To Excel At XLRI

An alumnus recounts his time at the B-school, how it changed him, shaped his ideology and made conversations on the ethics of how to do business personal, rather than purely intellectual

- Vineet Nayar

It was my first day at XLRI— Xavier School of Management in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand. A scorcher of a day, the hot winds were making the windows rattle and bang, and sweat was streaming down my face. As our American professor, Father E.H. Mcgrath, addressed our classroom full of 36 students, not particularly bothered by the heat, I could only think: “where the hell am I and why?”

I had left my small, beautiful town of Pantnagar in the foothills of the Himalayas with its cool breeze and view of the mountains to pursue my ambition of doing an MBA (Master of Business Administration). Sitting in that classroom that day, I was regretting everything!

Just as I was dozing off, all hell broke loose. About 30 tribals had barged into the classroom, stabbed Father McGrath and were attacking the students in the front row. I, brave as ever, dived under my chair and shut my eyes. I emerged only when a silence fell over the classroom.

Father McGrath was standing and calmly telling us that what we had witnessed was a performance. He asked us, now wide awake, to write an account of what we had just seen. Each version was different. The exercise, he said, was meant to demonstrate why we should not believe everything we see in times of stress. My takeaway was a little different: if you want to say something important, say it in a way that people will never forget, the Father McGrath way! With that, my two-year journey at XLRI began.