|
Hi,
Thank you for dropping in. I'm Joseph Arul, often known only
as M.J. Arul. I speak Tamil, English and Hindi. I can also
correspond in these languages, though not with equal ease. As for Gujarati,
I can start a conversation (keym chho?) and end it (aav joe!),
but am no good at what might happen in between!
I hail from Susaiapperpatnam, about seventy kilometres east of Madurai,
the temple town in the southern state of Tamilnadu,
India.
After completion of my E.S.L.C. (eighth grade) at the village and high school at Kalaiyarkoil,
a roadside town about 45 minutes' walk to the west of Susaiapperpatnam,
I left home in 1962 to join a seminary. After several years of scholastic
and spiritual training there, I relinquished my seminary life, following
a two-week experimentation within myself. (More details of my CV are available at www.geocities.com/arulmj/cv-arul.html.)
My work life began in 1972 with a job in sales, which I quit in about
a year's time to join a multidisciplinary team at the Space Application
Centre of the Indian Space Research Organization
(ISRO). That was when India's Satellite Instructional Television Experiment
(SITE), covering six contiguous states of the country was launched. After
a short stint of about six months at ISRO, I joined the Indian
Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, where I worked for a little
over six years, initially as a research assistant and later as a Course
Associate in the Organisational Behaviour Area. I had the opportunity then
of collaborating with Dr. P.N. Khandwalla and, together, offered IIMA's
first-ever Creativity Workshop for managers from the corporate sector.
While with the IIM, I also took up visiting faculty assignments and taught
Psychology
at the National Institute of Design and Personnel Management at
Bhavan's College, both in Ahmedabad.
On July 1, 1980, I joined the Institute
of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA), the day the Institute inducted the
first batch of its students for the Programme in Rural Management (PRM).
I joined there as Research Associate and gradually became Faculty Associate,
Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and finally Professor. During 1996-'99, I taught part of OB-I for the PGPs & FPMs at IIM-Ahmedabad -- as Visiting Faculty. I left IRMA in 1998 on voluntary retirement. About a week later, in
November that year, I joined DD Institute of Technology (DDIT), Nadiad,
as Professor & Head of its Centre for Management Studies.
I quit the job in April 2000 and took to freelancing. In April 2001,
I moved to Bombay and was Professor of Organisational Behaviour at S.P. Jain Institute of Management
& Research, Mumbai, till December 2003. Then I moved to Bangalore, where I was Dean of Management Studies at Presidency College till June 2005. From then till January 2006, I was Professor of OB & HR at SDM Institute of Management Development, Mysore. I am back now at Presidency as Director of their B-School in Bangalore.
Despite my long disinclination to do a PhD, I undertook a study of interpersonal
needs of managers, using the revised theory of FIRO and its Element-B
instrument (which, you may know, outwitted and replaced the earlier FIRO-B), and
completed my doctorate. Subsequently,
I underwent the initial and advanced phases of the FIRO-based Human-Element
training. I took Phase-I in 1995 and Phase-II, conducted by
Dr. Will Schutz, the originator himself, in 1998. I attended an update on the subject
in October-November 2000. These events were in California, USA. In March 2006, Mr. Gary Copeland of BCon, San Francisco, USA, and I conducted two Human Element workshops for the UN officers at Bangkok, Thailand. More recently, in January-February 2007, I introduced FIRO to the senior managers of BRAC, an international NGO, headquartered at Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Human Element Training is now
available to people .
If you want to take the FIRO instruments online, Click here!
All along, I've been more a teacher and trainer than a writer or anything
else. My research and consultancy have been modest. I hope you find my
writings, limited as they are, worth your time. Please do tell me if you
have something to say on them. Thanks again for dropping in.
[By the way, I lost my father (Mr. S. Michael) on Friday, October 8, 2004. He was over 104 years old. To the day he died, from a fall, he walked about on his own -- with his eyesight, hearing and speech intact. He used to help my sister-in-law thread the needle; he wore no spectacles! I had last met my father in May 2004 and planned to visit my village again in October 2004 to listen to his edifying chat again. I made the visit, all right -- but, alas, only to bury the centenarian! My mother breathed her last on 20 July 2006; she was 86. Requiescant in pace (RIP)! May their souls rest in peace! Amen.]
Research
Cases
Teaching Notes
Other Readings |
