Read this IIM Ahmedabad convocation speech by Kumar Mangalam Birla winning the hearts and minds of everyone

Chairman of Aditya Birla Group, Kumar Mangalam Birla congratulated the 2021 batch for the completion of the first chapter of their career book. He addressed the students on the occasion of the 56th convocation ceremony of IIM Ahmedabad as the chief guest.

He marked the convocation day for graduating students as the beginning of an entirely different chapter in their life. He said that this is a good day for the graduating batch to pause and determine what 'X' factor they will use to make a difference in their career. He shared his valuable thoughts with the graduating batch on how they can add a meaningful purpose to their life ahead.

The 'Hallmark' traits

The IIM Ahmedabad convocation ceremony marked the culmination of a glorious chapter of students' journey. The chief guest, Kumar Birla defined three hallmark traits that everyone has inherited from their two-year journey at the prestigious institution, which are:

Strong academic record
All-round skills that go beyond classroom teaching and
Enormous hunger to succeed

He called these three hallmark traits, the trinity of records, skills and attitude.

The 'Discovery' phase

He advised students to experiment in the '20s as the opportunity cost of experiments rises sharply as we grow in our careers. So, in the short term, the '20s should be the discovery phase for the students. He clearly emphasized not to associate the word experiment with starting a business or a company rather than consider it as a discovery phase to work in a different factory or country and gain experience in diverse sectors or unfamiliar functions.

He urged students to be impulsive but at the same time, also temper impulsiveness with creativity and positivity. He told them to be thoughtful of what they want to focus on by stringing together the experiments and experiences.

Accumulate units of learnings

Kumar Birla assessed experiences as units of learning, the more units students can accumulate in a year, the more valuable they become. He claimed the ability to learn as elastic by nature. He called the units of learning, the defining factor for career choices as it would always help in making a choice that accelerates students' learning curve. He illustrated this statement with the inspiring story of a relentless entrepreneur Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group.

Have a multidimensional thought process

He communicated to the students to not adopt the unidimensional approach in their thinking process and encouraged them to add more dimensions like empathy and humility in their thought process. Most importantly, he emphasized Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Emotional Quotient (EQ) as complementary traits rather than binary qualities.

He also conveyed to the graduating batch that they must have solved complicated business problems but the reality is that they can't build the business with spreadsheets. He illustrated the example of Microsoft's social chat box which has social skills as well as an understanding of human emotions. Hence, with this, he focused more on having both IQ and EQ factors in students’ thinking process.

Make a difference

Kumar Birla ended his address in the IIM Ahmedabad convocation ceremony with a question, "How will the graduating batch measure the journey that kicked off through the virtual convocation?"

To answer this, he suggested some benchmarks that can measure students' journey and can be the pace of the promotions they get, the salary they draw, the designation they hold, or companies they float. But with these benchmarks, he informed students to not rely completely on them and urged them to ask themselves one question "Did I make the difference?" If the answer is yes for them, it means they have advanced progress in their field and added a repository of knowledge and wisdom in their career life.

This brought him to the end of the IIM Ahmedabad convocation ceremony. He urged students to do justice to the education they have received and lived up to the rich legacy of this iconic institution. He expressed that IIM Ahmedabad is not just a business school, it is more than just an institution or a badge of honor. He marked that IIM Ahemdabad is going to be a permanent part of the graduating batch and now they have to enrich it with a meaningful purpose.

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