The LRB phenomenon....

In the IIMA classrooms, LRB deliberately cultivated a tough, no-nonsense image. He had an acerbic wit and did not tolerate looseness. A student commented, "On the whole, do we affectionately remember Labdhi? I doubt we had such emotional involvement. Some of us, who have been victims of his ruthless massacre hated to love him." In 1987, the PGP batch published, in jest, a case on the "Labdhi Bhandari phenomenon" in the weekly campus magazine. It was republished a year later, after his death. It makes amusing reading today. 

The need for deification - A case study of the Labdhi Bhandari phenomenon.

At the outset, the author would like to make the following points clear.

1. This paper is an academic exercise concerned with issues and concepts and not personalities. The author, therefore, analyses Labdhi Bhandari (henceforth called LRB) as a concept and not a mere personality.

2. The author has high regard for the professional abilities of LRB. Thus a discussion of the positive attributes (as perceived by the author) should noir be construed as sycophancy and a reference to the negative attributes (as perceived by the authors) as a criticism or LRB.

Some hypotheses and definitions:

1. There is an organic need for deification in every human being.

2. Idol is what people aspire to become but cannot become.

3. Leader is man of masses - with whom everybody can identify. Idol, in contrast, is not a part of the masses. People hope to ape him but realize that such is not possible.

4. For the idol to maintain its mysticism, a deliberate attempt to be enigmatic is essential.

5. The more the brilliance of X, higher would be his reverence for Y, provided he is convinced that Y is better than him.

IIMA ethos:

1. The bulk of the students at IIMA come here after a successful stint in academics. They are ambitious and believe themselves to be the 'chosen people'. Some of them might also think that the entire earth is somewhere near their navel.

2. Aggression of IIMA students reflects the desire to prove to themselves and to others that they are the best. Armed with modern techniques many have the following attitude - "We have the solution; where is the problem?"

LRB Phenomenon:

State 1 (1986-87)

PGP II : What? LRB is teaching you? Lucky guys!!

PGP I : Why?

PGP II : You don't what LRB is? You must be dumb (PGP I turns red). He is the highest paid consultant in India. He has launched......he is good! Second batch of PGDM! His thesis was the best in USA. Don't make arbit CP in his class - he will chew you.

Stage 2 (1986-87, Marketing I)

Enters LRB. Smartly attired - polished shoes, matching socks, neat appearance, pin drop silence. Devotees are having their first darshan. Agnostics and atheists are visibly impressed.

LRB sits on the table. The class begins.

CP (class participation) kings are quiet.

Arbit CP and you have had it. Perfect accent, modulated voice, rigorous logic.

Yes, what PGP IIs say is true. Nobody dare argue with him. He seldom smiles, and what a sense of humor!

Why the deification?

Answer is obvious. They would want to be like him - brilliant, respected, dreaded, a cut above the rest, successful and enigmatic.

We don't love him, we idolize him. He is the ultimate. He satisfies the inherent need for deification (Hypo 1). Societies feel secure when they have a beacon to guide them. Further the concept of omniscient and omnipotent god imparts stability to society for it keeps the egos of the constituents in check. LRB is very helpful on this count.

If LRB becomes accessible, this respect might turn into adoration. Familiarity breeds contempt. Elusiveness reinforces the halo (Hyop 4).

What he says is "Vedbakya". Nobody dares disagree with him. Given the cutthroat competition amongst the students anybody who can cross swords with him, becomes different from others. This is unacceptable to the mainstream. Iconoclasts are viewed with suspicion if not outright contempt. Hence is deification has an egalitarian influence on IIMA students.

Opinion:

Absolutism is inimical to development. Growth is a dialectic process, be it the Hegelian or Marxist way. Excellence has no limit - it is like our shadow. The more we try to reach it, the further it goes. LRB phenomenon should enthuse us to improve - continuously. It should not set a limit to our search for excellence.

LRB meets with David and Fran Korten

In December 1975, LRB was nearing the end of his PhD at Columbia University. He had completed his research, and expected to finish writing his thesis in a few months. Around this time, he met with David and Fran Korten, who were then on the faculty at Harvard University. David worked at the Harvard Institute for International Development on a Ford Foundation project to strengthen the organization and management of national family planning programs. David and Fran, fortuitously for us, summarized their meeting with him in December, 1975 in a 5-page report for what seems some kind of newsletter.  This note is historically very rich from the perspective of the Reconstructing LRB project. It gives a nice summary of LRB's research, shares impressions of LRB and provides an invaluable insight into the future directions LRB hoped to take this research after returning to India, especially in terms of writing cases and possible future collaborations. The note is interesting in one other respect - it makes no mention of the Emergency that had been declared in India a few months ago - an event (and regime) that would leave a permanent scar on family planning in India. 

Meeting with Labdhi Bhandari

We met for about 2 hours with Labdhi Bhandari, a doctoral candidate at Columbia in the marketing area working under Farley. His thesis, based on data collected in India, seeks the application of marketing research techniques to the design of family planning program strategies. The purpose of our meeting was to outline a series a cases that might be developed from his thesis research. We were very impressed with him and see his research as representing a major breakthrough in the use of research for the design of family planning persuasion campaigns. His both bright and committed to working in family planning, both in India and elsewhere.

His research uses techniques developed at UCLA for generating value hierarchies and influence patterns. He decided that of the various methodologies, this was the best one available for cross-cultural use as it uses open-ended questions and does not force pre-established categories or assumptions on the respondent.

To determine the value valence of various objects, he asks questions such as "What is a good thing that can happen to you?" Many variations are possible such as "...to your children?", "...in your work?" etc.

To get at influence patterns he tasks the answer to one of the above questions and ask, "Who is likely to bring this about?" In rural India this elicits a lot of responses about God. Or he asks, "If this happens who is likely to approve?", "Who is likely to disapprove?"

He eventually begins to relate valued outcomes to family size by questions such as the following. "You say that a good thing that can happen is to have children who turn out to be worthy. How does having many children relate to this outcome? Help? Hinder?" In this general manner, he eventually gets to attitudes and practices related to family planning.

The analysis of the interview responses requires the organization of the responses into relevant categories. He was concerned that the groupings reflect the categories which were meaningful to the people he was interviewing rather than his own categories derived from a Western educational experience. (He in fact was from the area he was working in and knows the local language.)  Thus he used local people to group together the responses which they saw as being essentially similar. He observed that their groupings were quite different from those he would have used and found this in itself a rather powerful insight into the value patterns of the culture.

For purposes of relating his data to the design of program themes, he segments the population into four groups:

1. Those currently contracepting.
2. Those who do not practice, but have an intention to.
3. Those who do not intend to practice, but who do approve of family planning.
4. Those who do not approve of contraception and do not intend to practice it.

He is not particularly concerned with group 1. For group 2, he concludes that an information-oriented message relating more to birth control than to family size is appropriate. While knowledge of their values would be used as a backdrop, knowledge of value orientations is less important for this group.

He suggests that messages for group three should be derived from their values. This is the group to which values oriented messages would be directed. In this group the ideal family size is lower than actual family size and the idea of a small family is OK in their view. The also feel it is okay to do something about it. But they may feel that the methods are anti-religious. They tend to have a strong religious-moral orientation. Or they may be concerned that the methods weaken the body. This is often a concern with tubectomy and vasectomy. There is a belief that those who have had the operation are unable to do hard physical labour and are more often ill.

Group four does not approve of any effort to limit fertility. They do not want to fool with God at all.

He finds attitudes cluster around two subjects--family size and birth control methods. The target group can be differentiated as to whether their resistance relates to one or both of these cluster or concerns. Generally the non-users generate a whole cluster of values much more strongly oriented to the traditional than do the users.

Bhandari noted that often the bad associations with sterilization arise from the poor administration of the progress of the program reflected in inadequate training of personnel and very limited follow-up. The operations are performed and the people forgotten. You only need a few causes of peole getting infections or even dying and you have real image problems. He commented, "One doctor who was doing sterilizations told me himself that he was not well enough trained to do the operation."

In general when people in groups three and four are asked to relate birth control and many children to other outcomes they see only the negative associations with family limitations. They don't connect with the positive valences. The important need is to build positive relationships within the context of their particular value system.

When they talk about the good things that can happen they want to own a house or make progress on their farm. Progress on their farm usually means to have land of their own. Less than a quarter of those from the negative group who mentioned this saw achievement of this aim as related to having fewer children. For group four the number one value is progress in their occupation--on their farm. Actually the negative associations with this group are mainly with the method. In fact, children as such are on the whole not seen as either helping or hindering with achievement on their aims. Only 19% of the fourth group saw having more children as negative. But on the other hand, only 23$ saw it as positive. Thus for most likely there was simply no association between family size and welfare.

His research indicates that there are two major economic arguments in the literature (the one that children are seen as an expense and the other that they are seen as an economic asset) are both myths. At least among the groups studied, the thinking about children is not in relation economic welfare.

The relevant values that do come out very strongly are concern for the welfare of the children. Family harmony is very highly valued. They are concerned about health and about meeting family responsibilities in terms of taking good care of both their children and their parents. They are very interested in having a good agricultural year. It is not a good life or getting ahead kind of thing. It is a matter of survival. And it is largely in the hands of God. Another very important value involves seeing that the children are married of well.

All of this means that one must understand the intricacies of family values to be able to approach the family meaningfully. The people who write the mass media and guide the field motivators have to be better trained in the nuances. Most of the prevailing approaches are based on assumptions regarding who the people think and what they value. The concerns about providing food and hospitals for the growing population are concerns of the national administration. Appeals to these concerns have no meaning for the common people unless they have developed an identification with national needs. Now what does have tremendous meaning for this is the division of land. They see it and they can understand it.

Bhandari noted that there are implications in this type of analysis for the kind of people you assign and for the type of training you use. Also for the methodology of the work. One part of the training of the field workers might involve getting them to categorize the statements collected from such interviews and have them compare their groupings with the groupings actually made by the local people, as a means of developing understanding of the local value system.

In India it is almost universal that the health post staff are not local. Even the janitors tend to commute to work.

The field work was done in Jodhpur, the western most large city in Rajasthan. The rural sample was collected in 8 villages in the region, including a mix of agriculturally well off and agriculturally poor. During the course of the research, Bhandari learned a lot about the program and how it works and how it was perceived by the people. When he gets back he will attempt to get the results to the local officials. He might also develop a project at Ahmedabad. He is getting copies of the messages being used in the program and will work on how they should be adapted, at least for this area.

Another concern he has is with how the program could be more marketing strategy oriented. He has a lot of information pointing up how the family planning effort simply does not use a marketing approach. Nirodh is completely administrative  separate from the rest of the program up to the very higher national level. Thus though the clinics have Nirodh, it is not their program. It is not part of their targets and they don't push it, even though they know that their own product is not well received. The religious perceptions vary by method. The concern is against tampering physically with the body. This is what is anti-religious in their view. Not taking a pill.

IT is interesting that villages have said to Bhandari quite unprompted, "If only there were a pill that we could take." The economists calculate that sterilization is the most cost effective method, ignoring the issue of acceptability. If the program were looked at as a marketing problem there would be more concern for product mix and with how attitudes toward the product are influenced by values. IT is also necessary to learn to think of the price in terms of what the consumer gives up align with the direct costs to the government. Another problem is that since the system has no accountability to the consumer, consumer acceptance is given much less concern.

More attention needs to be given to the dai. The dai are extremely influential in India on all birth related ailments and on female illnesses. At present India has auxiliary nurse midwives coming in from a different culture. They are perceived as an economic and social threat by the midwives, who as a result do everything in their power to make them ineffective. Bhandari commented, "Now obviously you wouldn't appoint someone without influence in the community to sell Chevrolets. Why do it to sell birth control?"

Being from outside the area the ANM's don't understand the people, even if they know the language. They don't know the nuances. He was in a village with an ANM where the villagers were making fun of the ANM with nuances in the language she couldn't understand.

He has data on sources of information relied on by the villages, but not on the actual social structure and organization of the villages. He would like to develop this when he gets back to logk further into the issues of how to use these structures.

We discussed three case themes which he hopes to develop in the near future base don the data and observation described above.

1. RESEARCH BASED PLANNING FOR MASS COMMUNICATION THEMES.

The directly reflects the theme of his dissertation and would probably be the first case to be completed. To simply clearance, the case will probably be written from his point of view as a researcher. Once he gets back to India and tries to sell his concepts it might be possible to add an actual decision maker perspective. The case will briefly explain the methodology and purpose of his research and will summarize the relevant findings. It will also present data on the themes currently being used in Indian family planning mass communication campaigns in the area he studied. HE must evaluate the adequacy of the existing themes, based on his data, and make recommendations for appropriate changes. We might actually want to follow it with a short B case presenting his own recommendations which can then be used as a basis for review.

2. COMMUNICATION AT THE VILLAGE LEVEL.

This second case would focus on the issues related to the various field workers and the person-to-person contacts at the village level. IT would be oriented to issues of the selection and training of field workers, to the way in which they make contact with the village, whom they approach, what messages they communicate, and how they might work through village social structures. Much of this can be built from the data Bhandari already has. His research finding would be an important input, but this case would also require much more contextual data on the community and the field workers than would the mass communications case. He would probably need to develop some additional data on the village social structures and might want to make more observations on field worker contacts. A first cut at this case could be usefully done before returning to India with a plan to fill in some of the gaps after his return.

3. A NATIONAL MARKETING STRATEGY for A FAMILY PLANNING EFFORT.

While this isn't the right title, it reflects the thrust of the anticipated case. Essentially the case will be an overview of the Indian national family planning effort providing the data required for an overall program analysis from a marketing perspective. It would probably be used follow the previous two cases and would bring in issues of product mix, market segmentation, selection of distribution channels, coordinating mass communications and point of contract promotions, and a whole range of related marketing concerns. He intends to write a brief conceptual note describing the basic marketing concepts and their applications in other settings which would provide guidelines of the case analysis. While this can be outlined before he returns to India, it will probably also require more field work. A more interesting decision-maker focus might also be introduced if he is successful after his return in getting some top-level attention for his concepts.

Action Issues: We think that we should be exploring a variety of ways to encourage and support Bhandari's population work. He could be a major new asset for the ICOMP network. First, we think it would be useful to help him get as much exposure as possible for his work. HE is interested in working with anyone interested in trying out the methodology in other settings. Second, it is important to help him get whatever support may be required to keep him fully active in the population field. He will be returning to IIM Ahmedabad in mid-1976. We are not sure whether arrangements have been made for him to join Satia's team, but Dave has written Satia a letter recommending Bhandari as a member of his team. We should be looking for other ways to involve him in ICOMP. One thought that comes to mind beyond development of the cases would be to include him in an editorial role on the casebook we are considering which would focus primarily on the marketing aspects of family planning. We suspect he would be very useful in working up the conceptual parts of the book and in making input to the analysis sections. We could work out an appropriate mix of responsibility between him and us once we get some actual samples of his work.

Labdhi has an immediate problem of funding. His field work in India was funded by the Population Council. His work at Columbia has been covered by a fellowship which runs out the end of this month. He needs funding for another two or three months in New York for completing his thesis. He then apparently has another two or three months before he is due to return to Ahmedabad. During that time he is anxious to find some means of support so that he can get some further experience outside of India, particularly experience that would give him more exposure to population efforts in some other countries. He could be a real asset to Allen Rosenfield in planning the evaluation-management seminar and Dave has suggested to Al that he contact him. Perhaps there might be some role for him in preparation for the ICOMP conference. We could also see trying to link him up with the Population Services International for purposes of developing cases on some of their commercial distribution projects.

In additional to talking to Rosenfield we have suggested to Hank Elkins and Joel Montague that they get acquainted with him. Dave has talked to Pathfinder which has a potential interest in his work. Dave has discussed his situation with Wickham and he will be discussing his work with Farley.

*Over the years, LRB would continue to collaborate with David and Fran Korten, through ICOMP and then the Management Institutes Working Group. When we contacted them recently, David wrote "I remember his name so fondly and so well as a valued friend and colleague over many years in relation to my work with ICOMP and the Management Institutes Working Group. His article on the Poor as Consumers in "Bureaucracy and the Poor" so well reflects his keen intellect and readiness to challenge the flawed conventional wisdom that was all too common in development work.".

A paper rejected...

We recently found a photocopy of a single type-written page in LRB's papers that appears to be a peer review of a paper submitted to a journal. The date of this review is unknown, but it is probably from sometime in late 1975 or early 1976. We do not have a copy of this paper and we do not know what journal it was submitted to, but it would have been a paper based on his doctoral research carried out at Columbia University in collaboration with Prof. John U. Farley, his advisor. The review is unambiguously negative and it's safe to assume that this version of the paper was not accepted. In fact, there is no evidence that he ever published his thesis research in a journal, though his dissertation would soon win the John Howard-AMA award at American Marketing Association's meeting in 1976. LRB did publish his thesis as a book - Communications in Social Marketing: A Study in Family Planning - soon afterwards. 

The paper is poorly written, does not adequately review the literature, reflects a poor understanding of communications theory, and fails to offer a significant contribution to consumer behaviour research methodology. In fact, the proposed design suffers many shortcomings and is probably inferior to that used by most knowledgable researchers.

1. The author states that the paper's purpose is to offer a methodology by which social agencies can design messages to successfully alter family planning behaviors. The 'creativity' question addressed is improperly equated with determining which arguments to include in the presentation. This ignores the fundamental question of how and where to present the arguments. Should one use humor or fear, one-sided or two-sided argumentation, distraction, few repetitions or many, etc? The argument selection question only constitutes one aspect of the acceptance-rejection process, which is, in turn, only one stage in the total persuasion process, other stages, exposure, attention, comprehension, and retention and not discussed in the paper. This is a serious shortcoming.

2. The author's distinction between the advertising problem faced by profit versus nonprofit organizations is not totally adequate and may not even be correct. He states that profit firms only deal with lower order beliefs, while nonprofit firms must alter higher oder ones. This is contradicted by the successful campaign to encourage males to adopt hair spays and dryers, and annual mail early and file order campaigns by the post office and tax departments, respectively. It would appear that a more fundamental difference is that nonprofit organizations should have greater source credibility since their messages should be perceived as directed solely at benefitting the audience and not the organization itself.

3. In his development of a segmentation of the audience, the author assumes that the hierarchical attitude-behaviour concept is correct one. A more careful reading of the literature would reveal considerable controversy and many inconsistent findings (Festinger, Public Opinion Quarterly, 1964; Ray and Sawyer, J. Marketing Research, 1971 are but two examples).

4. The author does not do an adequate job in outlining his proposed research design, but given what is presented, it appears to be loaded with biases. The analysis seems to be highly subjective with no consideration of the question of construct validity. Do the values as determined by his judges have adequate convergent and discriminant validity? Are there any tests for this? What about reliability?

5. The research design as presented in this paper does not offer a meaningful contribution. The author claims to have empirical evidence supporting this claim. It is incumbent on the author to present these data so that his assertion can be validated. IN the present paper, few advantages are obvious.

- Anonymous peer reviewer.

Prof. Kulbhushan Kothari remembers...

In 1964 as I was preparing to join IIMA faculty, Labdhi often came to me to discuss if he should join PGP/MBA at Ahmedabad. He was completing his BA at Jodhpur, when I was teaching in the University. He was very shy, low profile and an introvert student. I must say he was quite unsure of the future of the new management course and whether it would be a good choice. I remember we had two or three discussions in which he was trying to seek reassurance that he was making the right choice. I was myself very enthusiastic about management education and trying to change my own professional track from the basic discipline of Sociology to applied behavioural sciences. I encouraged him to seriously consider going to IIMA.

Finally he did decide to join IIMA, and found the first few months really tough, involving a lot of hard work and long hours of studies. To my surprise, I discovered that within 4 to 6 months at IIMA he was a completely transformed person with amazing levels of self-confidence, communication abilities and a very smart presentation of self in all encounters.

In my life I had never witnessed such a radical transformation of a student personality in a few months mainly due to teaching-learning engagement, and peer group interactions in and out of class room at IIMA. His rapid progress as an outstanding student of remarkable personal and professional qualities can only be recognized through differences I observed in him at Ahmedabad after Jodhpur.

I have no doubt that if he had continued his professional journey he would have achieved great eminence as a management guru of global reputation.

*Prof. Kulbhushan Kothari is Chairman and Managing Trustee of Pratham Rajasthan and a noted educationist. 

Editor's Note: Growing up, we only ever heard stories of how brilliant LRB was and his many qualities were often spoken of as if they were innate. In that context, Prof. Kothari's account is important. The remarkable transformation that Prof. Kothari refers to was something that LRB himself acknowledged. In a letter to his elder brother in 1969, he called IIMA his 'break in life', where he was thrown in the deep end and had to learn to swim or sink. At least in 1969, he felt that such a transformative break or opportunity is something that everyone will eventually get, and its up to them to use it to make their own destiny. 

Eardley Perera remembers...

A few of us started the Ceylon Institute of Marketing in January 1970 with the intention of developing the professionals in marketing in Sri Lanka. One of our primary objectives was to update our members with knowledge and in this pursuit we focussed on Market Research as one area. For this purpose, through contacts in MNCs and Indian managers in Sri Lanka, we targeted three leading MR specialists in India to run a three day program me here in SL. Among them was your father and my close friend Titoo Ahluwallia.

Our friendship grew quite strong and I did remain in touch with your father and Titoo and even met up with them when they came here or I went to India. Titoo went further by developing a business association in Sri Lanka for the Indian Market Research Bureau to set up a joint venture, Lanka Market Research Bureau. I was present when the office was inaugurated in Sri Lanka. Your father too continued his association with SL through the IIMA and had close links with the private sector. Additionally many Sri Lankan managers were sent to IIMA for short term development programs through his initiatives. His untimely death was a shock to many of us who knew him and regarded him as a true gentleman, a true professional and an excellent lecturer/teacher. He loved Sri Lanka and was anxious to visit here more often, but he was deprived of this intention.

* Editors Note: The 3-day program took place in December, 1977. See newspaper clipping above.

Kenneth Abeywickrama remembers...

We first met Prof. Labdhi Bhandari of the IIMA in 1972 when the newly formed Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing  held a seminar in Colombo on Market Research. He was one of the three resource persons we invited from India. I was a senior Marketing Manager of Lever Brothers Ceylon Ltd. at the time and a founder member (later President of the institute).

In 1980, I was Chairman of the State Timber Corporation of Sri Lanka, (on secondment from Lever Brothers Ceylon) when the then Sri Lankan Minister of Lands and Land Development wanted me to organise a training course on business planning for the heads of the departments and corporations under his ministry. My thoughts went back to the IIMA and Prof. Labdhi Bhandari, now a dean in the management school. We had initial meetings with him in Ahmedabad, together with a Mr. Wijesinghe, an Assistant Secretary in the ministry, who was to become the project coordinator. The team that was put together for this project consisted of Prof. Labdhi Bhandari (Leader), Prof. Mohan Kaul and Prof. Gopinath.

The project first organised a three day training seminar for the heads of departments and corporations. The obstacles were immediately apparent. Many of these top public officials, though highly qualified in their special fields, had little experience of modern management and countered that planning was impossible in their departments. Prof. Bhandari's tact and PR skills then came into play. It was agreed that the team would work with each individual organisation to set up a planning system specially designed for them and then monitor the implementation for half a year. This ensured the success of the project which lasted one year with the resource persons visiting Sri Lanka every two month period.

I still remember Prof. Bhandari with affection and I still have in my office room an eight inch tall replica of a prancing horse that he gifted to me.

Kapil Kapoor remembers...

My memory of Professor Bhandari goes back to Oct 1986. He was the best known star in the marketing faculty of IIM-A and normally taught PPM (Product Policy Management) to PGP 1 students. The year we joined -1985 summer - Prof Bhandari had taken a year’s sabbatical from teaching PGP 1’s since he had commitments in the corporate world, etc. While we had been taught by Prof’MN Vora and Prof Abhinandan Jain, I felt our resume was incomplete since we had not been taught by Prof. LR Bhandari. Especially for folks graduating with a major in Marketing it was going to be a void we would have felt all our life.

It was with this motivation that I tried to approach your father to guide me on a project. It had to be new and innovative to get his attention since he was very busy and had very limited time. We prepared a proposal to explore the weaknesses in current methods of market research. We proposed a new method of market research wherein we observed what people did by simulating market conditions instead of asking people what they did. When you ask people what they would do in a particular situation, we got inaccurate answers – since they tend to posture, not really know what they would do or just show plain question fatigue. On the other hand, if we can integrate questions into a game situation people are disarmed and they tend to answer more accurately.

Prof. Bhandari liked the concept and the proposal – which we had to get to the top of his inbox through working with his research assistant – following which he called me for a review to his offices. He explained very quickly what he expected from us in this project to get his commitment to support it. Seeing our eagerness to work with him he agreed to supervise the project. In the short interactions I had with him during the course of the project, I got a glimpse of why he was such an icon and a legend at the IIMA campus. Prof. Bhandari was extremely lucid in his thinking and articulated his thoughts very clearly and concisely in a no nonsense style which was very refreshing.

Once we had completed the project, executing this concept as the 1st marketing Fair of IIMA was really challenging since we had a limited budget and little or no contacts with the powers that be in the corporate world to explain the thought. Prof. Bhandari gave us a letter of introduction as we rallied the whole batch behind executing the project. And it was then that we got to really value the standing of Prof. Bhandari as we went around to see the corporate honchos of the leading corporations of the day in Bombay, Delhi and Calcutta. Doors would open for us and very senior chieftains of marketing would make time to hear our proposals. We got  sponsors quickly enough and were able to implement the Marketing Fair in January 1987. Prof. Bhandari came around and gave a few press interviews and inaugurated the fair and gave the students all the credit. It was a real success and would not have been possible without his guidance and support. I personally got an A  for the project – a grade I am most proud of to this day.

I had always imagined I would consult Prof Bhandari on the next course of action in my life and after about 15 months with Nestle’, where I was a Management Trainee, in Oct 1988 I went to Ahmedabad to meet with him to consult with him on a possible academic career and future studies in the US. However that meeting was not to be – the same morning when I was to meet him, we got the shattering news that the plane from Mumbai had crashed and Prof. Bhandari was on it. We prayed and hoped that he would be one of the lucky ones, since we heard a few had survived. However, any hope we clung onto was very short-lived..His brother, had identified him in the wreckage. I went to your home and paid my respects to one of the finest professors I had the privilege to know and learn from.

*Mr. Kapil Kapoor was a student of LRB in the 1980s. He is currently the global COO of the Timex Group and is based in Hong Kong.

The Wharton PhD application (1971)

In early 1971, LRB was 22 and a very confident young man. He had already spent 3.5 years at Hindustan Lever Ltd. and his career had progressed rapidly. His company 'rated him very highly' and, 9 months ago, had promoted him (over some of his seniors) to a specially created position of Marketing Research Manager, to lead a team of market researchers in the Management Services Group. There was a plan to send him to the UK (as HLL Listers typically are) for 2 years, to gain some experience at the headquarters of Unilever and Research Bureau Ltd. so that he could return and take over the leadership of the Management Services Group from his immediate boss, Mr. Robert Tofts. But, by this time, LRB was already set on moving to the world of research and academics and joining a Ph.D. programme. As he said in a later interview, he would probably have stayed at HLL for another 2-3 years, but the plan to send him abroad led him to advance his resignation. If he had gone to the UK, he would have been morally obliged to return and work for some more years. 

Therefore, LRB made haste to put together applications to PhD programs at the management schools of leading American universities with an aim of starting in the Fall of 1971. That year, we know that he applied to the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania, who made him an offer in March, 1971. Amongst his papers, we found some of his application materials. A typewritten Statement of Purpose and a letter of recommendation from his former boss. The Statement presents his candidature and is a very useful historical document, for it includes a biographical statement and his motivations. The reveal an LRB who is confident and clear of his goals. 

Statement of Purpose: (for Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania, in Jan. 1970)

The text is transcribed below: 

I have decided on a career in academics in the field of management. I have nearly four years of working experience in industry. However, to prepare myself fully for the role of an effective teacher, I need to pursue my studies for a Ph.D.

The doctoral programme in Business and Applied Economics at the University of Pennsylvania provides an excellent opportunity towards this end.

I was born in a small town in Rajasthan and (went) to the only school there. I joined the University of Jodhpur in 1962 to work for my bachelor's degree in arts with Economics and Philosophy. Both at the school finals and the degree examinations I finished with high second division. I was very active in student council affairs and debating in school as well as college.

In 1965 I applied for admission to the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and sat for the keenly contested entrance competitions held at the national level. I was accepted for the Post-Graduate Programme in Business Administration, and this was a turning point in my career.

When I joined the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, I went there with three major handicaps. I was extremely young - 17 - in a group of students with an average age of 24. I was, perhaps, the only one whose education was not conducted in English (it was done in Hindi). And I was one of the few people there with a background of small town upbringing. These were serious disadvantages in an environment which was highly competitive with heavy pressure of work. I took this as a challenge and the success with which I emerged from it surprised me also to some extent. I finished with a place in the top five ranks and was the recipient of the National Merit Scholarship award for both the years. I also had the maximum number of job offers, including the best ones, at the end of the term. It was an achievement which gave me immense achievement satisfaction.

I had given a serious thought to the alternative of working in the academic field after finishing my post-graduation at IIM, Ahmedabad. I decided, however, to work in business for some time to gain practical experience of and insight into the field of management. I joined Hindustan Lever Ltd. (Indian subsidiary of Unilever Ltd.) after finishing my post-graduate work in business administration in July 1967. I worked for three years in one of the marketing divisions of the company, first as Assistant Product Manager and later as a Product Manager. I also had an opportunity to work on a major new product as a marketing member of the project team consisting of members from Research, Marketing and Development function. For the last nine months I have been working in the capacity of Marketing Research Manager, heading a group that provides marketing research services to all marketing divisions of the company.

When I leave the business in September this year to pursue my doctoral work, I would have spent four years in a working environment, with two promotions and what can be termed an above average progress and achievement, particularly at my age (I will be 23 in mid-1971). It has been a rich and fruitful experience and I believe I am now ready to go back to academics. With this work experience I will no doubt profit much more from research work than would have been possible otherwise.

During the last few years I have felt a growing desire to contribute more directly in social progress of my country. The field of management offers vast scope for useful and concrete contributions, particularly in developing countries like India. I feel I will be able to do this more directly by teaching management, specially in the context of the situation where there is a dearth of teachers in this field. And I believe a doctoral programme is necessary to prepare myself for this role.

Recommendation Letters: 

He also asked for recommendation letters from three people. Prof. SK Bhattacharya at IIM, Ahmedabad who was (and would remain in the years to come) his mentor, Mr. BA Vatsal, his previous boss at Hindustan Lever Ltd. and Prof. KK Anand. All three individuals are no longer alive. And, only one letter, from Mr. Vatsal survives. It is reproduced below.  In the letter, Mr. Vatsal mentions a 'major new brand project' which was, very likely, a detergent version of Lux Flakes. Mr. Vatsal also mentions two deaths in LRB's family in the period that he has known him - one of these was his younger sister, Kusum, who died of Leukemia in 1969. Mr. B. A. Vatsal himself passed away at a young age, on the 7th of January, 1975 in Madras. 

The letter is transcribed below:

Letter of support 

I am in business, not at University. As such, it may be useful for the reader to know my credentials for evaluating Labdhi's fitness for graduate study and research.

I am a graduate of Bombay University (First class honours). I went to Stanford University, California on a scholarship and got my A.M. from there, earning a grade point average of 3.8 out of a possible 4 for my coursework there. I have been working with Hindustan Lever since my return from the States in 1963. I now head the Sales function of one of the marketing divisions of the company.

I have known Labdhi since he joined the firm. We worked together for over two years. Common interests - books and world of ideas - continue to throw us together frequently.

Labdhi is a very unusual young man in many ways. Perhaps the most unusual thing about him is his maturity - emotional and intellectual - which far above that of his peers in the organisation. He demonstrated his emotional maturity in the calm with which he faced up to two deaths in his immediate family, sudden and successive.

He has unusual intellectual ability as I have seen in the results he produced on a major new brand project. Apart from being the brand manager in-charge, he had to work on this project as a member of a REsearch-Marketing-Development team, whose other members were much older than he., in age and experience. I regard the results produced by that team as a characteristic of Labdhis ability to win people over to his point of view.

Even the most intelligent young Indians of Labdhi's background - tradition-oriented family, orthodox community, and small town upbringing - tend to have excessive respect for authority. Not so Labdhi. He has a clear, logical mind and brings a healthy sceptical eye to bear on all problems he encounters.

Again, for someone whose education in English began relatively late, he speaks and writes the language with as much facility as Indians trained in English from birth.

I have no hesitation in recommending Labdhi highly for graduate work in Management. He is a very intelligent and ambitious young man who will not settle for second best in anything he undertakes. Nor does he compromise on integrity in his pursuit of achievement. He is, I think, at about just the right stage to gain from a return to academics - not too far removed from his earlier University work, at the same time considerably more hard-nosed than when he left the University, with rich and fruitful experience. I forecast that he will make a stimulating teacher and contribute significantly to the body of knowledge on management, especially on problems peculiar to developing countries.

- B. A. Vatsal
General Sales Manager, Hindustan Lever Ltd.


The Outcome:

LRB was offered a place by Wharton in March, 1971. Now, it fell upon him to arrange for funding for the program me in the next six months, which he set out to do in earnest. Amongst his papers, we  found a number of letters that he sent to funding agencies for grants, and to banks for loans. LRB was partially successful in this quest but he decided to postpone plans for a year and decided, instead, to join IIM, Ahmedabad and make fresh applications in 1972. A key motivation for doing so was that the Ford Foundation, in partnership with IIM, Ahmedbad had instituted a programme whereby faculty at the institute were funded for their PhDs in exchange for them signing a bond that required them to return and teach at IIM, Ahmedabad for 5 years after they finished. However, Prof. Ravi Matthai, the Director of IIMA insisted that LRB spend a year working at IIMA before he went for his PhD. Eventually, LRB decided to quit HLL in December 1971, and joined IIMA from January 1972. He reapplied to Wharton and made a fresh application to Columbia University. With both offers in hand, he eventually decided to go to Columbia in the fall of 1972.

The summer after 69

In April 1970, LRB was a Product Manager at Hindustan Lever Ltd. In this position, he had the overall profit responsibility of the company's flagship product - Surf Detergent Powder. His company 'rated him very highly' and was about to give him an out-of-turn promotion. Amongst the IIM-A community, he was seen as a rising star. 

On the 9th of April, the first IIMA reunion took place at Ahmedabad. LRB and other alumni were invited to speak at the conference. The picture below is of the afternoon session - when all those seen in the picture gave  talk on "MBA Programmes : A look into the future". Among the speakers was CK Prahalad, who would become a dear friend. LRB's points were, quite characteristically, carefully argued but firmly rooted in practical concerns.  His words also reflect a quiet confidence that was built on his recent successes 

From L to R - LRB,  SL Chopra*, Jayant Dey, Madan Mohanka, and CK Prahalad 

MBA Programmes - A Look Into the Future

In this session we are going to be examining the extent to which the Post-Graduate Programme of IIMA is suited for providing management skills for those who are entering management careers in Indian Industry.

Let us first look at the objectives of such a programme – as they should be and as they are generally accepted. A programme that prepares young men and women to enter management career should do two specific things. Firstly, it should provide an opportunity for developing skills and attitudes, which not only prepare an MBA to be a better newcomer to business but are also conducive to his growth and development as a professional manager. Secondly, this programme should impart sufficient knowledge on Management Science and its various functional areas both to help the young MBA obtain an overall viewpoint of the business, as also to adequately prepare him to get into the shoes of a manager and start doing the job within a fairly short period of his joining the organisation. Both are equally important.

The first point involves developing skills, which are most basic in nature. These skills, for example, are ability to seek relevant knowledge and data, communication skills, an enquiring attitude of mind and a scientific approach to problems. Basically, there is no reason why other educational systems and instituations teaching non-business courses cannot provide opportunities to develop these skills. However, my own limited experience suggests – and I am glad of this – that the MBA programme of IIM does this far more effectively.

Equally important, the programme should give substantial knowledge to its participants in the functional areas of Management. It is necessary to give them enough knowledge to understand how business functions and to equip them with as much knowledge as possible about one or two functions of business so that they can confidently take up assignments in those functional areas.

Today the accent is on ‘Modern Management’. What is, however, not clearly understood is the fact that basically Modern Management is a concept, an approach, an attitude of mind and not just the tools and techniques. We ourselves are to some extent responsible for spreading this belief. A young MBA is therefore expected to be equipped with more knowledge and expertise in the functional area he says he has majored in, than most people working in the organisation. While it is unfair for the industry to expect an MBA to come with prescriptions to problems, I regret to say that we have generally failed to deliver even what is fair for the Industry to expect; and this is in terms of our functional knowledge.

Most MBAs are working in specific functional areas (at least in the first 5 to 7 years of their careers) and our jobs call more for functional expertise than for general management abilities during this period. We are faced with down-to-earth problems of designing sales promotions, winning list market share, buying raw materials at cheaper prices and so on. My own experience has led me to believe that depth work in functional areas has been lacking; that functional grounding has not been adequate.

This situation is particularly annoying for people with whom MBAs have to work. This is because the young MBA, not knowing how to arrive at the advertising budget for a particular product, starts asking a more basic but a less relevant question of whether the Company out to be in that business at all!

  

The Industry expects MBAs to know all the theories in the specific functional areas in which they are working, and the lack of this knowledge by itself makes them less acceptable in the organisation as change agents. An MBA who is merely saying that the problem ought to be looked at in a different manner without being able to suggest specific alternatives for solving the problem not only has a much weaker case for acceptance, but also tends to lose self-confidence.

There will always be some resistance at this stage of the game, but is important that the MBA feels confident that he can justifiably overcome the resistance. This he is unable to do unless he is properly equipped with knowledge to substantiate his case. Otherwise, the basic skills, which he has learnt, tend to remain unused and he runs the risk of losing them over a period of time.

Let us now try and see why we do not feel confident of ourselves when it comes to running our jobs in specific functional areas. Looking back at the two years’ curriculum of PGP, it seems to me that it is our pedagogy, which is responsible to some extent for the lack of depth knowledge in specific functional areas. While the case method is responsible for imparting the totality of perspective, the overall viewpoint of business, it also leaves less time and opportunity for learning the theory.

I personally believe that a departure from complete reliance on case method is necessary if we are to provide a balance between the theory and the approach. Equally important is the need to increase the share of Indian cases, if this has not already been achieved. I am by no means undermining the importance of obtaining overall viewpoint of the business. I am only saying that this must be supported by very sound grounding in one or two functional areas. I have no doubt that in the long run it is the basic abilities, the ‘approach’ that would put an MBA ahead of others, but in the short run it his ability to run a job which will facilitate his very acceptance in the organisation.

All this I believe is one area where the programs need to be strengthened. Things may have changed during the last 3 years and I do hope they have improved. However, from whatever little exposure I have had to the Institute since I left three years ago, including the last one month, I get the feeling that there is a need to strengthen the programme in this direction. Again my observations are limited to some functional areas and there may be some areas, which provide adequate depth work.

At this stage I would like to digress to look at how MBAs will fit in th e organisations in future years to come. There is no doubt that MBAs have an edge over non-MBAs. They are better prepared to enter management careers. But they still have to learn a great deal about the organisation and the way it functions before they can do any job effectively. Again they would learn faster than those do not have business education. They would gain an understanding of particular business fairly quickly and while this may not be strictly required for the specific jobs they do, it would prove to be very useful for their future development.

I am, however, disturbed to note that there is a growing feeling at the Institute that the MBAs do not require any in-company training. The two years, which we spend, here is not a substitute to the period of in-company training. The training periods must shorten because the people undergoing the training now already know something about business. To that extent the training periods have been reduced by a number of companies. Drawing on my own personal experience, I can say that there is an enormous amount to learn after getting out of the Institute and we ought not to miss this opportunity just because we are in the seller’s market.

In have taken the liberty of raising some of the points which I thought were important. While everyone here may not agree with all these points, these should provide a basis for discussion in this session.

*There is some doubt about whether the person sitting next to LRB is SL Chopra or Kamal Jhaveri. Former classmates have identified the person as Kamal Jhaveri. However, documentary evidence of this event (including a schedule and a copy of the speeches) list SL Chopra as the speaker.

The churning within...

The following autobiographical note by LRB was used as a case study entitled Deepak Dey's diary for the Organisational Behavior curriculum at IIM-Ahmedabad. It brings out, quite beautifully, the chaotic, rambling, semi-rational and semi-emotional churn that goes into making personal decisions. Contrast this thought process to the very rational argument put together in 'LRB considering a career move' (see previous post). David Hume was spot on when he said 'Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.'

From Deepak Dey's Diary*

By Labdhi R. Bhandari

In the early seventies, the Gujarat Mail used to depart from Bombay early in the evening. As usual, I was late and felt for not having had enough time to chat with all the friends who came to the railway station to say goodbye.

As I settled down in my compartment, I felt tired. The train was now moving fast, leaving the northern suburbs of Bombay behind. I unwrapped one of the packages given to me as a parting gift by a dear friend. It was a personalized letter pad of handmade paper. I noticed that my friend had written a farewell note on the first sheet of the pad. It was a touching note. As the train sped northward, nostalgia carried me back on its wings. I was leaving Bombay for good and I wondered about the wisdom of doing so. I had lived in Bombay for nearly five years. I had many good friends in Bombay who had become a part and parcel of my social life. I had become an avid subscriber to a variety of cultural events and activities in Bombay. The proximity of Tejpal Theatre from my apartment was a great boon, which I was certain to miss. I had grown accustomed to my cosy air-conditioned apartment on Altamount Road and wondered if other places would be nearly as comfortable.

As I thought about what I was leaving behind, my mind strayed to the tall and imposing structure on Backbay Reclamation that housed the head office of the organization I worked with. It was a major multinational corporation in India and being employed in the management cadre was in itself a mark of success. I had enjoyed my years with this organization and had learnt a lot in the last five years. I was lucky to have had a succession of challenging assignments, which provided me with unusual opportunities to work closely with the top management. In less than two years of my joining, I had been given a highly responsible role in the fiercely competitive marketing function – the core function of the organization. The company had been fair to me and had given me more than my share of breaks. On my part, I responded in all fairness by leaving the organization just before I was to be deputed to the international headquarters of the parent corporation. I wondered how much I would miss my executive role, the hectic pace and the jet-set lifestyle that went with it. Several people expressed their misgivings about my move and I had failed to convince many friends and family members of its desirability. But then, it was my decision to switch, wasn’t it?

As I thought more about this, I was a little angry with myself. After all, it took me six months to make up my mind. I was not giving up a good job and a potentially rewarding career thoughtlessly. It was a question of what I would like to see myself doing. I had often wondered about the relationship between the job I was doing and its significance to the society in which I lived. On some occasions, I did feel the conflict brewing between my role as an executive of a multinational corporation and my broader role as a management professional. Finally, I wondered about the mission of my life. I wondered if I would realize my potential in a ‘getting-head executive rat race’. And what about the urge I felt for self-development? I wanted to learn much more than the executive life allowed for. Perhaps academics would provide me with an opportunity to make a more socially relevant contribution.

How often had I used these arguments persuasively to counter the objections of my friends against this move. Was it possible that I had become a victim of my own persuasion efforts? Is this new role going to provide the kind of satisfaction and success I was looking for? One of the things I have enjoyed most in my executive role was working with very fine people. Is the environment going to be that stimulating in the academic world? Perhaps they had their own rat-race – the publish or perish syndrome. Wouldn’t that be self-defeating? An academic career in India is generally looked down upon and I had been consistently maintaining that management education was a different world. Is it really all that different or have I been generalizing too much on the basis of my experience with some of the professors? Lately, the monetary aspect has begun to disturb me. Perhaps I’m underplaying its importance.

I’m going to take a 50% cut in my salary and I’m virtually giving up all the perks I’m so used to now. It is this factor that influences career paths for most people and it is this factor that I have underplayed the most. After all, the urge for self-development and the quest for a socially relevant role is unlikely to matter without physical comforts and security. It is strange how I can still weigh the pros and cons of the two options and consider them nearly equally attractive even at a time when they have ceased to be options.

Six months have elapsed since the Gujarat Mail brought me to a new job and a new career. I am on my way back from Bombay, having finalized all arrangements for going to the US to pursue doctoral studies. Another milestone on the road towards the point of no return. The flight is late and the irritation caused by the delay is perhaps making me question the wisdom of my move. But, didn’t I say to all my friends last night that I was enjoying the academic environment? Sure, there were people who still questioned the wisdom of my move. But did I think very much of them anyway? How restricted can people’s horizons be! I sense a certain distance between those people and myself, a qualitative distance. Indeed, on some occasions, I had silently commended myself for my foresight. The role of multinational companies in India had come under heavy fire recently. Wasn’t there something in the papers about this almost every other day? Besides, should I have devoted mine to selling toothpaste, like so many do? Admittedly, I did have some moments of nagging doubts, like the one now, during these six months. Perhaps it is a habit with me.

The train of thought is broken by the landing of the aircraft. I am awakened to reality as passengers scramble to get out from the rear exit to save perhaps three minutes of their precious time. These executives are in a real hurry.

*This material is owned by IIM Ahmedabad and is only shared here as a historical document. The more pedagogical parts of the case (discussion questions, etc.) have been omitted.

LRB considering a career move...

Recently, we found a hand-written note written by LRB amongst his papers. In 1971 LRB was 24, and the youngest Marketing Manager at Hindustan Lever Ltd, when he likely wrote the note that we present here, as he ruminated on his future. He puts on paper his reasons for wanting to move into academics - a decision he eventually took by the end of the year by moving to IIMA and then leaving for Columbia University for his PhD. He appears to analyse the reasons for his dissatisfaction with his job and the alternatives available to him. However, in many ways, the note really serves as a justification for a choice that he appears to have already made by then, probably with his heart against much advice from friends and family. Later, he used this decision as a basis for a case he wrote at IIMA - titled 'Deepak Dey's Diary' - where he confessed: 'It is strange how I can still weigh the pros and cons of the two options and consider them nearly equally attractive even at a time when they have ceased to be options.'

Note on Career Choice - by Labdhi Bhandari

Problem: Career choice
Current Situation: Middle management job.
Progress: good.
Future prospects: good.

Reasons for re-thinking:
A combination of factors has led me to re-examine this basic issue of 'What I should be doing". The main factors responsible are:

A)
1) The current situation does not seem to offer very much to learn any more; the learning curve is flattening very fast. This is partly due to the fact that I have learnt most of what it has to offer during the last 3.5 years and partly because of the environment and the people; both of these are not conducive to learning in its real sense. This is resulting in a feeling of dissatisfaction with one self - a feeling of getting into the rut.

2) It is further accentuated by the increasing gap between "developing management science" and "management in practice". Success in a business environment is, perhaps, not consistent with developing  one's knowledge and appreciation of the science. This is partly due to historical reasons, when no formal 'science' or 'discipline' of management existed and most of the learning was 'on the job'. The demands on one's time and energy in a business organization make it very difficult to pursue one's interest in the 'discipline' especially when it does not normally have any direct bearing on the job that one is doing.

The environment within a business organization can give achievement-satisfaction and arouse new ambitions. The risk one runs in such a situation is that of narrowing one's vision, ambitions and values. Normally, this results in a commitment to the objective of 'going up in business hierarchy'.

I believe that such a commitment and deployment of all one's resources to the attainment of this objective from a very early stage must interfere with the development of one's professional competence. This 'inadequacy' is likely to interfere with one's effectiveness at a much later stage when one is nearing the top echelons of the hierarchy. It may then be too late to do anything about it.

This feeling of inadequacy is already beginning to take root in me. There is a growing desire in me to take a break from business and discover the 'science'.

B)
1) During the last few years my own awareness of 'life' around me - beyond my family and friends - has grown. Aso has the awareness and appreciation of my 'larger responsibilities'. While the basic responsibility is really to 'humanity' and to 'oneself', at the moment I feel concerned about the social and economic uplift of people in my country.

Given these feelings, I am naturally interested in the goals and interests of this society and its progress. Unfortunately, the business organisation presents a situation of "incongruence of goals". This is perhaps more so because of the kind of organization that I am in. There is a definite conflict in the interests of the organization and those of the country. With a growing feeling of larger responsibility, I am finding it increasingly difficult to identify with the interests of the organization.

2) Being in a situation where personal satisfaction from one's contribution to social progress is lacking, there is obviously a desire to look around for situations where one can apply one's mind and knowledge and have the satisfaction of fulfilling one's larger responsibilities.

C)
1) For a variety of reasons, executives in professionally-managed business organizations have been coming from well-defined social groups. This has resulted in close homogeneous groups - both working and social. They share common interests and values, although these interests and values have no relationship with the 'jobs' that they do. With the development of management science and management education, the social homogeneity of 'business executive groups' has been eroded by people who don't share their interests and values, but have got in because of factors more directly related to the 'jobs'. This is a recent trend - the majority continues to be of the 'boxwallahs'.

I do not share the values of the 'boxwallahs', and that leaves a working environment and relationships which are not as happy as they may have been.

2) In an environment where the only expression of one's achievement is one's progress in the business hierarchy, climbing up the pyramid assumes supreme importance for most people. The environment being highly competitive, it creates unpleasantness among people one has to work with. One creates enemies every time one climbs a step. I believe it is difficult to enjoy the day to day work (which occupies most of your time anyway) when you have to work with people who you know resent you.

Perhaps a system less hierarchical with opportunities other than climbing up the ladder for achievement satisfaction would be more suitable.

Alternatives:

Immediate: In view of my growing dissatisfaction with the current situation there is a need for change. Considering the factors that have contributed to the dissatisfaction, the immediate alternative seems to be going to a good school to work for a Ph.D. This should deal with the dissatisfaction and the feeling of inadequacy described under A.

Long Term: The current question is "What after a Ph.D.?" Alternatives open are:

1) Working for a business house (as I'm doing now).
2) Teaching/research/consultancy in an academic institution.
3) Consultancy on my own.
4) Working for an organisation (non-business) more directly related to social and economic progress.

For the reasons given in sections B and C, at the moment, I am not inclined to come back to a business house. The alternatives open, therefore, really are 2, 3 and 4.

Alternative no. 2 - ie Teaching/research/consultancy seems most attractive to me for a number of reasons.
i) I think I will enjoy teaching. This is only a feeling; the amount of teaching I have done so far is very little and in very different situations.
ii) I feel I will be personally more satisfied by teaching management in an underdeveloped country, where what is badly needed is management. The satisfaction of attempting to fulfil 'larger responsibilities'.
iii) Having said that 'management' is an acute need of a developing economy, it must also be said that private business houses, which are not necessarily in the sections where scarce management resources can be best used, do succeed in attracting most of the trained management graduates by virtue of generous terms they offer.

I believe that a lot can be done through teaching in terms of focussing the priorities and responsibilities of trained managers, which could have some impact on where these human resources are deployed. It could make a difference between using one's talents to convince people that one brand of shampoo is better than another, and using the same talents to sell the idea of 'family planning' or 'nutrition' or 'small enterprise'. This alternative also affords opportunities to use one's basic training in fields directly related with 'social and economic progress', through consultancy.

Alternative no. 3 is a possibility that can be built on some years of work at an academic institution.

The last alternative depends wholly on opportunities.

Labdhi and Santosh Bhandari - mid 1970s

Shiv Kumar remembers...

My introduction to Labdhi in the early 1970s was through another talented PhD student at Columbia at that time - Prakash Apte (who went on to become Director, IIM-Bangalore). I was a highly nervous entering MBA student in Feb 1972 leaning heavily on Prakash for advice on unlocking the mysteries of Introductory Macroeconomics. I recall meeting Labdhi several times in the apartment he used to share with Prakash and others in late 1972, and he always found the time to listen closely to my unique complaints, which stood out among the chatter of other PhD students in the apartment. Landhi was quite helpful in offering his insights into a marketing research course I was taking in early 1973, and tried his best to sneak me into a summer job at Lever Bros in the summer of 1973 - he had one locked in for himself as an ex-Lever executive. This effort did not pan out, but his natural streak of helpfulness was evident. I lost touch with him on graduation in May 1974 and a new job with Xerox in upstate NY - in retrospect, I do feel I made a big mistake in not keeping up our nascent relationship and further developing it beyong the Columbia days. Even in 1972-74, Labdhi was revered as a "Lever star" and a genuine "Marketing Guru". 

I have no doubt Labdhi is very happy in his new place and quite possibly "educating" his students there on responsible marketing with an evangelical zeal. I also wish his surviving family every success in their endeavours on this planet.

*Mr. Shiv Kumar knew LRB at the Columbia Business School in the 1970s. He is now a Senior Advisor with Nomura Code, Bell Capital Partners and ICL and lives in London. 

Manisha Mehta remembers...

Prof. Bhandari did a great deal for me. He not only taught me marketing, he also changed my way of analysing, asking questions, and thinking beyond my limited horizons. His was a substantial contribution to my two years at IIM-A being interesting and challenging. 

In my second year, I took a PhD level course that he was offering to another small group of students. I never had a problem with him being difficult to find outside the classroom – his research assistant, Jayshree Parikh, was able to answer most of my questions, and when she couldn’t, she would pass them onto him and get back to me with his response. 

In 1982, towards the end of our stint at IIM-A, a small group of us students jointly invited Prof Bhandari and his family for dinner to a restaurant. He accepted the invitation; however, at his suggestion we changed the location to the Elisbridge gymkhana club as he said that his son is little and will need some space to run around. We agreed to this change and had a very enjoyable evening; we had many questions to ask and his response was always well thought out and valuable. At the end of the meal, he wouldn’t allow us to pay as we were still students. He said after we started working and earning, we could pay. When a batchmate was less inclined to give up, he quietly let us know that as it was the club, only he could pay with his membership number and the club wouldn’t accept cash from any of us. It made me wonder about his real reason for changing the location to the club; either way, it was a very thoughtful gesture on his part. 

Some years later, I was desperately trying to change my career path and get into the world of market research, after working for nearly four years in a management consultancy. I wrote to Prof. Bhandari, asking if he knew anyone who may have a vacancy for the type of work I was looking for. Consequently, I received a phone call from Marketing and Business Associates; they interviewed me and I got the job. He had helped out without getting in touch with me at all – he didn’t expect a thank you, neither did he need to let me know that he had helped. 

It was ironic that I was in the office of Marketing and Business Associates (MBA) when I learnt that Prof. Bhandari was one of the passengers on that ill fated flight. Shyam Sunder (from MBA) probably met him previous day and broke the news to me. 

There were so many positive qualities to his personality. He genuinely cared for his students and wanted to give us the best learning experience he possible could. It was at times disappointing for him to see how few of us had prepared for the case before turning up to class.

We haven’t forgotten him and were very fortunate to have known him. 

*Manisha Mehta was a student of LRB in the early 1980s.

SL Rao remembers...

I joined Hindustan Lever as a management trainee in 1957 and left in December 1968. Those were the days of all kinds of restrictions. Unilever wanted me to get some experience working in the U.K, and gave it to me by sending me to work in Lever Brothers in exchange for one of their managers coming to India. I returned in 1963.

Some of us, who had been management trainees, started a discussion group that other managers joined (many directors wanted to come but were not invited!). In one discussion in 1967, we asked the head of personnel (a wonderful man called Dr Ranjan Banerjee) why Levers was so largely exclusive in recruiting only young, English-speaking people, mainly from the higher socio-economic classes. He proudly responded by saying that they had just selected as management trainee, a young man who had studied in Hindi medium and made the only exception till then by selecting him though he was 19, that is, below the 21 that was the rule. That was the first time that I heard of Labdhi Bhandari.

Tall, slim, with a beautiful baritone voice, deliberate in speech, he was a pleasure to meet and talk to. In the 18 months I was in the company after he joined, I met him often, and he made a deep impression upon me.

I left to head the marketing of Warner Hindustan. We were a pharmaceutical and chemicals company with ambitions of launching consumer products and I invited him in late 1971 to come in as Marketing Controller for this division. He was interested but on consideration said that Lever had asked him to go on a posting overseas and he had decided that, rather than mislead them he was resigning to pursue his academic interests. He left Lever in early 1972, joined Columbia where he took a much-acclaimed Ph.D. in 1975.

When I met Philip Kotler, the textbook guru of all students of marketing some years later, he talked very appreciatively of Labdhi who he had selected for a prestigious prize at a major conference.

I would meet him occasionally when I went to lecture at IIMA, where he had a meteoric career. I am certain that if he had been a little older he would have become Director of the institute by the mid-1980s. He was a much-loved teacher, both for his consideration and the quality of his teaching. He continued to write and publish and was involved increasingly in national policy issues.

In his sudden death in the Indian Airlines air crash at Ahmedabad in 1988 I lost a friend and the nation lost a valuable intellectual.

*SL Rao was a senior colleague of LRB at Hindustan Lever in the late 1960s and a friend. He is now Chairman, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore.