One fine day as me and my friends were going towards the class, we were talking about the dryness of the case which was to be discussed in the morning class that day but we never imagined what would unfold that very morning and that would be probably the memorable day for many of us at the campus. Hi all, my name is Siddharth Mittal and I am a participant of Post Graduate Programme in Management at Indian Institute of Management, Indore; 2017-19 batch. It was a fairly cold winter evening in the month of December and the geographical location of the IIM Indore campus even makes it a bit colder as it is situated on a hill in the outskirts of the city. As I was walking towards the classroom complex to attend the first of the continuous chain of lectures for the day, I was accompanied by few of my friends and classmates and we were discussing about the readings and cases to be prepared for the day. The first session was an Organisation Behaviour session whose case was a bit dried up as it dealt with a public crisis that an organisation had to face because of its products. We went to the classroom, down and out, ready for another lecture. To our surprise, the faculty came with a few sheets in hand and gave it a-piece to a few students. As I was among the ones who got one sheet, I quickly looked at the sheet and was a bit surprised to see that it had the role of the legal consultant written on it; the same character that was mentioned in the case. I thought that we would have a role-play kind of thing and was happy to get a role. A minute after getting the sheets, the professor called all the characters to the front dice and with the help of teaching assistant, we got chairs to sit in the middle of the class facing our classmates. Then sir told us to start discuss amongst us (the characters) to discuss and rest of the class to prepare counter questions. As we just started, there was a sudden entry of a group of people, dressed as localities who were protesting against the company (mentioned in the case) and started arguing with us (one who were playing the characters) about the incidents unfolded and demanding the CEO (character) to be brought forward so that they can take their revenge for their loss. Since, we had never seen these people before on our campus, we were confused about what was happening and who were these people. We were constantly trying our best to handle the situation (created artificially) by talking to the group. However, the group members were adamant about not talking and started crying and abusing the company for their loss. The drama went on for about half an hour until finally sir intervened and ended it and the discussion happened where the original identities of the group members (who came as a mob) were revealed. They were college students from nearby institutes. That day, at least the students who played the characters (including me) got a glimpse of what crisis could really be like and how difficult it is to manage people when they turn into a violent mob. Indeed that was a day that has been one of my memorable ones.
Which ABG company would you want to work for and why?
Working for a prestigious conglomerate like the Aditya Birla Group itself is a pride; be in whichever company. Still, if I get a choice, I would like to choose Essel Mining & Industries limited, the renewable energy wing because I strongly believe that renewable energy is the future in India and has immense growth potential. Not only this, being an electrical and electronics engineer and having worked on developing portable- solar inverter during my final year project at NIT Calicut, I can utilise my managerial as well as technical skills to a great extent to come up with innovative products and distribute it nationally to make India a renewable-energy-powered nation and contribute significantly towards the growth and target of achieving 100 GW of solar power by 2022.
- Siddharth Mittal
