An Important Decision

On Thursday, November 22, 2018 I made an important decision.  I wrote to the Dean Faculty at IIM that I would not like to be considered for promotion from the rank of Associate Professor that I am now to Professor or “Full” Professor that I would be if I were to be promoted.

When I first thought of writing this post I considered pasting my letter in this post.  Then I realized that this is after all a public post.  And the letter is a serious official communication.  I should not diminish the gravity of the letter by pasting it on to a public post.

My arguments in the letter essentially turn on three points. 

One, in recent years, promotion at IIMB has emerged as a reward for and recognition of excellence in research.  A few other performance measures have been added essentially to address the clamour for promotion from non-research active faculty.  As such, those promotions do not receive the same peer recognition as the one awarded for research excellence.

Two, all my life I have sought recognition only for excellence achieved.  I have been reluctant to receive any recognition that has been extended as a commiseration by the employer.

Three, given that I have not been able to achieve excellence along the academic dimensions that IIMB as an institution and my colleagues as a community value, I would feel embarrassed to be promoted.  Such promotion would at best be a commiseration.

All of these are my views and I recognize that they may be at variance at with the beliefs that many others may hold.  They may also represent a certain interpretation of the institute’s policies that the institute may not accept as accurate.

When I first mooted the idea of this decision many months ago, Lakshmi my wife, who has been generally supportive of all my career related moves so far did not agree to the idea.  Her argument was pragmatic, as always:  Given the nature of the work of a faculty at IIMB promotions do not matter functionally.  As such, you do not every have to wangle or lobby for a promotion.  But if the institute thinks you deserve a promotion, for whatever reason, why do you want to deny it?

It took a fair amount of persuasion.  I cringed about how my sense of dignity would not allow me to imagine that I got promoted without having achieved excellence by way of publication for reasons that may not rank high in my employer’s ideals of academic excellence.  And that tongues could possibly wag in corridor gossip about my having been commiserated.  With a few years to retire, that was unacceptable to me at the fag end of my career - call it false pride, ego, or whatever you like to.

And so in the early pre-dawn hours of Wednesday, as I was running off to the airport for an important meeting at Mumbai, I got her to reluctantly let me fire off that letter.  When on the next day I showed her the draft that I planned to send she just said matter of factly that it was well drafted.  If she was unhappy it did not show.

I shared this letter with my siblings.  They were livid that I would do so something so silly.  They were just as sorry that matters had come to this pass in my academic life.  They felt sorry that for someone who was considered to be the brightest in the family and on whom many a hope had been pinned I would have had to finally write that I would pass up a promotion because I thought I did not deserve it.

I had half a mind to explain to them that it did not really matter.  That this was the lesser among the many reverses that I had suffered in my life.  That the email was just a final acknowledgement of failure in a life that had been riddled with setbacks.  Many of them of had been of much larger magnitude. Some had even come in the way of my fulfilling my responsibilities as spouse, parent, son and sibling. The brunt of all of it was being borne by Lakshmi as she continued to silently the suffer long tail of my many failings as a man and as a professional.

I decided against.  It did not seem to matter.  How would I explain all of that to people with whom I had not spoken about those so many other reverses?

My mind had been in turmoil till I wrote that email to my Dean.  I had hoped that it would be lighter after I wrote it.  In some sense I am at peace.  I feel a certain lightness, as I said in my email.  I know when and what I will retire as – unless I screw up even worse than I have so far.

But at least on this blog where I reveal my some of my true feelings I must record that I did break down once, quite severely, after I wrote that note, when I was all alone in my office. 

Was it out of the disappointment that I would retire as an Associate Professor? No.  Was it out of unhappiness that I would not get what many other colleagues would or did, some decidedly superior to me as academics and some probably just as good?  I do not think it was that either.

I think the real reasons for the searing pain that I felt were two.  One, that I did not make the cut of academic excellence when, at the risk of sounding smug, I believe I had in me what it takes to.  Two, just as importantly, there is a sense of sadness and disappointment that I allowed myself to be a part of section of the institution that does not seem to be the most important or relevant sections of the community in the eyes of the leadership, as I understand it.

I distinctly recall the meeting with an earlier Dean and Director a few years ago when the policy of rewarding publishable research was unveiled to me.  I was told that as part of emphasizing research, going forward, the institute would promote people who excelled in publication in three to five years.  And then as an after-thought I was told that those who did not would get promoted too.  But it would take them longer.

It did not take a lot of imagination to realise right at that time that the two promotions would never be the same.  One would be recognition.  The other would be what I will refer to as institutional commiseration.

The promotion policies at IIMB have come a long way since then.   But every new twist and turn in these policies has only served to reinforce what was first unveiled to me:  That there will be those who publish.  And those who don’t.  The former will decide the future of the institution.  Their work will be showcased – understandably - to the world outside.  The latter will merely exist.

Some may see this as an unfortunate change in the character or ethos of the institution, from being an inclusive establishment where everyone seemed to matter.  Those interested in research pursued it for the joy and legitimacy in the larger world of academics that it gave them.  The others contributed to the institution in ways that they felt they could.  The latter admired the former who were endowed with the intellect and the inclination to pursue publishable research.

And they all moved up in the organization in some fashion that few seemed to understand.  They were all nominated into positions that determined the future of the institution according to some incomprehensible grammar. 

So there would be the inevitable angst about getting to those positions, followed by an occasional round of anger or even resentment at having been passed over.  But no one ever felt it divided them into those that seemed to matter and those that did not.

I view these vicissitudes more philosophically.  Such changes are but inevitable in a world that seems to look for change qua change.  More enlightened institutions and leaders manage it in a way that is consistent with their ethos, especially if that ethos has not been dysfunctional.  Others embrace more cataclysmic choices.  I am too puny to sit in judgment/

No matter what the official line may be, to me this undeniable distinction will exist, as it has from that forenoon of March 2009.  Under these circumstances, the least I believe I could do to preserve what I consider my dignity is not to accept, let alone seek, an award that confirms that I belong to the latter.

Surely the pain will haunt me for many years, if not till the end of my life.  But at least I would be able to say to myself, when it is time for me to finally go, that I did not accept an award of commiseration, ever in my life. 

Nanni….Namaskaaram…