Rajat Gupta, Pramath Sinha and M F Hussain...

Those are the people we at ISB have seen in the past 3 days... Rajat Gupta was here, teaching us Leadership and Transformation... He has chosen cases from companies that went through major transformation and where these transformations were done by ex-Mck employees... He first discussed IBM and Lou Gerstner... Lou was Rajat's next door mate at McK and Rajat quoted extensively from his experiences with IBM and Lou... It was fascinating indeed... He then discussed Harvey Golub and Amex... Harvey was Rajat's mentor when he joined McK... Again, Rajat's insights, given that he had worked with both Robinson, who was the Amex chief before Golub and then Golub, were very interesting...

Pramath talked to us about Mck, consulting in general and the everyday life of a consultant... he spoke extensively about the profession, the pressures, the rewards etc. He gave a lot of useful tips about interviews, resumes and career choices... It was indeed wonderful listening to him describe problem solving and approaches to problem solving... his description of leadership, in terms of trade offs, tough decisions, sacrifices and the ability to make a difference rather than hold a specific position...

MF Hussain was a surprise from Rajat. He suddenly called us all for a talk and disguised the talk to surprise us with the great painter... Hussain saab painted a wonderful little piece for us, right in front of us... I have never seen a painter do one right in front of my eyes... it was a very interesting and novel experience...

The past 3 days have been extremely hectic and eventful too... Hectic because of the workload in the courses... Eventful thanks to all the people who have visited us... Its been an absolute non stop show, with hardly any time to breathe... Now, its easing up a bit but will pump up again when the leadership summit comes through... In the meanwhile, a big team from ISB is in IIMA for the confluence events... Lets see if they can beat the best and win a few prizes!