I have just completed my first year at IMI New Delhi. It wasn't the year I wanted it to be but I have gained a lot from it. There have been some great lessons I've learned, some eye-opening perspectives I've been exposed to and most importantly, I got an environment that allowed me to grow. Through this year, I learned a lot of things but below I'll talk about the few that I believe to be the most important things I've learned in my PGDM journey at IMI New Delhi.
Accountability and proactivity are rewarded:
Accountability was the word that I had been obsessed with ever since I wanted to do management studies. To be held accountable for my actions should be something rather simple. It has happened through the years. If I broke a mug, it was my fault and I'd be held accountable. And though it really is that simple, when the stakes are higher than something intrinsically motivational, you really learn the value of who you are, what you are doing, why you are doing it, and how important it is. "Value" as a topic is essential in any management course and accountability taught me to better value myself and understand how I value others. I can partly accredit my growth in terms of confidence, teamwork, and leadership skills to accountability.
Having read a lot of "top 10 ways to succeed in your career", I have come across the point of being "proactive". These lists showcased proactivity could be in the form of taking up extra tasks from your seniors and peers at work. This proactivity, from the outside looking in, seemed troublesome and unnecessary at first. In retrospect though, I now see that taking up new initiatives and pushing for their completion has good connotations. Not only did my ownership of my actions increase but also did the recognition of my doings from my peers. The benefits are just by-products of the great learning curve I had to go through. Proactivity and accountability are very rewarding lessons to me as they both provided me with opportunities I would have otherwise passed up.
Responsibility rather than power:
Feeling responsible is quite different from accountable, in case someone wants to point it out. I used to think they were more similar than they truly are. Responsibility falls more in the range of a sense of duty and accountability is more around the ownership of one's actions. An important learning point this year was how a manager is made. In my opinion, a manager is made not through the power bestowed in the role but because of dutifulness. This dutifulness could be in terms of completion of a set of tasks, making sure you're able to help others in your team perform at their best, or doing things with a sense of ownership instead of just doing them for the sake of getting them done. This year taught me that Responsibility is a factor I would like to work on rather than abusing a power that may be bestowed upon me. As someone who believes in leading by example, understanding the potential of my sense of responsibility has helped me learn a lot about the values I personally believe in.
Prioritise, not sacrifice:
I know that I have sacrificed some things in my life but the understanding of opportunity cost in day-to-day life rather than just the business world has taught me that most of what I do, is down to my preferences and priorities. I had to say no to a number of things that I would have rather been a part of and enjoyed than the tasks where I had to toil to complete them. At first, I thought that my life part of the work-life balance was getting ruined. Only after the first few months did I realise that I was prioritising certain things over others. This may have been choosing to work on a project rather than watching a movie or saying no to an acquaintance who wants me to do something I don't need to. I believe that this year has changed my perspective on how essential prioritising is.
Learning ≠ studying:
I have something to admit. I did not study much during my under graduation years. I feel that I did more then than now. And yet, the amount I've learned over the past year is immense. IMI has a good amount of diversity, especially in terms of the opinions and perspectives that my peers and professors brought to the table. Every time there was a discussion in class, I got to learn more about how I could approach an issue in a million ways that I didn't know even existed. I had my inhibitions about the online medium affecting my learnings but, I guess, where there's a number of willing people, they'll forge a path for mutual growth. Studying may be one way to learn. It may even be the best path to get marks! And still, I think that accepting the larger part of learning that is not restricted to just a textbook was very important.
Although the pandemic caused the whole experience to be online, I believe that I don't regret much of this year gone by. I would have definitely preferred to be in an offline setting but I believe that I needed to talk about my experience. It wasn't as bad as I had originally thought an online MBA would be like. I believe that I have made some lifelong friends and had the opportunity to learn from probably the best teachers I have ever come across. The year was full of ups and downs, be them academic, personal, or in the form of challenges faced as a part of groups. A number of my expectations went unfulfilled and with this being potentially my last form of formal education, I do have a few regrets. All in all, my first year at IMI New Delhi had more factors redeeming the year than those potentially making me believe otherwise.
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