IIM-L crash course: Yogi plays ‘desert survival’ with ministers, bureaucrats to foster team spirit

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, his ministers and his bureaucrats played ‘desert survival’, a simulation exercise prepared by the Indian Institute of Management-Lucknow (IIM-L) to foster team spirit in government functioning, before settling down to prioritise five key areas and subareas for the state’s growth here on Sunday.

The occasion was the second crash course in governance, a novel exercise prepared by the premier management institute for the UP ministers who were also joined by top bureaucrats this time.

The ministers and bureaucrats identified five key priority areas – law and order, agriculture, infrastructure (development), industrial development and education. Later, they also identified the subareas, which required a collective push for the state’s development.

“We will sit again with IIM teachers to decide on how to go about addressing those areas we have prioritised,” Adityanath said after the day-long crash course.

Broad outlines of ways to address the five sectors were decided, a minister said.

Detailed discussions on prioritised sectors would take place on September 22, three days after the Yogi Adityanath government completes two-and-a-half years of its stipulated five- year term on September 19.

“For instance, it was felt that a behavioural change in the UP police was needed, along with other things, as the issue of law and order can’t be dealt with in isolation. Similarly, for more and improved industrialisation, it was felt that the focus on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector was the need of the hour,” the minister added.

The final session with ministers and bureaucrats on September 22 would be devoted to finding out ways to collectively address the outlined sectors, which it was unanimously felt, hold the key to the state’s development.

But the key takeaway of round two of the IIM crash course for ministers was the desire to foster team spirit, among ministers, their departments and with bureaucrats. For this, the institute devised the special simulation team building game.

The chief minister, all the ministers and bureaucrats participated in the game, in which they had to devise strategies to collectively find their way out of a desert, where they were trapped.

“We learnt and discussed ways to foster team spirit. It was a nice enriching session,” said excise minister Ram Naresh Agnihotri.

The team building exercise was held in separate groups. The ministers and bureaucrats immediately got busy discussing strategies for surviving the desert. All the 11 participating teams were given marks on the solutions they provided. The rankings weren’t made public. In the minister’s first crash course on IIM-L campus on September 8, the institute had devised another novel game to test skills. Back then, it was about a group of people, whose profiles were given, being trapped in a cave. The ministers were required to suggest which ones they would save first.

“We learnt how decisions are collectively taken, to hone decision-making skills,” said UP’s khadi minister Sidharth Nath Singh.

A quick session on the state’s economy followed, giving an overall scenario of the state. Adityanath said a roadmap was being prepared with the help of the management institute for integrated, comprehensive development of the state and to achieve the larger target of making UP a trillion-dollar economy.

Adityanath didn’t specify the time limit but this was the third time in the past two months when he had spoken about helping UP become a trillion dollar economy in five years.

Experts like Professor Yashvir Tyagi, former HoD of the economics department of LU, say that unless the state hugely outperforms, it would take about 15 years to achieve the 1 trillion dollar target, especially given the present around 7 per cent gross state domestic product (GSDP) rate the state is pegged at.