Travel Diaries 1.7: Work

The farce called the 'Case Method'

Now, this may attract the ire of all who swear by it and many more who find it enlightening or even amusing, but here is what I feel, and not without reason: The ‘Case Method’ of instruction followed in most institutes of national and international importance and repute is starkly incomplete and in its current form- a FARCE!

Firstly, problems in real life- the kind we face every day at work and in life- don’t come in neat little packages, like cases do. Anyone who has attempted solving cases would agree that we are oft encouraged to work with only the information contained within the case, sometimes even castigated for not toeing the line. And most cases give more than sufficient information (which is useless most of the time) and even go as far as listing out the issues that need be thought about. This, I found, is not the case in the work I’d done- very few knew what the problem was, most of the time and nobody ever had the complete data needed to attempt a solution.

Defining the scope of the problem, understanding the organization’s limitations and drawing out boundaries within which a given solution would hold good formed the crucial first step- a lesson learnt at a pretty high price.

Secondly, with due cognizance of the merits of the method- namely, opportunity to test decisions in controlled environment et al.- the solutions are most often incomplete. No theory or classroom could ever replicate the actual dynamics of a decision-making scenario: the stress, the ramifications, the backlashes, the kickbacks, the far-reaching effects (both favorable and unfavorable)- can only be marginally mimicked in a controlled case discussion. Well, this might be the trade-off but is it a fair one?

Thanks to a few professors there is never a dearth of stress, but paying attention to the repercussions is just as important as arriving at the best immediate-term decision.

Third, discussions in the case method carry an implicit assumption that all choices are rational and are aimed at maximizing benefit- monetary, strategic or otherwise. There are almost no occasions where irrational choices are discussed or even entertained. This I found is seldom the state in real businesses: people choose goods and services not always because they are better, most often it is the ads or loyalty or peer pressure or a multitude of other factors; governments seldom award contracts to the best bid; businesses don’t always choose an overall best, it is often biased in favor of one of the criteria (tech/fin/partnerships etc.)

Encourage mavericks in the class who come up with the craziest of ideas, after all that is how people think.

Lastly, there is no moderator to lead and guide the discussion in real life; Result: digression is more common than anybody would imagine. And the worst part is, we don’t even see ourselves going away from the right track, which makes course correction so much more difficult and delayed. Businesses have failed and companies have gone belly up because of not being able to see where they are headed and hence not being able to act in time.

There’s not much anybody can do about it- we all know what happens in a discussion with no moderator- except of course be aware of it and do rain checks at least occasionally.

*This is the first of a series of experiences I've begun to compose as a travelogue. Considering the kind of places I'm being to and the kind of things I'm doing, it would take quite some time to compile and present appropriately (without embarrassing myself) the adventures of a lone traveller- yours truly...

PS. The posts that follow shall not be so informative or instructive as this one was. Well, mistakes, by definition, happen only once :P