Business Mandate (October 2020)

Page 20

Business Mandate fountainhead of excellence

The ‘mandate of heaven’ also shares the platform with other philosophies and values of China... This is the basis of the underlying belief system of the Chinese people.

Professor Vijay Govindarajan. This flagship program is offered for about five large US based multinational companies and one British company, which is Rolls­Royce. I started picking up a liking for China. I could connect a lot of dots from the past to the present. Incidentally, ethnography is my speciality and that's the reason why Tuck School absorbed me into their programs. I started seeing different aspects of China, largely from I am primarily an educator. I used to

of the ancient travellers of China came

run Indology programs for American

to India and vice versa; and these were

and British based museums and also for

so compelling on me. I decided to go to

educators who teach about India. I had

China. In 2008, I landed in Beijing.

this big apathy for China like most Indians. I had one long stint in the Nalanda archaeological site in Bihar. My guide, an elderly person, always used to tell me that I should see the beautiful Chinese Museum which was being constructed by the Chinese. The map that led to China

I was there for a BMW foundation and a CII meeting. Then I took off and I spent about a couple of weeks in the region of Zhengzhou. That is where I could really learn about China’s glorious past, the Chinese people and their backgrounds, cultural moorings and why they think the way they think today.

an American lens, but also from working on developing leaders who were yelling in pain about doing business in China. I also went through the transition of China with Xi Jinping coming in and the metamorphosis of China happening. Experiential learning was my specialty. My job involves taking people and putting them for half a day in a small little Communist Party office in a village, then bringing them out and having conversations with them.

One fine day, he took me to the Chinese

I went all the way to Kashgar which

Museum and what struck me was the

is in the extreme west of China. I

What I learned is that in China, there is

huge map of China. I looked at the

travelled extensively and that was my

a deal between the rulers and the

Xinjiang province in the West of China

passion. From 2005, I have been

subjects. This deal was made some time

and thought about the connection

running a Global Leadership 2030

in 600 BC. It is known as the ‘Mandate

between India and China through the

Program for the Tuck Executive

of Heaven.’ They don't necessarily

West, the pathways through which some

Education in which I am a partner of

believe in gods and goddesses, but they

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OCTOBER 2020

The deal


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