Globe !

Today I wish to speak about a phenomenon very common in every B-school - GLOBE ! The nomenclature might be different, but the concept is omnipresent and penetrates every kind of business school in the country and probably elsewhere. In fact, not only business schools, 'globe' is usually the major constituent of most casual discussions and political manifestos. Globe is vague, but ususally delivered specific to a context. Being such an inseparable part and parcel of our lives, it was not a surprise to see that the Student's Cultural Committee had chosen 'Globe' as the theme for Unmaad - IIMB's Cultural Festival.

The thought of writing about globe did strike me very early in the first term itself, but the complexity of the task coupled with the 'hectic' schedule here forced me to procastinate unwillingly for an incredibly long time. 'Globe' is most evident during case discussions. As soon as the professor asks for comments on the case, he announces WAR. A shrewd battle of confidence, dominance and timing to put in the much needed CP a.k.a Class Participation, which is one of the graded components of our 'performance' in some courses, starts and the proper identiable aspects are covered within the first two minutes. This is exactly the point when globe starts to come into the picture. Often this is in the form of someone very cleverly trying to paraphrase one of the already mentioned points and trying to project it as a new direction. 'High level globes' like 'their procurement strategy needs to be improved', 'the discontent needs to be addressed', 'the environment is dynamic and the company needs to be flexible in its outlook' are some examples which give a very broad outline of what is obvious, but no specific way as to how to go about achieving these objectives.

Now, I am not at all against the idea of globe. In fact, it turns out to be the only savior while writing project proposals. One glance at most of the project proposals submitted will make you wonder if these guys are actually going to change the way business is carried out world over. However, a closer glance will reveal time-perfected techniques of putting in globe at the crucial and critical places without going into the details. I dread to even think of the reaction of people who would have read 350 of our "Cover Letters" and "Statement of Purposes", which is nothing but well-articulated and formatted globe. A perfect example of globe could be this very blog post, where nothing substantial has been written, yet it might give the impression that I have pondered enough about 'globe' and took a lot of pain to actually put down what qualifies as globe.