Bass told Jain to get into marketing, but the mathematics scholar was understandably reluctant. It was then that Bass convinced him that the best way to learn was to teach and sent him for an interview at Kellogg.
It's not a surprise that Jain does not mind having the middle seat in an aeroplane. "You can get to know two persons, one on either side of you," he says. "Reach out to people, make friends. It is an investment." He would often get an email from someone he exchanged cards with at a seminar.
That someone turned out to be a businessman seeking suggestions on the marketing plan for a new product. Jain would make his suggestions and forget about it.
One fine day he would see a story in Chicago Tribune with the details of how the Kellogg Dean was instrumental in the success of a new product.
However, the mathematician still lurks inside Jain and keeps popping out every now and then. "Data is accounted, opinion discounted," says Jain, and applies it to the smallest things in life. He is the Dean during the day and a marketing teacher in the evenings.
That makes him leave home at 6.45 in the morning, to get back only at 9.30 in the evening. But when his wife complains to someone that her husband comes home late, Jain is quick to correct. "Don't say late, say your husband comes home at 9.30. It may not be late for the listener."
Image: Dipak Jain with two Japanese students | Photograph: Courtesy, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
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