Arnab Pandey

You may have heard the word ‘Fact’ or ‘Evidence’ at various stages in your life. We often think that facts are something, which not only makes a statement strong, but also distinguishes the speaker from the rest of the crowd and demystifies all the assumptions that persists or tends to persist before the factual statement. I study in one of the premier business schools in Florida, USA, and I always try to understand as to what makes the great speakers and the management gurus different from the rest of the people in the business world. It is the word called – ‘Facts’.

The second semester of my MBA studies has just begun, and I was in one of my class with my professor who started our class with his introduction and asked us to give our formal introductions and a contrast between our native country and the United States. I have to say at this point, that my class has a diverse group of talented students who represents more than 20 nationalities.

Eventually each one of us started talking and gave a brief description about ourselves and then compared our native place with that of Florida. We talked about GDP, empowerment opportunities, employment rates, power parity terminologies, labor market flexibility, etc. (I know some of these terms looks weird, but we as management students like these words. The more the word sounds like a jargon the more proud we feel to speak about them. I am being sarcastic). I heard a few students and started jotting down the points as I try to learn from the class as much as possible.

Soon I heard somebody speaking about India. The person belongs to India and started stating things that were out of the context and the facts were all made up and scaled down to just make the speech sound more ‘critically researched’. I was sitting beside one of my American friend who very easily caught the mistake and whispered me – “Arnab, I don’t think the person is correct”. I have to say, I was thrilled. Seriously, the person beside me doesn’t belong to India and knows the facts and figures exactly right. I made it certain in my mind that I have to rectify the blunder when my turn comes and I did the same when I was given a chance to speak.

Friends, you have to know about something before you start speaking up. If you are from India and want to talk about India on a global platform, first understand and research about it, because you should know by now that the world has become a much smaller place and it is much more connected than ever before. Second you have to understand that you are not narrating a story, but you are representing a country in front of the whole world.

Strengthen your statements by facts, figures and examples and not just make up something before even knowing what you are saying. A country should not be judged only by what it is lacking, or by its population or by the Internet speed it provides, but also by the ways it is trying to come up or recover itself from all the problems to an all-new era of perfection.

As it is said in our business world – “Get your facts right!!”.