An interesting strategy building session at AU ..

It was interesting to have an interesting 4 hour interaction of Area Chairs with Prof. Dr. B V Krishnamurthy, the Advisor to the Pro Chancellor of Alliance University in Bangalore on the first of April 2021. 

 

We are taking up the step after a Bench marking session, an Operations Strategy exercise where our University was bench marked to some of the world's best and we fixed the targets to reach these standards in the next five to ten years. It was great to see an Operations strategy exercise to compare our Institution with the best in the country being deployed in our University. (Click here for the HBR paper How to measure yourself against the best, Tucker et al, Jan '87 that mentions Xerox's experience initially with Bench marking and how it grew to be global in quality eventually)

We brainstormed over 4 hours on Thursday from 10.30 AM to 4.30 PM to find how to proceed to beat the competition and remain among the top in the NIRF survey where we were ranked among the only three schools in the top Bschools from Karnataka along with IIM Bangalore and TAPMI, Manipal. Other business schools were far behind and we hope in the near future they will offer us credible challenge and competition to the top position. 

Some of the interesting points that came up for discussion with the Area Chairs is mentioned here with illustrations. 

Mentorship : 

Mentorship is the influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the personal and professional growth of a mentee. Wikipedia 

The purpose of mentoring is to tap into the existing knowledge, skills, and experience of senior or high performing employees and transfer these skills to newer or less experienced employees in order to advance their careers. - www.togetherplatform.com 

One of the most important points was to start mentorship with a different meaning and scope, this time instead of the faculty deciding the mentees, the mentees will decide which faculty member will be their mentees for the next one or two years, till the student passes out of the University. This is a real challenge to the faculty as they will be put to test in the eyes of the students. Students would naturally like to align with those faculty whom they feel will help them with good quality industry knowledge enabling them to perform and shine in the truly competitive business world. (click here for an interesting HBR article on mentorship in August '20 by Landry and Lewiss)

Detention of the bottom 5% : As is being done usually in some of the top ranked Bschools of the world, to bring competition and excellence inside the classroom, the bottom 5% is detained or asked to repeat the course. For Institutions with high academic performance and global rankings, industry work experience requirements and high GMAT entry scores are a must. One of the AU  faculty member's son happens to be studying in IESE Barcelona where the last 5% of the class is asked to repeat the course. In the said Institute for a course on Economics while the boy scored 90%, the class average was 92% and the 5 percentile score was 76%. The students at the bottom 5% percentile were asked to reappear in the subjects in the following semester. ie. 95 percentage of students in the class scored above 76%. The class average of 92% was indicative of the high academic standards in IESE Business school, Barcelona, the Economist global #1 ranked Bschool of 2021 .. Can we employ similar standards in ASB ?

Some of the other interesting points that were discussed included 

1. Taking concrete steps to improve peer learning 

2. Incorporating SWAYAM MOOCS from Govt of India to help improve the quality of instruction delivery.

3. Proposal for faculty to prepare a detailed subject outline for any subject which was currently being taught and to follow it up for all subjects in future

4. Taking steps to improving the strike rate of student placement from the 5-7 lakh band presently to 7-11 lakh band 

As per Prof. Krishnamurthy, when the 

• faculty demonstrates real passion for teaching and 
• students know that the faculty member really cares in their individual growth and continuous excellence, 

it results in the success of the student and faculty relationship.

We hope to discuss some more exciting practical points in the coming days.

George