated form of expression
Sometimes, love is the mightiest form of retaliation
Sometimes, renunciation is the purest form of love
Sometimes, being yourself is the greatest form of you

All my ISB courses

Some had asked me for courses that ISB offers. It is available on this link, but let me also store here the courses I did, just so I can answer later when someone asks me "What the heck did you study at ISB?". The first four are core terms and the last four are elective terms.

Term 1
.... Statistical Methods for Management Decisions
.... Financial Accounting in Decision Making
.... Marketing Management
.... Managerial Economics

Term 2
.... Competitive Strategy
.... Decision Models and Optimization
.... Global Economics
.... Marketing Decision Making

Term 3
.... Entrepreneurship
.... Operations Management
.... Managerial Accounting and Decision Making
.... Corporate Finance

Term 4
.... Management of Organizations
.... Government, Society and Business
.... Investment Analysis
.... Strategic Analysis of Information Technology

I am trying to complete a double specialization in Strategy and Marketing. I hope I am able to, maybe I might just end up with one if I don't have the energy to do enough courses in term 8. The ones in [brackets] are those that I just attended without taking them.

Term 5
.... Pricing
.... Entrepreneurial Decision Making
.... Corporate Development, Mergers & Acquisitions
.... Business-Business Marketing
.... [International Finance]

Term 6
.... Power and Politics
.... Marketing Services
.... International Marketing
.... Negotiation Analysis
.... Managing Teams
.... [Financial Statements Analysis]

Term 7 (kept a little light for placements)
.... Technology Strategy Consulting
.... Strategic Challenges for Innovation based Start-ups
.... Economics of Strategy

Term 8
.... Consumer Behaviour
.... Rural Marketing
.... Indian Financial System
.... Project Management

I don't think I could have found any other better way to learn so much in one year. I am sure any MBA program around the world is equally wonderful, if not better. For that matter I think any kind of education is going to teach us wonderful things. But wait, isn't life itself a wonderful teacher? Ok, let me stop philosophies and get back to talking about ISB. The prominent disadvantage of ISB compared to other top B-schools of the world is that other than the exchange students, there is only a handful of students with no Indian origin. But one distinct advantage is that most of the professors here are visiting, so the world's best faculty teaches at ISB.

Just give up life before you come for an MBA and I assure you there will be sufficient compensation. But before that, prepare for three months and take the GMAT :-)

Some interesting quotes from class

Statistics: "When you've to prove something, assume the opposite and look for reasons to disprove it, rather than assuming the hypothesis and looking for the first opportunity to prove it." True, else we are just going to fall trap to confirmation bias. That was during a class on null hypothesis test.

Corporate Finance: "Assets are classified into two types, based on their relationships with the market. High beta assets are like bad friends, they rise with the market and fall with the market. Low beta assets are like good friends, they rise when the market falls. They are the ones that will save you during bad times".

Management of Organizations: "When a frog is thrown into boiling water, it leaps out immediately. But if you put the frog in water and boil it slowly, the frog dies. It's because the frog incrementally thinks the temperature is fine, until at some point, it gets killed. In a mouse experiment with water, the mouse is thrown into water, but is pressed inside whenever it tries to come out. After repeated such trials, when the mouse is thrown into water, it sinks even when you don't press it down, because it no longer tries."

Corporate Development: "It is good to be smart, but don't think you can substitute hard work with smartness. Smartness can probably take you to the top, but won't keep you there. If you think you're smart, I can find ten guys smarter than you're. But if you tell me you are hardworking, I might not be able to find someone more hardworking than you're."

Pricing: "When you find your first job, keep your last job in mind. Get into the job that will take you to where and how you want to retire." It was a reverse application of game theory.

Power and Politics: "Facebook has kindled narcissist instincts in people. Within our networks, we have started believing that we're celebrities and have started updating with statuses like 'I've bought a puppy'. Such is the power of networks. Build your network and gain power".

Managing teams: "Most leaders are extroverts by nature. But during an experiment, it was observed that extrovert males tried to show leadership skills only when there was a girl in the group, not otherwise. And many researches later have also found to prove the same." Guys never change, do we?

Negotiation Analysis: "If you want to convince a guy, send a girl and vice versa for a girl. However there is a difference. In the former case, if the girl just taps the shoulder of the guy, the guy is almost convinced but the same is not proved so far for the latter case." We cheap guys!

Economics of Strategy: What may appear irrational behaviour is often quite rational to the other person who may simply have a different belief system. Consider yourself to have failed if you assume others are irrational.