Quarter 9 - Week 10

The final week of classes... it's a relief! The last week has all the presentations and the cases being submitted, and you finally wash your hands off all of that. Nice blank feeling, you never get tired of it, even after eight quarters. All this despite the fact that there are going to be exams the week later. Looks like projects worry us more than the end-terms!

Consumer Behaviour

One final case which no one was asked to present, but prepare for in any case. Interestingly the case was very real-life-problem-ish, since it was about understanding the steps that a local kirana store (kaaka-angadi) should take to combat the swanky new hypermarkets. Never mind that our recommendations were poles apart from the professor's... in fact, if there were two planets, we were on the opposite poles ACROSS the two planets. Get it..? No...? Sigh, it was REALLY different, all right?

The second session was on compulsive purchases and a couple of other simple concepts. Call it the end-of-quarter euphoria, but the number of questions that we peppered the prof with on the last day was phenomenal. The prof was surprised, since he expected a quiet fagged-out class on the last day, it's good to see the confused happy look on a prof's face... it's not often we get to shock profs at the IIMB.

Strategic Leadership

6 hours of presentations, all 6 ending with some great feedback from the prof. Mark my words, when I say great feedback, I don't mean praise. I mean very different thought processes. If you never get into consulting, just hope that you have profs like this one to judge your presentations. Considering the multiple topics you take up, you'll know enough about a lot of other industries by the end of it.

The basic statement the prof kept making -> where's the insight? You guys have so much information, that anyone can get by Googling... where have you applied your learnings from this course? Go deep into the problem. Ask why... ask how... get to the point where you realize why some company managed to buck the industry trend. If anything, that's the last and most important question I learnt from Strategic Leadership - Question EVERYTHING.

Personal and Interpersonal Effectiveness Workshop

The set of articles for this week build on a very interesting idea - spirit. Do you have it in you, to give without asking.. time, love, money, thanks... do you have it in you, to rely on your inner goodness... to lead you towards the right decisions than be frightened into the wrong ones? More importantly, do you have it in you to stick by your passion, instead of giving in to 'work'? And how long can you keep at it? The entire point being, you get stronger, by making your spirit stronger.

We went through the commencement speeches by Steve Jobs, the well-known Apple-honcho, and Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes fame. It's really disconcerting to see that most of these top-types, have been through hell and back. And they returned with a smile. In almost all their cases, they had to see complete failure, before realizing how they could not fail worse... and hence the only way let was forward... to succeed.

Our class shared a lot more than we typically did, I still solely attribute it to the last-day-of-classes phenomenon... but hey, who really cares huh? We know each other a lot better now, we've learnt from one another, we've shared with one another. We've even philosophized and giving holier-than-thou advice to one another. What more could you do to bring a class together?

The final project in strategic leadership and a research concept submission stand in the way of us and a blanker mind. And so I go back and join my team, in collecting the elusive pockets of data...

Quarter 9 - Week 9

What happens when you combine a long weekend, a fest focussed on entrepreneurship, and a couple of heavy assignments? Confusion! You get a bunch of holidays but you don't get enough sleep, you bunk some classes and attend some events, you crunch all the numbers and the speakers tell you that you need to focus on the heart... you get the point. It was a great time to be at IIMB, a time when people disagree with each other, and they are respectful of the fact. Oh, and yes, we did have some classes running at the same time.

Consumer Behaviour

This week like the last few have been Application Exercises and case studies, not much to say, just a lot of concept-applying in order to understand what's happening out there on the field. The case study this week was on Xylys by Titan, and to understand what went on in the consumer's mind when he was trying to select it. Also, since it was the last case, there were teams that did some proactive work in order to score a little. Since there was no particular chapter in focus here, we saw a lot of application of myriad concepts from across the book... one thing's for sure, it was suitable preparation for the upcoming exam,

Strategic Leadership

No classes this week since the presentations are set for the next. So some groups are busy hunkering down and writing something, some others (like ours) are still going through the material.

Personal and Interpersonal Effectiveness Workshop

This week we were to read a book called Siddhartha(Herman Hess), a book that looks at one man's search for what's out there... and what's the ultimate piece of knowledge. There was also a couple of readings, related to accepting what the world has to offer, right out of the book 'Feel the fear and do it anyway' and an article regarding Yoga Nidra. A little more into the practice of self-confidence and building inner strength, these two articles shed some light on activities that we can do... to be.... better. It's heavy stuff, so I'll just leave a suggestion that the book be read. If anything, I no longer have a contempt for self-help books.

The penultimate week of classes, and it's been very fruitful. It's time to deliver the coup-de-grace.

Quarter 9 - Week 8

Not much happening this week. Some interesting cases, but nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to college life. Ooh, can't wait for Eximius the next week though!

Consumer Behaviour

The prof was a little down on his regular energy in class. We were studying the reactions people have post-purchase, and essentially about the cognitive dissonance that consumers sometimes face when they find that the product doesn't fulfill what they thought it would. So we look at the different aspects of purchase, and what prompts people towards repeat purchase, or not purchasing it ever again. The whole funda lies on the premise that if the difference between consumer perception and satisfaction breaches a limit, then that's the time that cognitive dissonance takes place.

The second session was meant for a case discussion, one that's based on a venture of one of our seniors. It was quite interesting to read what happened at the venture, and a lot more interesting to hear people's interpretation of it. I totally thought that one of the teams had it bang on, when they compared the venture to other successful ventures, and tried to demarcate the roles of informational sites vs. commerce sites. Very interesting take, and one that I found to be quite apt. One of the few student presentations in class where I had some takeaway.

Strategic Leadership

Iconic. That's the one word I would use to describe the cases this week. We studied two behemoths in India - ITC and Tata. The first session, on ITC, was quite different when compared to what we had studied last week about Unilever. In the latter, we studied how the parent company and the subsidiary work together towards achieving relevant goals. In ITC however, we looked at how the Indian holding stands up for its Indian-ness, and how it asserts its goals irrespective of what the senior says. I found some brilliant takeaway in terms of challenging accepted norms, and challenging myself on some thoughts. A week ago, if you asked me, I would have said that ITC is only making its money on cigarettes, it's an unethical company... and this week, when the prof. gives us an option to sell the cigarettes division, no one wants to do so. It's a cash cow, we say... it funds all the other operations. What happened to all our ethics?? A very enlightening case, with a lot of different small pieces of learning, all of which require deep reflection.

The second session was on Tata, and how it grew from an Indian company to a multinational corporation. More importantly, how the dream of JRD Tata, was taken forward by Ratan Tata, but along a different course altogether. JRD was the tech guy, providing creative freedom to the different companies. Ratan appears to be the consolidator, trying to bring together the different companies under the Tata umbrella, and protecting the brand equity of the Tata name, besides enabling the acquisitions of international behemoths by smaller Tata companies, all because of the promise that the Tata Group can handle such an acquisition. Most importantly, we partly understood why promoter-led group holdings are more popular, accepted, and succesful here in India when compared to the rest of the world, that would rather prefer diversification of portfolios within a certain company.

Personal Interpersonal Effectiveness Workshop

Today's readings had a lot to do with the roles of others in your life, and raising your own self-esteem. The first reading takes off on the Polyanna story, about how being optimistic and trying to change your life might make life a little hard for your loved ones. The premise goes - the change that you bring to yourself might be acceptable to you, but how does it affect those around you. Were they aware that such a change was coming, would they be able to adapt to being a different person around you? The article basically suggests what we can do to make things easier for the other person, and how we need to stop being selfish and consider tying our goals with goals of those around us.

The second article, about self-appreciation and self-esteem, was all right. Not much to really speak about, I'm just getting tired of applying so many exercises to the same one/two instances that I find may be bothering me. There was also a story about hope, that prompted a lot of people to share their own stories with the group. It was an interesting session where we saw more of what our classmates went through, in terms of career progression and how they identified with certain characters in the reading. We ended with meditation, with an additional 'vipassana'-based step.

All my projects are expected next week, it's interesting how the universe (or IIMB profs in this case) conspires to put you through a living hell.

Quarter 9 - Week 7

By this time of the quarter, everyone's done with their midterms and they're scrambling to prepare their projects and presentations. The profs have by now made it clear that their time to drive the classes is almost done, and they're about to hand the steering wheels over to us. Looking back now, it doesn't seem as hectic a quarter as we've made it seem.

Consumer Behaviour

This week we had three other groups do their ApExs... the topics, having been already chosen by our prof at the start of the quarter, were meant as examples for illustrating our learnings from the topic. The teams compared products from different FMCG categories, and looked into why or what prompted certain responses from the market, and what the orgs were doing to better their standing.

The second session was a case on Ethnic Consumer Consulting, and it spoke of what drove people to try different skin care and hair oil products. So these guys go out to do a survey, and get a feel of what women are looking for. Based on this data, our guys try and draw parallels to the theoretical principles from our textbook, and explain where the different brands are placed on a graph that they make up. The prof seems happy, so everyone's happy. Look at us budding managers, with original thought. Sometimes, I wonder...

Strategic Leadership

The midterm last week seems to have struck some fire in the students, or put something out in the prof. The first session was spent on Cognizant's growth and strategy. Honestly, while their approach was interesting, the lesson was the same ol' 'this fits into that as a system of gears', and 'that system of gears fits into this system of gears', and 'this geared-supersystem fits with this geared-supersystem'. The standard thingy of you do a lot of things right, not just one 'competence'. Don't get me wrong, quite a few interesting tidbits, but as an awe-inducing principle, I think we've run out of cases.

The second session was devoted to Hindustan Lever Limited, and its connections with Unilever. I must confess, I thought I did a more involved case preparation by looking at the issues they were facing, and omg, were they facing issues! Being the top-dog in an FMCG industry is not easy. You don't know where your attackers are going to come from. Once in a while, your favourite nemesis attacks you, cuts price, at another time, a complete newbie comes in and attacks you. Now you have a large portion of the market, sometimes 3x-4x that of the closest competitor. So do the simple math... what happens when a new player enters the field, and attracts a set of first-tryouts... where would the biggest proportion of these trial-ers come from? And so these guys battle it, day in and day out... reducing prices here, consolidating brands there, reviving brands that they laid to rest, and laying to rest brands they thought were great. It's not easy. And I go in, thinking I know what the problem is. What does the prof do? He brings in a whole different perspective. He asks: Where in the entire picture do you see Unilever, the parent? To what level is a subsidiary allowed to question the parent's strategy. If the parent does well in one category globally, and you do well in an entirely different category... which one do you focus on? Who drives that focus? Then we see that the ex-top-dog at HLL had been promoted to Unilever's top kennel. And we are asked to think, who's line is he going to walk... Unilever's or HLL's?

For a moment, I'm thinking 'traitor'. Putting yourself ahead of the company (the subsidiary, that is). And then flash forward to today, the new top-dog at HLL (from the case), is ALSO now in the Unilever top-kennel. What does this mean? Can one of these actually become the CEO of the one of the biggest global FMCG companies? An Indian? So then again, we ask... who's line was the first top-dog following... The prof ends with a simple sentence, as you grow, your decisions are not going to be only based on hard fact... it's also going to cover all these hazy areas where you don't have openly-available data. That doesn't mean you don't do your best analysis, but the point is you will still not have all the info. Those instances, when you make your decisions, when you navigate those potholes, is what defines you as a leader.

Personal and Interpersonal Effectiveness Workshop

This week continues off on self-belief and confidence, by looking at being optimistic, creating rapport, persuading people, and the power of the self-conscious. There are enough people out there who are too busy being practical, and realistic, that the idealists are treated as dreamers. And rightfully so... who'd follow a dreamer into the hazy future? But then again, which practical/realistic/sane person would WALK into the hazy future... he'd be pushed into it, or the haze would come over.

The article was not so much about being the starry-eyed dreamer, it was about looking at the positive side of things as well, instead of just focussing on what could go wrong. You get the drift, I'm sure. The other articles were to do with how you could strike rapport with a person, and how you could persuade people. Reading those headings, I thought for sure this involved some sneaky convincing and deliberate half-lies. But as it turns out, it mainly involves showing integrity, and having your thoughts and voice aligned, before you find a goal that is mutually satisfying to the two parties involved. It's not 'Fix my problem!', it's 'What are our problems, and how do we go about fixing it?'.

A normal week thus far, and the only thing that's worthy of eagerness, is the upcoming Eximius fest at IIMB. Should be interesting to see ideas bandied around, on what needs to be done, and how they plan to get it done.

Quarter 9 - Week 6

About now the assignments start piling up. There are presentations, case deadlines, midterms and you're thinking 'Why God Why Did We Take This Up??". It's always fun listening in class, but when your pedal's to the metal, or in this case your head's nowhere near your bed, then you get to know your true self.

Consumer Behaviour

So we had our application exercise this week. That's another confusing word for a project. But unlike other professors, our prof decides that a few groups get to go through the grind early on. So we start chakki-peesing a couple of weeks back. Luckily for us, he didn't give us too much of a hard time then, gave us the freedom to decide what would be good to study, and then from our final set of options he selected a few questions that he thought would be interesting to focus on in class.

As it turns out, we didn't sleep for three nights in a row (Actually we slept at 1 AM, instead of the regular 12 AM.. but where's an MBA without the self-inflicted pain and misery. And complaining when in fact you get enough sleep.) And then the day before the assignment, a couple of our guys take a leave to solidify our discussions into a document for submission the next day. Till 3 AM, we're churning and reviewing the presentation as we can barely decide what should go in and what shouldn't. Leave us a chance, and we'll cram in 100 pages and turn in the report so that the prof goes through pain. But in our case, the prof has set a limit. 17 pages max! 3 for this, 3 for that, 1 for this, 2 for that... etc. So we had a hell of a time just deciding what should go in.

Finally the presentation happens, and yes, he likes it... but. Apparently we ought to go become strategy consultants for the company, since we did a great job on it... but then he reminds us, this was a consumer behaviour class.. and he would have loved to hear more about the focussed chapter. Personally I thought we used enough jargon from the chapter, but he seemed to be missing those few nuggets which would have been the crowning glory. Yes, the papers and issues we selected were top notch, but. Still, battle-scarred veterans that we are, two years later, we know how to not back down. So, the next assignment is going to be our last stand. Either we present to victory, or to get victimized, but kick some CB ass, we shall!

(Warning: Delirium due to lack of sleep. Just nod and move on.)

While the first session was three apexes by different groups, the second session was a guest lecture by a field veteran who's worked with Cleartrip.com. She helps us understand how decisions were made keeping the consumer in mind, and what kind of market they're dealing with. It was an interesting session, with a lot of questions from the attentive folks!

Strategic Leadership

In lieu of the midterm on Sunday (WHO THE HELL PUTS AN EXAM ON A SUNDAY??), no classes were held. Since no classes were held so that we could study, most of the students did their due by loafing around during that time. Some traitors were preparing for the midterm.

Personal Interpersonal Effectiveness Workshop

The readings were supposed to get easy, he said, it's an introspector's life he said. Any more reflections and journeys into the past, and I'm going to turn into a friggin' mess! Diggin' through all those old memories leaves a scar, we've got too many sharp stories in the dark memory box.

But it's useful, we're dealing with somethings that we shut out a long time ago, atleast I am. And the sentiments in the class seem to align with this too. This week we were dealing with how we look at ourselves, the happenings to us and how we respond or react to that. Do we play the victim (OMG! How could this happen to me??) Or taking some responsibility.. (Shit happened. What now?) There was another set of articles introduced as part of readings this time, from the concept of NLP. NLP basically talks about how people can overcome their fears and issues not by focussing on removing a root cause, but by modifying our reactions at the front end. So, in a nutshell, if we had a bad memory, then through some suggested exercises we replace the painful thoughts associated with it with some pleasurable thoughts. We'll soon find that we don't feel that pained anymore!

Seems too good to be true? Well, it partially worked on us, and we've only done something in two days. Imagine sitting through NLP for a long quality duration! They could potentially be made to think they're awesome and can change the world, and for all you know, they'll do it! It's a powerful tool, but in the wrong hands, it can be quite deadly.

Pretty rewarding week in all, and now I gotta go back and prepare for my SL midterm tomorrow. Sunday! Sheesh!

Quarter 9 - Week 5

Half the quarter's over, the pace is getting quicker, and the subject matter deeper. Typically, if you haven't caught up with the class by now, you're too late. Unless you're a senior in the 2nd year like me, of course. Because you then no longer have to worry about the rat race. Even if you did extremely well, your grade isn't affected much. If you do poorly, ditto! You've already got your eye on the finish line, and you're just going towards it.

Consumer Behaviour

This week we discussed Diffusion of Innovation (essentially, new products). Now our prof doesn't give much of a damn to the 'Crossing the Chasm' funda. He's more interested in why the consumer would pick such a product. So we study about the types of innovation, and the amount of change required and seen from the user's point of view. The basic funda is that the product is not new or innovative unless the USER thinks it is. You might be doing a whole new cool technological advancement, but if the end user doesn't perceive a difference in the way the product is used... then you're not really selling a new consumer product. Maybe some behind-the-scenes chaps (the earlier product developers) might be interested in your advancement.

The second session allowed a couple of teams the chance to study this concept of 'diffusion of innovation' in TiVo. So while the guys come out and mention that this is what we found, and that is what we think it must do, and these are the underlying concepts that we noticed... it slowly became apparent that the problem with TiVo wasn't the coolness, newness or technology of it. It was to do more with the fact that the target segment hadn't been properly identified, and neither had the positioning. People weren't very clear about WHAT the product is. When people try and judge a new product, they need a frame of reference. If the frame of reference is vague, then people can't really benchmark a product to mention if they indeed think this is cooler than before. So, when you think the TiVo is a super-VCR, or that it is a Season-Pass based system, they're two different views (like the blind men and the elephant). When these two thoughts are described to end users at different points of time, they'll confuse the user. THAT's the problem, and that's one of the main reasons the diffusion didn't happen.

Strategic Leadership

This week, in our first session we studied about the emergence of iFlex. The history of it is pretty cool. As it turns out, it was initially CITIL, a part of Citibank handling their BFSI services. They had one product, which was a little old for its time, but yet they run around trying to sell it. Over time, they realize that a common financial product would be a hell of a lot more beneficial to the banking industry instead of the typical services being doled out. Add to that the fact that one of the driving forces realized that the services they had rendered for a customer ages ago for a pittance, was being sold for more than a hundred million dollars now! So, then the framework gets formed (in the mind of the professor).

If I haven't told you yet, the framework involves a triple-axes format with Ambition, Resources and Opportunities on the axes. These guys had heavy ambition, and they recruited people who thought the same way. And, obviously, while Ambition is not enough, they slowly went about scrounging through the resources and opps to keep at their main vision. They also made the hard choice of keeping the guys separate in Product and Services (well, they were not going to stop doing the second! It was getting the moolah!). So, now how do they position themselves? Product or Services? As it turns out, they call themselves domain experts. So irrespective of what the customer comes looking for, as long as it's related to banking, these guys are here. There's a lot more interesting information about how they went about getting the reputation and knowledge base that they did, but the critical part remained as to how they envisioned something that no one else was thinking of at that moment, and how that vision helped them with building the best financial product as of the time. And all this from India.

The second session was a guest lecture by the CEO/Co-founder at Tejas Networks. The interesting part is he speaks in the same language as us (Inflection point and all that...), probably because our professor's on his board! But his story again was very inspiring. He went on to detail how the market for telecom networks was in the 2000s, and how the Chinese players were investing heavily when the others weren't. Seeing an opportunity, these guys decided to get in as well... so when the whole world's cutting back on investments, these guys are going full-steam ahead, at 1/4 the cost. So he discusses the choices they made, and what they chose not to do, in order to become one of the biggest suppliers in the industry out here. As of now, they're in the top 10 set worldwide, which is a tremendous claim to fame for a company from India. Our class seems to have picked on the lessons within the framework, because they badger him with all sorts of questions related to how 'this aspect' or 'that aspect' must have been an issue, and how he faced it. He must have attended a similar private course by the prof, as he generously and amicably doled out all the info about how they faced problems of leadership, and definite strategy. It's always very inspiring and cool to hear these sort of talks, they tell you what you can definitely achieve!

Personal Interpersonal Effectiveness Workshop

This week's readings were from 'Feel the fear and do it anyway', and another few about meditation. The 'Feel the fear...' readings talk about how people have different fears, from small to big, ranging from 'I am afraid of swimming' to 'I am afraid of public speaking' to 'I am afraid of death' etc. What the article tries to say is that in order to get over your fears, it's important to understand one thing - that you have the capability to control the outcomes. As long as you understand that YOU can handle it, things will be all right. The moment you resign yourself to fate, because you probably have given up the sense of control, that's when things really get undone. So our class begins to discuss, from their experience, about how they've had certain issues with dealing with fear, and what they did to support themselves through it. While the discussions tend to go here and there, many of the thoughts had the same underlying worry - if I decide to just follow my heart, and do what I want, how do I support those who depend on me. It's always difficult to really answer that question, and I hope by the end of this quarter, we figure out how to make the decision.

The second set of readings had to do with meditation and happiness. The meditation articles were straightforward. They talk of how and what to do while meditating. The happiness article was a different take on how to achieve happiness. The author tries to say that happiness is a state of mind, and we've conditioned ourselves into thinking that happiness comes by fulfilling goals or meeting a certain objective. The author says that in order to gain happiness, we create some discomfort by setting such goals... and when we fulfill them, we feel at peace. It's like pinching yourself hard for a while, and then letting go. And then he sets a wonderful analogy -People are changing the way they view life, such that when they go fishing... they forget that it's not the fish they're after.

That's just powerful. It makes you look at things from a very different angle. So, if there's anything I'd like to leave with you for this week, it's that.... Why are you fishing?

Quarter 9 - Week 4

Nothing very special from the classes this week, a couple of guest lecturers and a few cases. The highlight was the Pehel fest, thrown by the first year students. It's the first fest of the year, held in the first quarter, by the first years - therefore, the original name - Pehel. The amount of time invested in this was very visible, looking at the number of events organized and the intricate logos and t-shirts designed. A few confusions on stage, but nothing out-of-the-ordinary, and definitely a brilliant means of learning for the incoming batch about the rigour of managing the show despite the heavy workload. It was a good way to end the weekend at college! :)

Consumer Behaviour

This week, the prof decides to take a break and make the students do the presentations. So we had a couple of cases, one around the rollout of a shampoo for the rural masses of India, and the other about Canada Dry. The prof seems to focus primarily on the process of how we analyse the case, rather than the actual results itself. And yes, the typical dindora-peeting of the 'Use the data! Use the data!'. Apparently, we're not using it enough, and this is after two years in college. I don't get it! We spend a full 25 minutes on analysing the data, what does he want? 8 hours?? In any case, our case comes up in another 4 weeks, so we can just chill...

(P.S. For those of you who don't know, you ARE supposed to spend 8 hours atleast on case analysis alone. Reading time before that is a given.)

Strategic Leadership

The two cases for this week were FabIndia and Bajaj Auto Limited. Interesting cases, but they're now slowly lacking the punch that I've seen in the first three weeks. Maybe we're getting a hang of how this chap goes around the cases... but more importantly, he still sticks to the new fundas that these chaps have brought out. FabIndia seemed to be about how the basic industry was transformed, into something profitable and meaningful for the actual producers. More importantly it goes into how something that used to be almost equivalent to daily labour was transformed into something that enabled wealth creation (that's a cool phrase beyond your basic daily income. Essentially about 'munafa' over and above 'income'. Still don't get it, ultimate profit sharing.)

Bajaj Auto Limited was a case that essentially talked of the difference in opinion between two generations. The basic thought processes that define where the company is, what is should concentrate on, can be thrown into a tizzy - and the only way around this, is if one of the two sides win. So the case talks about how they went about the transformation from becoming an almost-monopolistic-incumbent in scooter production to the second-highest-player in motorcycle production. For those of you who think 'Two-wheelers right? What's the diff?', it's a big diff my friend... big diff. Come on over, and we'll spend an hour-and-a-half pakaoing you about it.

Personal Inter-personal Effectiveness Workshop

This week we're talking about how and why we react the way we do. Apparently, there's this major connection to the way we've been brought up, and we typically revert to the type of reactions we show as children to our parents or authority figures, when we get stresses. So for e.g., if your boss yells at you for not getting things delivered on time, your typical reaction is the way you might react to your dad when he yelled at you for not getting good marks in school. If you were berated enough to be scared, you're likely to get into that same feeling when your boss is yelling. If you yelled back at your dad, you're likely to yell back here. Of course, there are certain constraints - you will look at the surrounding environment, the person to whom you're talking, the relationship you both share... but in terms of deep stress, irrespective of who, where, when, you'll get back to your basic instinct. We also spoke of how giving strokes to people (when I say stroke, I mean 'feedback' in the simplest sense of the word) is important, and how people crave for strokes. As it turns out, negative strokes is better than no strokes at all... which was pretty surprising, but makes sense in the end. You'd rather have SOME feedback than none at all.

The second half of the session was about yoga, mainly breathing actually. The guest lecturer was explaining the merits of breathing, and how it impacts us. So we speak about different modes of breathing, and he also goes in depth about what are the changes that happen in your body, and how does it help you avoid getting stressed. Pretty interesting, and it looked like my classmates concurred! :)