Decision Making for XAT 2014

XAT, as "they" say, is one of the tougher management entrance exams. I would rather disagree with the "tough" part. Gone are those days. There are many of us who cracked this test, and believe me, not many would classify it as insanely difficult.
The exam is characterised mainly by the Decision Making section. After getting a lot of requests regarding how to tackle this area in the exam, I decided to pen down my thoughts about this.
To generally be able to ace this section, you need to develop a basic understanding of how the businesses and life in general works. Whatever decisions we take in life are meant to satisfy as many stakeholders as possible. Same goes for DM caselets too. You need to make sure that whatever decision you take is ethically and morally correct as also favourable for as many parties as possible.
This sense of taking the right decision, as we know, comes through practice. From my experience of preparing for XAT, the material provided by the coaching institutes currently is, frankly, not very enlightening. One needs a concrete source of preparation for DM because generally this is where most of the toppers get differentiated.
There was an extreme dearth of study material when I was preparing. My only preparation for DM, in fact, was solving the old XAT question papers and making my own assumptions, which you would realize is a very haphazard method.

So how exactly do we tackle this problem? The answer to this lies in the word “process”. To make sure that we are not on the wrong path while solving the questions in the DM section, we have to go step by step. The first step would inadvertently be clearing your mind of biases and favoritisms. We have quite a few preconceived notions in our mind which might make it difficult for us to think straight. So let go of such inhibitions and make sure that you are using only the data given in the question to solve it. No more no less. The second step would be to put yourself in the shoes of the person making the decision. It might be the CEO, the Sales Head or the HR head of the company. Then take a look at and consider which all stakeholders might be affected by taking the decision. Then among the options choose the decision which satisfies the earlier criteria mentioned, i.e. an ethical decision taking care of as many stakeholders as possible.

Now when you are in the exam hall, you are not going to do this so slow. You have to respect the time and make sure that you get the most out of this section. And that is where your practice comes in. If you have solved a number of DM questions beforehand, you already have a feel of what’s in store when a particular question is asked. The best source to practice is undoubtedly the previous XAT papers. You can easily find the papers and answer keys on the internet and solving them will give you a definite edge while attempting the questions in the exam. A very important thing to consider while solving these is to make sure that if you get an answer wrong, rather than just looking the correct answer, you go through the process of making the decision as described in the key. Reason it out to yourself regarding why you got the question wrong and what you could have done to avoid it.

All this and you will be pretty much good to go!!

If you have any queries, please post in the comments. We here would be more than happy to answer them.

Is there any hope in Syria?

After more than 2 years of civil war and death of more than hundred thousand people, Syria seems to be a quagmire for the western world where they wanted a regime change for strategic reasons but instead they have made Syria what Afghanistan was after the Soviet with drawl. And although US did suffer for supporting Taliban, which provided sanctuary to Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, they seems to have made the same mistake again.

Indeed there were some genuine grievances of people in Homs and other areas when the Syrian Civil War started but it was soon misused by other regional powers like Turkey and Saudi Arabia for ideological purposes by hitting on the historical differences between the Sunni's and the Alawites. US and other western nations, in particular France and UK, saw this as an opportunity to bring about a regime change for their own strategic purposes. And then there were Russia, which has a naval base in Syria, and Iran to complete the whole gamut of ideological and strategic reasons for the push and pull that was seen in the last 2 years. Iran uses Syria for transferring arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon. For Russia, Syria serves as a naval base (Material-Technical Support Point) to support its operations in the Mediterranean. 

Thus the Great War was started with both sides using everything in their arsenal to take Syria into their control. Alawites, an off-shoot of Shia's, want Assad to continue as they have seen the massacre perpetrated on them by the Sunni's and are afraid of the same if Syria is ruled by Islamic Fundamentalists. Saudi Arabia on the other hand want the Sunni's to rule Syria as they believe that Shia's are a danger to their ideology in the long run. And although the Syrian border is relatively peaceful for Israel after taking the Golan Heights in the Six Day war, still Israel is concerned about the arms supply to Hezbollah in Lebanon through Syria by Iran. Thus it wanted a regime change which would be a puppet of West and Saudi Arabia and thus that would stop the material support to Hezbollah for its operations against Israel.

The West was on a high in 2011, having killed Muammar al-Gaddafi in Libya and was hopping to do the same in Syria. It was unaware of the consequences of assassinating Gaddafi as to what will be its impact on Libya. Two years down the line we can see Libya divided on tribal lines with militias rather than military controlling the country and one where even the PM can be kidnapped by the militias for airing views against them.

Since regional countries like Saudi Arabia and Turkey wanted a regime change at any cost, they supported anyone and everyone with weapons which has led to the present situation where the Free Syrian Army is being pushed away by more radical and fundamental groups like the Islamic Front dominated by Salafis – Sunni Muslims who hold to puritanical and literalist readings of Islam working with the al-Qaeda-aligned Jabhat al-Nusra on the battlefield, and welcomes recruits from among the thousands of foreign fighters – including the thousand-plus European Muslims – who have travelled to Syria to fight Assad. Then there are groups like Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham which are most powerful jihadist group in Syria. The moderates in Free Syrian Army are unable to do much on the battlefield in the presence of these groups as they even fight with the FSA for ideological or territorial disputes thus prompting the US and UK to suspend its non-lethal aid to FSA in the light of its communication equipment’s being stolen by the radical Islamist groups after ransacking of the FSA base.

On the other hand Russia provided critical arms to Syria and Iran's Revolutionary Guards provide training to Syria's Army along with crucial intelligence. Iran also ensured support for Syria from the Hezbollah’s well-trained fighters. After the accusation of use of chemical weapons by Assad's forces, Russia played a critical role in ensuring that a deal is reached wherein the chemical weapons will be destroyed in lieu of the West not attacking Syria.

The situation on ground in Syria right now is such that Assad's forces are winning the battle on the field as the West is unsure about providing support to the radical Islamist rebels while the FSA and moderates are thinning out. With the help of Hezbollah, Syria has been able to gain strategic victories on the ground and may be able to secure the routes to Lebanon, thus cutting off the rebel supply routes. This could tighten Assad's grip over the north-south axis of the country, protect the pro-Assad coastal areas, and choke off rebel links in and out of Lebanon.

Syrian National Coalition, the political body linked to the moderate rebels – have little ability to influence events on the ground; those with the influence, like the Islamic Front, will not show up at the  so-called Geneva II conference set for January 22 backed by US and Russia. With Assad winning on ground and the SNC having little influence on the radicals, it seems that the only hope for Syria is if Syrian Army takes control over the nation and drives out the radicals. There is no way that the moderates in FSA can have any impact now as the window of opportunity has passed for them. It is either Assad or the radicals fighting for control as the West is thinking "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know". So Western efforts will now turn to containment: shielding Lebanon, Turkey, Israel, and Iraq from the spill-over, checking the spread of jihadists, tracking European fighters returning to their home countries, destroying Syria’s chemical weapons, and praying that next year’s peace talks do not degenerate into a complete farce.

HOPE

Hope: - good, great, or the greatest of the things ever!!!

It has been a debatable point since ages whether hope or rather being hopeful is good or bad. In my mind though, the picture is crystal clear. For me hope can only be the greatest of the things ever created by the almighty. Hope has been the most relevant of the emotional states that have changed people’s life over the years, for good or for bad! Its people’s perspective that makes hope vary from being an angel in the dark and an evil in the paradise.

Now, the catch lies how people segregate the two most intricately bound words “hope” and “expectation”. Expectation pertains to something called” false hope” which mainly refers to a kind of hope entirely around fantasy or an extreme unlikely outcome. But if hope is understood properly, and idea about it is as clear as a bright sunny day then it is an unbeatable wizard.

In Greek mythology hope is personified as ELPIS. Pandora brought the god’s gift to the mankind called Pandora’s Box, which on the contrary contained all the evils, but the greatest worldly good- hope. For god did not want man to throw his life away, no matter how intensely the other evils tormented him, but rather to go on letting him be tormented again. Thus, he gave mankind hope which can be described by either of the ways, the most evil of evils as it prolongs man’s torment or the greatest gift to the mankind which enlightens the haziest sight and converges all the scattered beams to clearly show the way leading to one’s eternal satisfaction.

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never loose the infinite hope” something so meaningful, said by sir Martin Luther King. If the finite disappointment is overlooked, we fail to understand where advents the mistake and if loose the infinite hope we fail to get reconciled and leave behind all the afflictions we had gone through. Hope is a thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without words, and never stops at all. Hope is the only known possible thing that has no boundaries, no contours. It’s like a bird that flies, flies with no barriers.

We have two ways of living, either die being a pessimist and accept all the contemplations of life or change the vicissitudes but hoping about the betterment and die fighting. Choice is all yours. How you lead a life? Living for an aim or accepting an aimless life, all lies within you. Had freedom fighters never fought the battle they did, would we have lived our lives they way we are?  A certain answer, no, a sorrowful no. there could be 1000 similar instances where the magic of hope has been revealed, not once, not twice but for innumerous times.

all the adages ever quoted about hope give just one conclusion" never say die", just keep hoping". Keep fighting till the point u attain the desired. Remember,” fear can hold u prisoner, hope can set u free”. Even a free man turns a prisoner the moment his hope dies and a prisoner lives life to the fullest if he hopes, even if for the smallest of the things.    Good or bad, life would always show its varying colors, the only thing that makes it bright is " HOPE".

XL uninterrupted!!

                               

    Writing for the XL times does give one the feeling of belonging to the alma mater which has been our home for the past five months.It is a place to blog about experiences with the people, the place and life in general.It is interesting to see the same place and situations through the eyes of some one else. It just goes to show the myriad ways in which we interpret and experience the same events. 

     First of all beginning with myself. I am short, sweet and simple with a dash of sarcasm and dollops of quirk.  My imagination knows no boundaries and I seldom take the beaten path, often wandering off on my own or with friends having the same aberrant gene. A doctor by profession having forayed into the tmtwr of Xl is some indication of the same. Travelling is my passion and I mean to cover all the places on the list I have before my joints become too creeky to move. Even then I’ll probably zoom around in my wheelychair but hopefully the world would have invented jet packs by then to spare me the trouble. I would rate myself as an ‘exceeds expectations’ as a singer, ’ a have feet will prance’ as a dancer and an ‘oh swoon she is so good’ as a whistler. I write some deep stuff occasionally and some random pearls of crap pretty often.

      After harping my own praises I would like to talk about how I find XL to be my kind of place. With the late nights, the music flowing from bodhi, my gregarious classmates, life is pretty happening and fun here. The studies are entirely alien to me. From studying Medicine and Surgery when I took to studying QT and MANAC, there were definitely times when I wanted to run screaming for the hills. The sheer amount taught in the short span of time seemed unsurmountable at first. But through the aid of my ever helping batchmates, things seemed within reach.

      There is so much to do, so many deadlines to meet, friends to catch and chat up with that you dont get the time to get bored. I think we all will recall vividly what a living hell the first week was. The sleepless days, the assignments....I still get shivers when I think about how I got cold feet about my MBA decision then. Nevertheless, events like the MAXI Bazaar and Nukkad Nataks kept our spirits alive. Before we knew it we were part of the XL culture, speaking the lingo, enjoying the wet nights and taking the deadlines in our stride. 

With the passing semesters the life here has given us the memories of the outbound and the village trips where we displayed team work and tested our stamina to the hilt. I feel like I have learnt so much after coming here and I am not referring to the studies alone. 

XL is special already....glad to be here. XL meri jaan!!

XL-My Way!

Lately it has been all work, work and work. And then you realize it is play, play and play.XL helps you experience the two poles before you can realize what exactly this place has to offer. The first day you see many happy souls in awe of the place but as time passes their happiness is eclipsed by the almighty assignments and their soul mates (read deadlines).Orientation program made us suspect that our XAT percentile might be a fluke but the actual lectures confirmed all our doubts.

Classes began with a lecture in accounting where our so called knowledge went for a toss and we were forced to believe that profit is a liability and loss is an asset. Really? Yes. We were advised to do a very beautiful thing with our prior knowledge-“Forget it”. This is where I realized that forgetting things is not always hassle free.Quantitaive Techniques made us aware that we were worthless as engineers and that XLRI is always there to rectify our mistakes. So it was high time that urns, colorful balls, coins and dice started to fight for a noble cause and as would be responsible managers we began to solve their problems.

Campus does play an important role in helping us survive. Although the XL website gave a lot of insights about the campus and the offerings, they didn’t explain things to my satisfaction. The experience seemed much better. The greenery, the lawns (always smiling) are splendid and they justified the fees that XL charges. I got my housing placement at The Father Enright Men’s Residence, which is the residence for the fresher batch. The very first day I got a taste of the professionalism that is maintained here.The security guard greeted me and handed over the student manual. At first I knew only my roommate, but now through the various activities I have grown to love and be loved by the people I live with.XL indeed feels like home.

There are loads of events happening which comes as a great relief from the academic work. For the first time I am witnessing these events taking place at such a huge scale. Most of these events are one of their kinds and extremely respectable all over the country. A unique thing that makes XLRI more special is the outbound programme and the adventure trip. As the seniors say it the best thing that will happen at XL.Looking forward for that trip.

XL ki kudiyaan-yes they are very very smart and they easily are a testimony to the fact that beauty and brains do go hand in hand. Some of the best colleges in the country have sent their products here, although the engineers rule the roost. Girls still make the guys work very hard with their percentage being roughly 33.33.

The mess strives to serve good food but then we want more. We don’t have a wide variety of food but it qualifies to be nutritious and hygienic. The best part is you can avail infinite servings at all meals. The library, as I have heard, is pretty huge and serves your appetite to read. I would be in a better position to describe this holy place once I visit it.

Dates in the calendar are closer than they appear.Mid-terms about to begin from 16^th.So tension looming charge. All sorts of calculations going on in our heads to survive the war. Although by now we are clear this is no engineering college and last minute study cannot rescue us.So,we are trying to follow a continual studying process, so that we are in touch with the happenings in the class.An important disclaimer still remains that who tries tries,who does does.

After two weeks in the saddle, it is easy to fall asleep early and get ready for the biggest,longest and never ending lecture of the weekend—Quantitative Techniques.

You never know what you will find around there!

My experiments with MBA - First Quarter at XL

As I sit in the class staring blankly at the slides being displayed, my mind wanders off (as it often does :D) and I start to think about everything that has happened since I entered the hallowed gates of XLRI. What have the past six months really meant to me? - Chaotic for sure filled with intense yet fun and challenging moments

Like everyone who gets a chance to be here, I too entered this place with a lot of energy, passion (the elusive quality everybody seems to be looking for!!) and a fair bit of confidence (a shade of overconfidence maybe, time will tell...)in myself and my abilities. Then it came..BAM!! Reality hit me hard in the face and I found out that I was not good at a whole bunch of things. And here are a few lessons that I have learnt during these six months.

Humility - You don’t really know as much you think you know

Getting into a B-School, you are likely to believe that you are up there, the best of the lot, the crème de la crème so to say (which to a certain extent, is true!!). Many people here graduated top of the school, gold medallists in college and an awesome job to back that up, but there is quite a high probability that many are still idiots (me included!) when it comes to business. And it’s not their fault. Business is something which comes with experience and that has no substitute. There may be examples to the contrary but what I say this is true for majority of the population. The good news is, MBA education will shatter your dream world and bring you back to reality.

I learnt I wasn’t here for a walk in the park. Even in such a short span I have learnt quite a bit in areas I thought I was good at and discovered many which I didn’t even know existed. Being humbled is one the best things that has happened since it will help me not only in my education here but also in my life. Learning stops if you have a chip on your shoulder and believe that you know it all. XL makes sure you realize that.

Stay Calm

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!

These lines from Rudyard Kipling’s “If” pretty much sum up everything that you need to do at a B school and in life, especially the part about keeping your head. Life at a B school comes with a lot of opportunities. But along with them come the deadlines and the stress associated with them. There have been days when I had to prepare for 2 exams the next day all the while staring down the barrel of 3 deadlines. Times like these can be pretty overwhelming. The only way to deal with this is to stay calm and believe in yourself. That and believing in the age old maxim “This too shall pass”  J.This will continue to remain true for ever. B schools just give you a taste of and prepare you for life ahead.

Bite off only what you can chew

Everybody has their strengths and weaknesses, acknowledge them

Just because you are not good at something does not mean that you are no good. There are people here who are absolutely brilliant at some courses and almost pathetically bad in some others. Over a period of time I realized that living my life with this attitude was simply not healthy. I too had my strengths. Just needed to figure out my strengths and leverage them.

This is also true in life. It’s okay to have both strengths and weaknesses. In fact it’s only human to be so. We are all imperfect (except of course if you are Sachin. He is perfect. He is God!).Play to your strengths, acknowledge you weaknesses and work on them. Success will automatically follow. This certainly is one of the biggest takeaways from my time here till now.

Make friends, not contacts

A lot is said about how you need to “network” and build “contacts” in a B school. I saw a lot of people get into the mad rush of networking without really knowing where they were going with that. I too tried to become a part of the crowd and was tempted to do what everyone was doing. But the last few months have made me realize one thing-To Make friends, not contacts. Be social, interact and try to build relationships with people as opposed to a network in the MBA sense of the term. The friends that you make and the kind of relationships you build are what determine the course of your life

And now we come to the most important part of this article. The most important thing that life here has taught me, the magic ingredient, the holy grail of all MBA’s and it is..wait for it...GAS!! ( Globally Accepted Shit, Is it??). Don’t have a clue about the problem or its solution, GAS away. The answer to life ,the universe and everything else is not 42 (Sorry Douglas Adams!) but GAS. For those who did not get the context, either read up Douglas Adams or better dismiss this line as a piece of GAS and move on.

There are many other things that life here has taught me, but the professor is really starting to stare at me and I need to concentrate fully on sleeping with my eyes open and giving the impression that I’m listening. Signing off till the next time.

– Srilu. 

Self Loathing

So this is what it has come down to. Sitting in the middle of the day, surrounded by people I don’t care about and spewing out a diatribe about how everything now is so pointless. We, the evolved humans of the 21^st century are lost. We are looking for meaning and direction in all the wrong places. Actually let me re-phrase it. We should stop looking for meaning and direction altogether, at any place. There is no meaning, there is no direction. Even though I don’t know what it was like, I believe we have missed the train to that destination ever since we left the simpler decades. It’s not our fault. We were just plain unlucky to have been born in the wrong time. Why, you ask? Everything was so much better back then. The music, the alcohol, the drugs even the women. It is all so much artificial now. We listen to pseudo-music, drink pseudo-alcohol, consume pseudo-drugs and date pseudo-women. They are all too perfectly aligned with our ideas of what good music, alcohol and music should be like. They are so perfect that they give away the fact that they are fabrications. I don’t want perfection. I don’t want heaven. I want more of the same. The same feeling that I get when I smell the woman I love, with all her imperfections. The same feeling that I get when I listen to a rock ballad in the middle of a quiet night with a glass of cheap whiskey in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Instead, now I am being judged and asked to judge others based on criteria that the internet has decided. The internet which was supposed to emancipate us has instead made us slaves to the views and ideas of a collective entity and we are supposed to conform to those, or else, we are labeled. We communicate with each other in pseudo-English and are slowly but surely tweeting and updating our Facebook statuses to death. And the worst part is that I am out there doing the same. I too am out there, conforming. Hence, the self loathing.