Prof Rakesh Godhwani of IIM-B and Prof Soumendra Bagchi of XLRI have recently published books. In a first of sorts, we got the professors to review each other’s books.

Below is Prof Soumendra Bagchi’ review of Prof Godhwani’s book titled – Seek: Finding Your True Calling

Rakesh Godhwani

The book is a finely packed collection of histories of ten different alumni of IIM Bangalore and structured into three distinct sections. The first section, represented by the first chapter discusses the subject of the book and motivation of the author. The second section titled “Been there done that” consists of 10 chapters, chronicles of the career paths followed by 10 IIM-B alumni from a wide spectrum – PSUs, advertising, Civil Services, banking and finance, media, marketing, IT/Technology, investment banking, venture capital funds, FMCG, to management consultancy.

The career paths of the alumni presented in the second section, in the form of 10 chapters, provide a broad view of different possibilities. Of course, this is not exhaustive nor can one expect it to be in the limited space of a book. These 10 life histories of the alumni can be treated as case studies or one can study the lessons embodied. At times the book does become pedantic, but it is a good reinforcement of these ideas.

The life stories are not planned, the role of serendipity makes its presence felt in almost all the ten stories. While the last section talks of detailed analysis and preparation, the role of random chance will not be lost out on the reader. While seemingly contradictory, one would benefit from the entire exercise as it is well aligned to the age old dictum of fortune favoring the prepared. After all there is no such thing as perfect knowledge as is taught in the micro-economic courses dominated by neoclassical economic philosophy in almost all of the IIMs.

However the best part of the book is at the end where Rakesh goes beyond IIM-B alumni and takes examples from fields as diverse as religion, movie making, etc., with examples of Director Ang Lee and Dashrath Manjhi, also known as the mountain man. It is this section which is the best part of the book and one wishes this section was more. Not only this section moves away from management students and looks at career and life in far broader perspective than the life histories portray, this section truly addresses the questions raised in the initial pages. That there are careers beyond managers in corporations, like that of music, languages, or social work, is probably the most powerful message one would take from this book, which, however comes at the very end.

Though probably written to target aspirants to management career, and the management students in different management institutes in the country, this book could have reached out to a wider audience by not confining the life histories to just IIM-B graduates. Unless, of course, the target audience is limited to that.