About a month after Jain had become the Dean, Philip Kotler, the marketing guru who is a member of Kellogg's faculty, persuaded Jain to fill in for him at a seminar.
Jain resisted by saying that Kotler was being "product-centric", that he should be customer-centric and that in this case the customers were the seminar's audience. But Kotler wouldn't listen. His son-in-law was undergoing surgery that very day and Jain simply had to step in for him.
Jain does not know how to drive and Kotler often dropped him home in those days. It was difficult to refuse.
Now, Kotler is a celebrity all over the US and Jain was not exactly known to the organisers. In fact, in Jain's words, the organisers were clearly disappointed to see "this man of colour" as Kotler's replacement.
However, Jain does not harp on this colour bit. The highlight of his anecdote is how the seminar's chairman introduced Jain to the audience. "All of you know Philip Kotler," he said, "I give you Kotler's boss."
It's not surprising that Jain places attitude as the most important quality in a professional, way above talent and qualification. He defines attitude as the willingness to work.
"Beyond a point, the technical qualifications do not matter, attitude does. If you are trying to build a ship, do not tell your workers to go to the forest, chop wood, and build a ship. Instead, instill in them the desire for the sea. They will do the rest."
It may have helped that at many of the life-turning junctures Jain found someone to guide and help him. That's how he became a professor of marketing.
After finishing his masters in mathematical statistics from Guhawati University, he taught in Guhawati for five years before going to the University of Texas in 1983 to pursue PhD under Frank M Bass (his PhD was on data base marketing, which later morphed into customer relationship management, better known as CRM).
Image: Management guru Philip Kotler
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