Suggested Reading for Rural Manager

The philosophy of the former Nation editor Victor Navasky, “to question the conventional wisdom, to be suspicious of all orthodoxies, to provide a home for dissent and dissenters, and to be corny about it, to hold forth a vision of a better world” still holds true for times now.

We are all living in an era where raising comforts and growing economy has conditioned many individuals with good education to jerk off all political responsibilities and even basic understanding of political matters. There is rapid increase in the mindless content of entertainment, news, films and books, hence we have to seek knowledge in a very mature and intelligent manner. In the era of instant judgement, careful analysis and patience is required. By looking through the complexity enough one need to find real cause of sufferings of many.

Curiosity is the most powerful thing you own. There is a pleasure of finding things out. Starting point of any education is by giving us an understanding of our-self, our culture and our world. Our knowledge must adapt to changing times, not get buried under traditional walls of classroom teaching. I don't read journals (not even EPW) myself as even using Google smartly requires a scholarly work. But there is always an effort and guidance required for personal growth.

I am naming here few books related with the field of rural management and development. You can add your own preferences but reading books is a personal choice. There is a very thin line between creative suggestion and interference. One is always free to search and share his/her own knowledge. I will quote Aldous Huxley who put it in a more elegant way - “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”

Good Management Books

01- Connect the dots by Rashmi Bansal
02- Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
03- The Essential Drucker by Peter Drucker
04- Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson
05- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
06- Simply Fly – A Deccan Odyssey by Captain Gopinath
07- Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson
08- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
09- Made In Japan: Akio Morita & Sony Reissue by Akio Morita
10- Positioning : The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries, Jack Trout
11- The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
12- What Money Can't Buy The Moral Limits of Markets by Michael J. Sandel
13- We Are Like That Only: Understanding the Logic of Consumer India by Rama Bijapurkar
14- Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't by Jim Collins
15- Beyond the MBA Hype: A Guide to Understanding and Surviving B-Schools by Sameer Kamat
16- The Ascent Of Money : A Financial History Of The World : A Financial History of the World by Niall Ferguson

Good Development Books

01- I Have a Dream by Rashmi Bansal
02- Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich
03- I Too Had a Dream by Verghese Kurien
04- Small is Beautiful by E F Schumacher
05- Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen
06- Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
07- Everybody loves a Good Drought by P Sainath
08- The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture by Wendell Berry
09- We Are Poor but so Many: The Story of Self-employed Women in India by Ela R Bhatt
10- Hello Bastar: The Untold Story Of India's Maoist Movement (Paperback) by Rahul Pandita
11- Banker To The Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty by Muhammad Yunus
12- A Fistful of Rice: My Unexpected Quest to End Poverty Through Profitability by Vikram Akula
13- The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits by CK Prahalad
14- Poor Economics: Rethinking Poverty And The Ways To End It by Abhijit V. Banerjee, Esther Duflo
15- Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism by Muhammad Yunus

How much book a person can read, it can never substitute the experience part of the life. Talking with the people who are living with, not against, nature is biggest guide of a rural manager. Their wisdom and prejudices have been passed through generation of experiences. Observe them !!!

Life of A Rural Manager

What is unofficial tagline of Brand Rural Management Programme at XIMB : “We Try Harder”

A quick question is fired by an aspirant, “Why does anybody ever want XIMB-RM as first choice in admission ?”

Yes, we all know that “XIMB-RM is only No. 2.”

Yet the reply is simple: “We try harder in nurturing our budding rural manager because we have to make a point. It's always the second ranker who works harder and learns a lot more in the process.”

The origination of the answer is not to create a cute, gimmick, but instead it was – and is -- a business philosophy that every XIMB-RM students holds true. Each and every student of rural management knows that he must work harder and learn extensively than their counterparts. XIMB - RM focus on frank and truthful statements about our ranks and education philosophy. This institution is a Sangam (confluence) where we seek to find balance between mainstream business and development of people on margins.

As I write this, I'm enjoying cool breeze of Vagator beach, Goa with a chilled beer. Actually, that’s not the true case at all. I'm sitting in a small room with bare minimum facilities at Gajapati district during winter internship. I assumed before joining XIMB that I can handle the weather of Odisha. Rarely, it rains mildly with a romantic weather. Its always either a dull humid weather or heavy rains. Nothing weakens Superman like Green kryptonite, the humidity acts same way here draining all energy! For once, we can wish cool weather every day (yes dear XIMBians, We all love Bhubaneshwar weather :X)! To add to that rigour were other matters like bad food (very very important). We love cuisine like Night-mess ka roasted chicken to X-cafe ka garlic chicken soup.

Arbeit macht frei is a German phrase, literally "labour makes (you) free". The slogan is known for having been placed over the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust, but that should be put on the entrance of this place. Yes, life is not so cool here. Time is a scarce commodity in this place. Yet, one can see endless usage of time in various activities. People still have the spirits to involve in various Committees, quizzes, games and X-Walks. But this is a thing about XIMB: you rarely get time for yourself. Even the whole 24 hours seems to be exhausting, tiring and even suicidal as it can sometimes get, I don't think any of us would want it any other way.

When Rural India wakes Up at 5:00 AM only then our rural managers stop their interactive chatting sessions and start dreaming of liberal days of graduation. 15 minutes before beginning of the class, get you Ass Up Fast is the call from the beloved lazy neighbor. Even then, 9 out of 10 Rural managers are firmly grounded on their bed. Such is the start of the day and the forecasting of whole saga of two years can be made on this start.

There are not only Intelligentsia, Devil's Advocate, Activist, Salesman and Social workers but also Mamas, Chachas, Night-Owls & Free-riders present in each batch. There are people here who provide a lot of joy whenever they leave the room. While one or two are such masterpiece while everybody was drinking from the fountain of knowledge they only gargled. Yes, there are superstars who gives solid evidence of halo effect. Some of ours species can even argue with a signpost but there is one with whom it's hard to believe he beat out 1,000,000 other sperm. I fall in the category of rural managers who set low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them.

Before a layman goes on a trip, one may want to read more about the history, the people, the landscapes, and the present political and cultural situation of the destined place. That is the pedagogy of academics for rural manager. Donor Mentality, CSR activities, Development tourism, Caste based business, deep poverty, top down approach of government, rehabilitation policy etc ... we were mentored for two years to question authority and yet develop leadership traits.

Our alumni travel across India and are ease with corporate office as well as a tribal community in a remote region. That sets us apart from our colleagues in India. We have our internal conflicts like how we will integrate development (not sure what it meant then) with surging profits of the company. We know both about CK Prahlad and P Sainath. P Sainath who? A question that is asked too frequently from the rural managers.

And we learn in two years : For India, reality bites. But Lage Raho India, dream on! Business Managers are good Hegelian. They have a good theory, forget about the reality. Hence, the author has chosen to become rural manager. Yes, I will be saying golden jargons in the end : We all have a deep love for 'sustainable development' of all 'stakeholders'.

Notice: This was a draft written long ago treasured in archives of the blog for unknown reason. It's been like 8 months since I last wrote in one flow. I am throwing a glimpse of life of a rural manager tailored at XIMB.