1-Day Workshop at JNCE, Mahbubnagar

Yesterday morning, March 20, 2010, Vasanth of Business Line, Hyderabad, organized a lecture at Jayaprakash Narayan College of Engineering, Mahbubnagar as part of the Business Line Club lecture initiative to MBA colleges. Since we were going that far I suggested that we do a 1-day condensed workshop of 'Recognizing Excellence Within' which might be more beneficial to the students. Vasanth agreed and the college was more than willing, so I sent out the handouts to be photocopied in advance. The student strength was estimated to be about 80 which was a good number.
We started out at 730 am with Vasanth picking me up in his new Mahindra Xylo which was spacious, powerful and comfortable. We picked up his colleague Mahesh and the Regional Manager of The Hindu Mr. Ranga Reddy and then picked up another resource person Mr. Madhavan of Powergrid who was to lecture at another MBA Institute in Kurnool. By the time we reached Msahbubnagar it was almost 11 am. We were introduced to the Chairman Mr. Ravi Kumar, a young, forthright and enthusiastic person and after the initial interaction with the students we started the session at 12 noon.
There were about 70-80 students - the young ladies outnumbering the young gentlemen, all dressed out smartly in blazers. We did the first two sessions of the workshop - knowing oneself, knowing one's strengths and making a positive statement with all their strengths, knowing one's goals, and the process of achieving those goals - till about 2 in the afternoon before breaking for lunch.
In the post lunch session we worked on the current level of preparation, steps to improve in chosen areas, knowing one's worth, the various talents that can be used, importance of belief in oneself, the state of excellence and how to sustain it - till almost 5 in the evening.
Full credit to the students for having sat through a rather difficult workshop and for working on themselves till the end with good humor and spirit. The student interaction was rather limited to two or three students but then there was lots of hard, new, introspective content and not enough time for the rest to warm up. I only hope that they got some messages to improve their self-worth which is what the workshop finally aims at.
The Chairman Shri Ravi Kumar was insistent that I speak to the faculty as well for a short session and I did address them on the same issues of excellence and giving 100% to the job. The Principal Shri Subhash Kulkarni said that maybe we could do a Faculty Development Program at some point and maybe a longer workshop for the students which is a good idea. We wound up with Mr. Ranga Reddy giving me a fine crystal fruit vase as a gift.
The Business Line Club initiative is a wonderful initiative and the team led by Vasanth is doing a great job. Karur Vysya Bank has now joined the activity as a sponsor which is good news.
I enjoyed the outing and wished that I had a couple of hours more with the students. If we had started at 10 am and did away with some of the formalities, it would have given me more time with the students. Maybe we could schedule that better next time!