Uncle Bala's First Class

Bala V. Balachandran, Dean Great Lakes also popular as Uncle Bala between his students addressed us for the first time yesterday. He has been teaching Accounting in the Kellogg’s Business school and has been a founder member of MDI, ISB and Great Lakes. We probably do not realize how big he is now, may be few posts later we all will know. It was his introductory speech and his amazing/unmatched energy, being 72 years was more than all 300 of us together had that morning (Quiet evident from the not so impressive good morning roar). There were a few things that he touched which I will write here.

3 Rules of Uncle Bala
1) Nothing is free. There are no free lunches.
2) Not only figures can lie. Liars can figure out too.
3) For every Free Loader, there is an equal and opposite sucker.

Uncle Bala is a true believer of Lord Ganesha which is evident from the fact that there is a newly built temple inside the campus. Uncle Bala says there is only one CEO and that is Lord Ganesha. He says, every CEO should be like Lord Ganesha.
1) Big Head. CEO should have huge brain to run the company and formulate policies to successfully run it.
2) Lord Ganesha has 2 sets of teeth. Inner one is not shown that means not all information are to be shared with the market. Inner teeth smells bad in his words.
3) Lord Ganesha's one tusk is broken that means there is no ego. CEO should not let someone feed his ego.
4) Very attentive and analytic. If you look at a Lord Ganesha's pic and move away, the eyes follow.
5) CEO should have Lord Ganesha's big ears. He should be an active listener.
6) Trunk. It can uproot anything and find the minute details at the same time. There is no engineering machinery created till date which can do both.
7) Pot Belly. CEO should be thick skinned to take criticism. Tough leaders don’t want praises all the time.
8) 2 Legs one of which is folded and the other one is straight. Folded one is like expense/cash outflow. The straighter one is deep rooted and reflects revenue/profit/cash inflow.
9) Laddus are incentives that he gives for a good job and kicks ass for a lousy one.

The description was amazing when he described these with examples.
Uncle Bala is going to teach us Accounting. More posts to follow.

Cheers’