On 9th and 10th April 2025 we did an offsite workshop for faculty and staff. We revisited the mission, the curriculum and the areas where we need to focus. The participation was 100 percent.
The main idea was to bring everyone on the same page and build a cohesive team.
Where we started.
We began with the founder. Shri Mahendra Nath set out what IMT was for, and it still reads well:
To build an institution that nurtures professionally trained managers equipped with both theoretical knowledge and practical expertise, ensuring their meaningful contribution to industry and national development.Shri Mahendra Nath, Founder, in "Reflections of an industrialist: From Mud House to Millionaire"
Then we put the mission we had on the wall, and asked whether it still described what we do.
The mission we had
- Create intellectual capital in terms of scholarly and practice-oriented research relevant to its evolving techno-civilization context.
- Foster a worldview that promotes diversity, inclusion, and ethical participation in the interconnected world of business.
- Forge meaningful partnerships with industry, academia, government, and social sectors such that sustainable businesses are built fulfilling the collective needs of various stakeholders and the society.
- Promote a culture of academic excellence benchmarked against the best institutions in its peer group.
Ten tables, ten sets of words.
Every table wrote the words it thought should carry IMT forward, and most of them turned their words into a name.
- Table 1LEADS
- Leadership
- Entrepreneurship
- Academic excellence
- Digital and AI
- Social Impact
- Table 2LEAPS
- Leadership
- Entrepreneurship
- Actionable Research
- Partnership with business
- Social Impact
- Table 3SAR
- Stewardship as foundational ethos
- Action-oriented research
- Responsible and responsive leadership
- Table 4ACTS
- Adaptable mindset
- Collaborative innovation
- Transformative leadership
- Sustainability consciousness
- Table 5STEEL
- Sustainability and Social Responsibility
- Technology-readiness
- Entrepreneurial mindset
- Ethics and Value-driven
- Leading Impactful Research
- Table 6DIRECT
- Digital
- Inclusion
- Relevance
- Excellence
- Collaboration
- Technology
- Table 7PIIICS
- Purpose-driven
- Innovative
- Impactful
- International
- Collaborative
- Society and Business
- Table 8#TAGIMT
- Transformation
- Agility
- Growth
- Impact
- Motivate
- Tenacity
- Table 9STRIVE
- Social
- Technology
- Relevance to industry
- Internationalization
- Versatility
- Ethical
- Table 10RECIPE
- Responsible Leaders
- Entrepreneurial mindset
- Co-creating Intellectual Capital
- Partnering for Excellence
Read across the ten, and the same ideas keep coming back. We drew them together into nine.
- Knowledge, academic excellence, co-creation of knowledge
- Entrepreneurship, execution
- Tech-readiness, digital and AI readiness, transformative, agility
- Sustainability, social impact, responsible, responsiveness
- Innovation
- Collaboration, relevance to industry
- Excellence
- Diversity, industry focus
- Impact
What kind of school are we?
Before choosing the words, we had to agree on the position. A school can lean towards teaching or towards research, and its impact can land in organisations or in scholarship. We placed IMT Ghaziabad where organisational impact is highest, between the professional school and the knowledge economy.
IMT Ghaziabad should have
- Academic excellence
- Industry relevance
- Social engagement
- Agility to transformation
It is a Professional School contributing to the Knowledge Economy.
The mission we arrived at.
Achieving Excellence and Nurturing Leadership through:
- KKnowledge
- IInnovation
- TTech-readiness
- EEntrepreneurial mindset
- SSustainability
At the heart of this work is a distinctive proposition: IMT Ghaziabad connects curriculum with evolving managerial roles and career progression with responsible leadership.
Two months later, the PGDM class of 2025 started on the new curriculum. What we have built since is on my Now page.
Source: Minutes of the Mission Revisit faculty body meeting, 9 and 10 April 2025 (Annexure III), and my note on the offsite.
