1. Not criticize a person in his/her absence.
2. Not miss-use cc and bcc.
3. Be a genuine consultant and advisor to the clients rather than sell what I have.
4. Delegate. Give sub-ordinates space and enough exposure in front of the organisation’s leaders.
5. Don't walk over others with a single focus on elevation in the organisation.
6. Seek feedback and take it sportingly when provided.
7. Not change jobs immediately on getting the promotion, raises and the bonus.
8. Hire for attitude and train for skills.
9. Not use company resources for personal use. Not inflate claims and reimbursements.
10. Make genuine effort to Just help others be successful.
11. Participate in trainings without my inflated ego and with intent to learn rather than ‘show that I know’.
12. Learn to not take credit for others work and point out it out as such when offered. Give credit to the team and take blame.
13. Reply to 90% of the mails within a few hours, the rest in 24 hours
14. Learn something new every quarter.
15. Not operate rumor mill in the garb or innocent questions or sarcasm.
16. Accept promotions with humility and lack of them with maturity in my stride.
17. I will question my assumptions. Not doctor data to the management. Present it as-it-is and all of it.
18. Reprimand in private and appreciate in public.
19. Not be afraid to hire people better than self.
20. Balance being ‘true to the profession’ with ‘true to boss’s opinion’.
21. Take up training others as a useful activity.
22. Go prepared for meetings and play a value-adding and contributing role rather than politics or one-up-man ship.
23. Think win-win.
24. Explain things simply without jargon.
25. Think customer and organisation before yielding to department, team and individual interests.
26. Everyone is on time to meet ones MD and key clients, I will zilch the times I am late to meet service providers, juniors, trainees and everyone else too.

What should we teach our MBAs during recession? While a lot of educational content could remain unchanged, a slight change in focus would help the future managers align themselves better to the business milieu they will find themselves in when they graduate, writes Kamlesh Vyas, Director, First India School of Business.

Should management institutes teach anything different in times of recession? This question was recently put to senior corporate executives and faculty members. The responses could provide valuable inputs to the academicians wanting to offer industry aligned business management education. While the core curriculum would remain unchanged, management education could incorporate subtle change in focus in the different streams including in teaching of Finance, Operations, International Business, Marketing, HRM, IT Management & General Management.

Financial Management: Firstly, Cash Flow statements acquire particular importance during recession even as the Profit & Loss Statement and Balance Sheet still remain crucial in the troika of the financial statements. Moreover, while treasury management remains on top of the agenda for the Finance Manager it’s the Fund management and raising of funds that would have a greater mindshare. Further, making every rupee worth of resources count during recession and putting to use every asset to productive use is a top priority for any organization. While, credit squeeze ends up hitting every organization in the business eco-system, cost structures and cost curves, zero-based budgeting, value engineering, credit risk analysis & mitigation and credit valuation acquire further significance. The business schools must prepare their students in the aforementioned areas for them to be all-weather managers. These analyses may help an organization offer what it does well internally as a business service (inside-outing of internal best practices) or what it offers to others as a value adding internal initiative (insourcing or ‘eating your own frog’).

Operations Management: How well are the students prepared to apply theory of constraints and de-bottle-necking operations is as relevant as resource based strategy as resources become scarce. The operations manager need to shift their focus from grand-scale Business Process Reengineering to Incremental performance Improvement opportunities. Strategic Outsourcing may be a holistic approach when its business-as-usual, however, when its crunch-time, value outsourcing may be more relevant. While Asset Lifecycle cost may be a great approach, when the business is on life support, it’s the immediate cost which hits the business the hardest thus cost effectiveness is more appreciated in its here-and-now avatar. Wastage control, just-in time procurement, minimizing inventory and better credit terms on purchases provide a direct relief to outflows & expenses. An education for budding managers in the area of optimizing and variablising of costs to the extent possible helps them tide over the troughs much better.

International Business: Managers are better off looking at businesses globally especially in recessionary times because arbitration opportunities can provide niche segments for growth. International business needs cross-cultural skills and ability to understand global taxation and other regulations.

Marketing Management: It has been established that cross-selling, up-selling and retaining customers is far easier than acquiring customers even in boom times. A special focus on customer relationship management, providing individualized one-window account services to each customer and consultative selling helps leverage current customers. Management education needs to pay particular attention to these aspects in recessionary times. Better segmentation of customers not just by needs, application of products and services but also by ease and cost of serviceability, value-appreciation for our products and services, quality of relationship and extend of access to top-management, long term potential & Credit worthiness make the marketing efforts more viable. Advertising needs to shift its focus from brand building to brand experience as the challenges are here and now. The budding managers must be trained to smoothly make these shifts in gears in times of recession.

HRM: The Human resource function runs into rough weather right away in recessionary times. They are increasingly seen as costs with no linkages to top-line and bottom-line. The HR managers must be trained to recruit for niche skills, and do it just in time. The trainings required in recessionary times are business- needs based, shorter and sharply defined, measurable in their impact and low cost by using technology like mobile-training, video-conferencing, e-learning and focus on internal faculty. The initiatives in motivating have to be impactful yet without budgets with impetus on non-financial motivators. The compensation revisions and bonuses have to be carefully planned and communicated so as to be able to retain and motivate key resources and difficult to find skills while holding the salary levels for the vast majority. Carrying out separations and managing reductions in variable payouts even while encouraging people to work harder is a challenge HR professional must face and must be readied for. Grandiose vision and mission workshops must give way to weekly and monthly business targets and their achievement by the rank and file in the organization so that a performance management culture based on visibility and accountability in established.

IT Management: Information technology and systems management in recessionary times needs to focus on cost reduction and value creation with very little or no investment. Fancy futuristic projects need to be put on hold with the immediate target being standardization, reduction of variability and provision of hassle-free, 24X7 services to businesses. The IT managers must however, not lose sight of technological advances around them because the moment the recession recedes they would run the risk of being in pre-historic age.

General Management: Since business opportunities get crowded out in the old segments/ areas, the business managers must be trained in identifying white spaces- new areas for growth, keeping the team motivated in another key area to save the team from the ubiquitous gloom. Business Process re-engineering becomes the key process driver to business. Value addition, continuous improvement and innovation management are very important and must be seen as the saviours in recession. According to Peter Drucker, management has only two functions- marketing and innovation. This acquires even more significance in times of recession.

Management education must be able to keep pace with what happens in business. The B-schools have the responsibility of inculcating among the students results and action orientation, cost and quality focus, customer orientation, innovative thinking and working in teams effectively. The need for these basic managerial skills is never more important than in recessionary times. The B-schools must keep the students motivated, engaged and ambitious while managing their expectations more realistically. Recessionary times are also the best times to encourage students to think entrepreneurship so that they could be job-givers rather than job-seekers.

(Kamlesh Vyas, is an Engineer from DCE and MBA from XLRI with over 16 years of experience. He can be reached at kamlesh@fisb.in)

The face of print and electronic media as we know today will undergo major changes in coming years, according to Jody McPhillips, leading international media and journalism expert. She was participating in a workshop on 'Media management for Future managers' at the Gurgaon based first India School of Business.

The economic recession is the best time to test your business, according to Kuniya Matsumoto, leading business leader and MD of Amada India. He was speaking on 'Business strategies in the time of Recession' at the Gurgaon based first India School of Business.

The India telecom sector has entered a new phase- unseen any where else in the world, according to Thomas Phillip, leading Telecom expert and VP for Indus Towers. He was speaking on 'The Telecom sector- Road ahead' at the Gurgaon based first India School of Business.

Prominent educationists have expressed alarm and dismay at HRD Minister Kapil Sibbal's proposal to abolish Board examination at class X level.

Mr. Kamlesh Vyas, an alumnus of XLRI Jamshedpur and Director of the Gurgaon-based First India School of Business(FISB) has termed Mr Sibbal's proposal "a populist measure" that will dilute academic standards in the country.

Mr. Vyas, an international trainer and an active educationist, said the abolition of Board examination at class X level will allow a large number of pleasure seekers to move ahead without studies and hard work. "That will put unnecessary burden on class XII examination as Board examination at class X level is a buffer that prepares the students for the hard work ahead and shakes up and wakes up the non-serious students. This will throw gates open to dilution of the education standards" Mr. Vyas said.

First India School of Business Professor Mr. Pramod Bhatnagar felt that doing away with the Xth Board examination will make a mockery of selection of specialized streams for students. "At present, students are offered Maths, Biology, Commerce and other streams based on Xth Board results which act as a common and standard parameter across students from different schools and states. Doing away with a standard Xth Board will make mockery of the process. This will be inviting money power and corrupt practices to the system even at the tender and sensitive stage of selection of education stream knowing that seats for Sciences and Commerce are limited in most of the schools. This will play havoc especially when students change schools", Mr. Bhatnagar said.

Mr. Vyas felt that the measure would lead to lowering of education standards in the country. He also feared that this will eventually affect the quality of professionals in the country in 6-8 years drastically.

Mr. Eric Lane, a visiting professor to First India School of Business, Gurgaon from USA warned that the measure would lead to fall in demand of Indian students abroad. According to Eric, academic circles outside India held Indian Board examinations in high esteem and had faith in their sound education level and standard. Disbanding the Board at class X will reduce the demand of Indian students as they will be considered to have reached a high level without competition and studies.

This will take away a parameter the world has to judge Indian students academic caliber. "This impression is bound to reflect adversely on Indian student's education and employment prospects abroad", Eric said.

Kamlesh Vyas, Director First India School of Business, addressing the Indian Public School Conference (IPSC) 70th Annual Meet held at Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan's V.M. Public School – Baroda on January 12, 2010. Over 75 School principals from leading public schools including Doon School, Scindia School. Rajkumar College, Welham School, Sainik Schools, DPS, Bahrtiya Vidya Bhavan schools, The Daly College, Donyi Polo, Birla Public School, Mayo College, Pestle Weed School, Phoenix Public School, Pine Grove School, Rashtriya Military Schools, The Lawrence School, Tashi Namgyal School, The White Eagles School, Army Public School, Air Force Public School participated in the session.

Mr. Vyas spoke on the importance of inculcating entrepreneurial orientation among students so that they could become job-providers rather than job seekers. He emphasized the need for enhancing innovative thinking, analytical skills, risk taking, initiative and leadership skills.