Dr Bala V Balachandran: Tribute to a management guru, deeply loved teacher and a friend

With Dr. Bala’s passing, we have lost a global management guru, a deeply loved teacher, a highly respected corporate advisor, a passionate entrepreneur and most importantly, an amazing human being. He will be remembered by thousands of his students, friends and colleagues in academia, business leaders across the world and everyone from the Great Lakes community, whose lives he deeply touched. For me the loss is very personal, going well beyond our professional relationship – I have lost a friend, mentor, partner and, most of all, a father figure.

Dr. Bala Balachandran, a distinguished professor at Kellogg for four decades, was among the early set of successful academicians of Indian origin in top US business schools. He was a trailblazer and role model for many other Indian academicians, several of who now lead some of the top schools as Deans. At the same time, he cared deeply about contributing to where he came from and was constantly involved in helping nurture institutions in India. He made pivotal contributions to IIM Bangalore, MDI and ISB before turning entrepreneur at the young age of 67, as he often said, and founding Great Lakes. He was also an advisor to the leadership teams of many Indian companies and was on the Board of Directors of firms such as TCS and the Godrej group companies. He had been recognised and conferred the Padma Shri in 2001 for his contribution to management education in India.

He was a living embodiment of one of his key messages to students--that the first twenty-five years should be to learn, the next twenty-five should be to earn and the last twenty-five should be to return to society. When most people retire in their sixties, Dr. Bala took up the challenge of developing a world class business school in Chennai, in his home state, and was unbelievably resourceful in setting up what has now become one of the top business schools in India with globally benchmarked standards of excellence, the Great Lakes Institute of Management. He would travel to Chennai multiple times every year, all through his seventies and well into his eighties, irrespective of his health and stay in Chennai at Great Lakes for months away from his family in the US to realise his dream of building a great institution with indefatigable energy and spirit.

I had met Dr. Bala first in 2010, when I visited Great Lakes in Chennai. I had

moved back to India from Silicon Valley and had recently transitioned from being in venture capital to becoming an education entrepreneur. Having personally experienced life-changing education at the world’s best institutions, I felt that expanding the impact and reach of quality education to many more is the best way I can have a meaningful impact. It was my good fortune that my path intersected with Dr. Bala’s at this juncture, and soon after I had set up a business school in Gurgaon. It was humbling that despite the significant difference in age and experience, he found that we shared the same vision and values and joined hands to take Great Lakes forward. Since then, my journey with him over the past decade has been my most treasured privilege that I value, cherish and will build on.

It was a testament to his foresight and wisdom that, even while he was very active and brimming with ideas and energy to grow Great Lakes, he was pragmatic enough to put a succession plan in place. One of his oft-repeated words of wisdom was “Uncertainties are inevitable but worrying is optional, thus, planning is paramount and panicking is pathetic.” Living by his own words, he has ensured that we have a fantastic leadership team in place that has deeply imbibed his vision and values, to take Great Lakes forward the way he wanted to. Over the past few years, he planned and meticulously executed his transition from, as he called it, Captain to Coach.

As with many of his relationships, mine started as a professional collaboration, but soon became very personal. He was kind enough to visit us many times and has interacted with all my family members including my children, parents and in-laws, every one of whom cherished these interactions. Every time I visited Chicago, I was not allowed to stay anywhere other than his home. I became good friends with his older son and we spent time together whenever we could. When I lost my father a couple of years back, he went out of his way to help me get over the loss and became a father figure to me. Over the years, he has been a guide, guru, partner, father figure and a friend who counselled, motivated and inspired. He will continue to guide and inspire me throughout my life.

While Dr. Bala is globally reputed as a management guru, people who spent time closely with him would remember most how humble, warm and affectionate a person he was. He would spend time with the most junior staff from drivers to gardeners and enquire about their wellbeing. He would always remember things that matter to people and found something to complement them on. For his students, he was their beloved “Uncle Bala”. He did not want  

to be called Dr. Bala or Prof. Bala since he wanted the relationship to be a lifelong one. He would welcome his students to his home in Chicago. This genuine affection and warmth are what got him so many admirers and friends across the world including the busiest CEOs, political leaders and management gurus. One of his favourite quotes was “Your Network is Your Net Worth” and he was the best exemplar of that.

The other unmissable thing about Dr. Bala was his wit and creativity, which never ceased to amaze me. Whether inside or outside the classroom, he always found ways to deliver his message in a way it could capture the imagination of the audience and simplify complex topics. He would always come up with pithy quotes for every situation or examples everyone could relate to. One of the favourite ones to his students was that if Rajnikant can dance the way he does keeping pace with two actresses each half his age, they can at least act energetic in interviews!

Dr. Bala’s legacy will live on in the institutions he had helped build, the countless students he nurtured over five decades as a teacher, the many business leaders he counselled as a mentor and the large Great Lakes family that he nourished. We will miss him but will cherish and build on his values and wisdom.

(The writer is the Vice Chairman of Great Lakes Institute of Management.)