Lecturer in entrepreneurship takes EngAGE on an inner journey

When Sudhanshu Rai at the Department of Intercultural Communication and Management gives lectures in entrepreneurship, he wants to break with the Danish systems thinking.  He thinks that the Danes' ability to go new ways depends on their will to cut back on profit maximisation and believe in projects that may seem impossible at first sight.

- The Danish system is influenced by a need for security and a chase for rights. I have been living in Denmark since 2001. I started working at CBS in 2003, because of the university's versatility and focus on innovation. But I have just begun to use the things that my guru taught me as a point of departure for my lectures, and I am definitely going to continue. I am getting really positive feedback from the students, says Sudhanshu Rai and shows several emails from students that appreciate his lectures. Elite students from the programme EngAGE are having the pleasure of being taught by Sudhanshu Rai.

EngAGE students benefit from guru
Sudhanshu Rai has a solid academic background in research and teaching in intercultural and business communication. Sudhanshu Rai had a traditional Indian upbringing. He went to school and stayed with his guru for three months every year from childhood to adulthood. He learned to be critical, creative, positive and open. He learned about intelligence and how to find and cultivate his core competences.

- I use my core competences when I teach. I am a good communicator, and people can feel that. I have a poor eyesight, so I use my senses differently, he says.

Sudhanshu Rai have taken the students on an inner as well as an outer journey. During their inner journey, they had to find their core competences. The outer journey was a trip to India to discover what they could do with their intellect and creative urge. If the students are to create something that is really new and not just reproduce existing ideas they have to stay away from the automatic pilot. According to Sudhanshu Rai, the safe Danish society consolidates this automatic pilot, if you are not aware of its mechanisms.

BRIC without a security pilot
- In India, I watched the students becoming more receptive. They realised projects said to be impossible. They built a bridge over a poisonous river, so children were able to walk to school. This job contributed to the students becoming more aware of their own core competences. When they start working in the same way as their core competences, they become more goal-oriented. They are no longer controlled by how other people perceive them, says Sudhanshu Rai.

Sudhanshu Rai thinks that the Danes are thinking in charts and diagrams. He also sees that the BRIC countries are roaring ahead, because everything is at stake, and they have nothing to lose. In Denmark, he sees great potential that are not used. The Danes are lulled by what Sudhanshu Rai calls the system, which takes away their ability to reflect. It is not Sudhanshu Rai's opinion that the Danish university sector is focused on reflection as a tool to strengthen the students' skills. Instead he sees that the students focus on stereotypical ideas of a good life and a good career. According to Sudhanshu Rai, this does not create interesting entrepreneurship or that the potential for a good life is utilised.

Contact Sudhanshu Rai, Associate Professor: sra.ikl@cbs.dk, Ea Ørum, Journalist: ea.ea@cbs.dk