“The most satisfying encounters do not always happen around the elegant tables in nice, warm restaurant.”
– The Zahir, Paulo Coelho

MBA/PGDM, recognized as one of the most enduring courses, is synonymous with professionalism and is believed to be a cache of all the functions of management. Fancy words like team work, leadership, co-ordination, active participation, decision making can be found in any standard business management book. But the bubble burst when the PGDM batch of 2018-2020 was taken for an outbound activity. All these managerial terms floated only in the books until we stuck our neck out to gaze the real functioning.

It’s true that you cannot discern or strike a deal with people where it requires a study of human behavior in the fancy environment. Rather, it goes beyond the table meetings and classroom-learning.
The day started with all of us venturing into the Hidden Castle, which is roughly two hours away from the IMT Hyderabad campus. We reveled in all those activities that transported us back to our adolescence. Nostalgia hit us hard while we indulged in activities like climbing commando net, crossing log over the pool, jumping the huge rolling drums over the water, pool slides, zip-line, treetop walk, bicycle trail and so many other exploits that not only tested our agility but also the co-ordination among peers. The batch of around 200 students was divided into smaller groups of roughly 40 in number and assigned a coordinator who triggered us to savor and channelize the energy in all the activities that followed.

The support of the teammates in climbing the net up, taking the whole team together for an activity, deciding upon the strategy amongst the students whom we’ve hardly known for a week, emboldening the timid to walk across the dark tunnel, pushing people’s guts to go for the tasks they absolutely dreaded – were the elementary stuff during our school days but never knew all this would come back in a B-school in a way no one had ever imagined. The imperative take-away was the real demonstration of maneuvers which students brought with them from different parts of the country. Individual learning which moved my mind was given by one of my batch-mates who said success is not crossing through the pool in one go; but falling in, drenching in the failing reasons, introspecting and moving back to life again. My vigor for fruition of pursuits gave me reasons to boast about. I crossed all the impediments without failing.

“This is not an exam that needs to be aced.”
He said. “It’s a mock life that’s teaching you to dust off when you stumble.”

His seniority, a facet of diversity, indoctrinated the phenomenon that failure is a catalyst for success. Seemingly nerd preaching to some, but to me, who knows, it might prove to be the elixir guaranteed to induce the savor of ascendancy.

This outbound has surely left a lasting impression, full of life lessons on not just a few of us presenting this experience but the whole population who witnessed this learning experience with equal fervor. I’m grateful to the institute for bestowing upon me an amazing opportunity which is going to add up in enriching my profile.

Pooja Mali

Batch of 2018-20