June 12th, 2018 was the day I joined MDI. It’s been over a month now, but trust me it feels like 12th June was years ago, because that’s how much I have experienced in a month. It seems so unreal to have had the experience and exposure of this magnitude in such a small time. MDI believes in extremes and these 5 weeks have been a testament to that. It is hard to pick one experience because every day it is a different story, a different kind of learning, a different challenge that needs to be overcome. But I would love to talk about my induction program experience because it was a glimpse of the next two years of my life and there were a lot of lessons to be learnt.
It all started on June 14th, we were done with our registration and everyone was in euphoric mode, making outing plans for the evening, when suddenly we are told that we have a session, this was lesson no. 1 that we are expected to be ready to deliver, at every moment. When we were given the schedule for the induction, I was shocked. Before joining MDI, I had read that MDI never sleeps and this is true. The schedule had time for everything but sleep. It seemed impossible because we are accustomed to a minimum of 6 hours of sleep, but we were expected to survive on 2 to 3 hours of sleep. This is where MDI shines. Faculty and Senior know you better than you know yourself. After the sessions, we were often called for extra sessions on basic concepts of certain subjects at different timings, this was lesson no. 2 - in corporate life, we can be called in at any time by our employer or client. Every day was followed by task assignment or pre-reads for the next day, which we were expected to submit the very next day, irrelevant of the fact that we have a tight schedule because professionalism and time management was expected from us. Also, success comes with delivering results no matter the external circumstances. After 2 weeks of sleepless nights and tiring schedule, came director’s dinner, which marked the end of the induction program. After enjoying amazing food, stunning performances by the senior and little dance party, when we came back hoping for sleep, we were notified about a class assignment submission, whose deadline was hours away. It reminded me of something that HR of my previous company once told me - Just like the corporate life gives you opportunities to party hard, it also expects you to work hard. But at this moment, our attitude was changed from ‘how will I manage’ to ‘bring it on’.
I have realized that MDI expects us to behave like a professional from day one. During induction and after that, every event and assignment is to make us the leaders of the future. Case studies, individual assignments and group assignments are such that it feels like we are solving real-world problems because at the end of two years we will be. We are not left on our own to do everything, we have the support of faculty, seniors, college resources and our team member at our disposal. In a month, I have felt the change in attitude and thought process.
The values MDI aims to impart and my core values resonate with the values of Aditya Birla Retail Limited. As an individual, I aim for making the world a better place. As a corporate professional, I would achieve that by providing better value to the customer, without compromising on honesty in the process. As a team player, I take inputs from everyone, thus leveraging on the experience of my peers. Intense situations which demand continuous improvement and where I can take ownership brings the best out of me and help me grow as an individual. I believe Aditya Birla Retail Limited is one such place. So, if I am given the opportunity for the Aditya Birla Group, that is where I would like to be.