• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• Business Line
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Manu S. Dua, VP, Corporate Sales and Structuring, Citigroup

After working for almost a year as an engineer after his B.Tech from IIT, Kanpur, Manu S Dua, VP, Corporate Sales and Structuring, Citigroup, realised that while he was contributing technically to his personal growth and the company's, he felt he was greatly handicapped "due to my lack of knowledge in other subject areas, especially finance and economics. I also realised that I was not very articulate and cogent in expressing my thoughts. Hence, I decided to do an MBA from IIM Lucknow."

On what B-school taught him ...

Apart from regular courses that I did, three particular things that I learnt and use extensively in my daily life are: Regularly asking myself the question as to "What is my role, what I am doing?" I keep on asking this question to myself not only in professional situations but even in personal situations. This helps me structure my thought process. Secondly, there is nothing called quality control i.e. the quality begins with you and ends at you. We may be able to set up hundreds of quality control processes. However, if quality is not part of the culture the output would be below expectations. And, lastly, the process of writing and rewriting my own obituary! This has helped me to give some shape to my long-term vision of my life. Every now and then I go and check my life scorecard with the vision and as appropriate, either change my actions/thought process or tinker with the vision.

On what it ought to have taught ...

I really don't know what else the B-school could have taught. It taught me the importance of managing self. It taught me the importance of managing the greatest asset of any organisation i.e. the people and their expectations. It taught me the importance of team work/ camaraderie. So many other soft skills which have become part of me. Well, yes the school could have done few more case studies in marketing, few more concepts in statistics ... however, I don't think it is important. The bottomline is that the softer skills I imbibed in those two years are what actually matters and these have helped me grow both personally and professionally.

More Stories on : Management | Sid Says | People

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Spreading their wings

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line