ATK and cross cultural perspectives

Yesterday it was the turn of A.T.Kearney. After McKinsey and BCG have given us tons of gyan about Consulting as a career, it was ATK’s turn to talk about cross cultural perspectives. Interestingly, a similar topic was also discussed in the MGTO class yesterday.

This event brought back the memories of my good old days. I have been fortunate enough to have worked in 3 regions of the world and so I could really appreciate what they were talking about. I remember my first rendezvous with diverse cultures during my early days in Oman. I had gone to attend a seminar on IAS 39 hosted by E&Y and we had this round dinner table type of setting(whatever it is called!). On my table there were 2 Indians, a couple of Arabs, one Englishman and American and a Japanese guy. It was kind of interesting for me to interact with so many different nationalities all at the same time.

Over the course of my tenure in Dubai, Muscat and Chicago I could recall many instances of interacting with many people of different nationalities, where I could develop a cross cultural understanding and a sense of respect for cultures other than my own, which is perhaps hard to envisage if one has worked only in India.

I am not sure how this helps an individual professionally (on an IQ side), but personally on an EQ level I did learn a few things.

Overall the ATK session was quite interesting as all the people spoke very freely without creating any hype about the firm but at the same time saying whatever they wanted to say. Ankur from class of 2006 is conducting a session on consulting resumes today. Another example of how ISB alums take time out from their precious weekends to help the current students.