Interview with an intelligent leader, Dr. Prince Augustin

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Interview with an intelligent, affable and completely down-to-earth leader, Dr. Prince Augustin

12 Oct 2019
- Garima Seksaria
- Leadership & Management
Business Design, HR, Interview, Leadership, PGDM

Dr. Prince Augustin, a post-graduate MBA in Human Resources from Symbiosis Institute of Business Management in Pune, also holds a graduate degree in Law, specializing in Labour Law from the Government Law College, Mumbai and a Doctorate in Management from BITS Mesra, Ranchi. He has over three decades of experience in the field of Human Resources. His core capabilities lie in aligning HR processes to business. Dr. Prince has been associated with leading companies such as the Associated Cement Companies Limited and Castrol India Ltd, in the past, before joining the Mahindra Group in August 2003.

On his recent visit to our new campus SOIL School of Business Design in Manesar, we had the privilege of interacting with him to understand his perspective on industrial revolution 4.0 and how SOIL is preparing future managers or leaders to fulfill the need of the hour. Read on to learn what he said!

What are your thoughts on SOIL Institute of Management’s new Manesar campus?

At first sight itself, I was very intrigued by the campus because it is designed very well. There is a lot of space and it is very airy. The feeling that I get is that it opens up the minds of people. If you want to feel innovative, a space like this enhances and supports creative-thinking in a very big way. I must say the students are privileged to be a part of this ecosystem.

What would you like to say about our two-year PGDM in Business Design’s curriculum?

The curriculum is very different because you have brought Liberal Arts and Design Thinking at the very center of a subject like Management. So, if you look at the world & the way it is moving, a whole-brain approach is essential. If we have to make the world a productive place, with liberal arts you start thinking very very differently. Your left and your right brain get activated, and students get trained to think creatively. Design-thinking helps you look at the world of customers and their psyche. This combination of Liberal Arts and Design-Thinking is very powerful, and will attract curious professionals who can relate to the world in a very multi-dimensional way.

Please share some insights on the difference between what the industry needs vs the innovation and disruption caused by Industry 4.0. Do you think MBA colleges & their curriculum can fulfill this requirement?

Industry 4.0 is a very evolutionary process. It is about using new-age technologies like smart factories, smart ways of working, smart offices, artificial intelligence, machine language, and robotics. Therefore, a lot of routine analytical systems and processes would be taken over by robots or machine language processes. There will be a lot of automation that will come in. But where a human being will play their very role would be emotion, sensitivity, agility, new forms of thinking, and whole-brain approach. Institutes which can develop students with skills like computational dynamics, adaptive agility, high emotional-interpersonal connect, etc will create leaders or managers of the future. And I’m happy that SOIL is investing in the right direction to create a curriculum that is very relevant for the future. Students will benefit significantly from this creative approach of the institute.

Tell us something about your college life, favorite subject or any moment you remember dearly.

I had a very nice life because my favorite subject was Organisational Behaviour. I was very curious to know why people think the way they think, why they behave the way they behave. I have been able to use that in my daily life, in my personal life, and in my professional life. College was a formative place which helped me be agile & nimble and it helped me to think differently. After college, I moved into the industry, built my conceptual clarity and I had great mentors who helped me. SOIL Founder & CEO, Shri Anil Sachdev himself played a very crucial role in my career. He was my coach at one point in time. And I would say the conversations that I have had with him have helped me greatly.

What would be your one advice to the students when they interact with their mentor?

What I would say is that think like a sponge, absorb what you can. You must creatively cross-deploy it in your life and with people that you interact with!

By: Garima Seksaria, Senior Marketing Analyst, SOIL

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