Indian Institute of Management Indore (IIM I) alumni of One Year MBA program for executives (EPGP) had a fun-filled gathering at the campus full of nostalgia and camaraderie. The two-day meet, IIMIKON 2019, was organised by the institute alumni committee on August 10-11, 2019.
Chief Guest Sumit Neogi, VP, HR, Reliance Industries Limited, inaugurated the reunion. He spoke on the theme, “Middle Management Issues”.
“Midlife crisis can start affecting you in the age group of 35-45 years. It is applicable to anyone and leads to emotional and mental stress…the sad part is you realize you were in crisis when you are past the crisis,” Neogi said.
The crisis starts with having doubts about one’s own decisions. He suggested that such people need to speak, if not to friends, to a counselor. “There is nothing is wrong in it,” he said referring to the reluctance among many too seek psychiatric help.
Stress reduction could also be achieved through reflection, like writing a journal, community work and hobbies, like joining a photography or marathon club, he added.
A cultural program by the current EPGP batch followed the speech by the Chief Guest.
On the second day, proceedings resumed with a plantation drive. A conference on the topic — ‘Industry 4.0’ followed. The alumni also participated in a few leadership discussions.
The panellists included Professor Kajari Mukherjee, Faculty, IIM Indore; Rejath Nair, Nissan Digital India and Karan Chatrath, Marketing & Strategy, Aspiring Minds.
They shared their belief that analytics translates to cost savings and that any innovation in the Industry 4.0 era needs to have an ROI component without which the innovation will not be successful.
The gig economy came in for special mention as it was felt that it would be the future of the industry. Finally, the experts advised the current batch to focus on up-skilling, for it is better to focus on learning new skills than to worry about saving old skills.
Sajeev Pathak, Head, CMIT India Business at HP, listed the main attributes that a leader must possess as authenticity, humility, trustworthiness and self-awareness. These are difficult for others to mimic, he added.
Prof Bipul Kumar, Associate Professor, Marketing, at IIM Indore, spoke about the challenges of coming back as a Professor after being an EPGP student.
Manish Dixit spoke about the importance of emotional intelligence for a leader and how important courses in organisation behaviour were in shaping the future leader.