My Lessons Series – 5: Practice Comes Ahead of Theory

Which comes first #Practice or #Theory first? The question which come first was a point of much debate; among my friends first, classmates, acquaintances, colleagues and co-professionals!

Zest, zeal and enthuciasm filled my chest; being my first job first day. It was on 9th Sep 1975. I was fighting on Theory vs Practice as I entered the portals of the Corporate Office Personnel Department of the first electronics development corporation in the country KELTRON, Trivandrum, India.

(Internal fight, confusion, lack of clarity: Practice vs Theory or Theory first and Practice later)

Met senior, Surendranath, the first Personnel Officer of the first electronics development corporation around 10 am. After introductory pleasantries etc (role model Induction & Placement Session: reflected on Edwin Flippo: Principles of Personnel Management), he started what and how work has to be learnt. Excellent poise, he asked me What work shall I give you, you're fresh from college! I told him I don't know anything about work.

He explained to me learn the work of a clerk. He exhorted, while doing, also understand and learn the degree of difficulty, step-by-step, degree of easiness, nuances, as well as the legal, administrative and other dimensions as well. If mastered with all its meditative thought, you will do better day after day. It'll help me in guiding juniors when they come sup with issues or clarifications. Also, relate with theory learnt.

I exactly did what he did. I was pristine, young and virgin in my mind, body, soul, spirit and conscience. Mentally noted each aspects. Reflected over it again and again. Matched with contrasted, compared and 'criticised' with Theory. Understood, Practice is entirely different. Practice cannot be taught in theory class. Reflected over a couple of times. To make the learning look complete and for verification and validation, discussed with my Professor, TSNPillai. He made me answer every step in Theory, as if it was a revision, which he is familiar. He also narrated me to match, if possible, those components in Practice (which he was not all familiar). Hand-held me to come to my own conclusion that Practice comes first, all the learnings I gathered from work and coupled with my value addition (few were there), the best practices emerged. The best practices done again and again with its value additions from several individuals get converted to Theory. This theory is dated several years back. I asked my Professor the year in which Syllabus was revised; 11 years back.

Key Learnings: (1) 'Practice' comes first and 'Theory' later. (Practice perfected, chiselled, sharpened, modified, refined and repeated again and again graduates to Best Practices. Such Best Practices form hypotheses. Hypotheses when tested, verified ad validated becomes Theory. (2) Class rooms (Theory) is several years back (in my case 11 years back: Alwyn Toffler (1928-2016) in 1970: "knowledge quadruples every four hours") (3) Hence, I bat for Faculty members to be more scholarly than ever, update every 2 minutes to quadruple their knowledge & skill sets, ignite reflective criticisms on learning to employ "synergogy" as the powerful medium for adult education. (4) Case Writing (esp Indian ones) has to be given Top Priority; 10% of students best dissertations be converted with Faculty member guidance, to Case Studies, and follow 60-70% of Sessions through Case Analysis method, rather than monologue lectures, repeated year after year by the same Faculty member, same lessons, same pace, same examples......but students come in and go every 2 years & gets excited ...of no use, no value to industry. (5) Key metrics & Outcomes of an MBA students: Publish 2 Indian Case Studies in 24 months co-authored by their Professor (6) Both Cognitive learning and Intuitive learning capabilities leapfrog several horizons over 24 months if Faculty members excite MBA students this way.