Some business problems don't have a right answer. They only have trade-offs.  That's the one line that's stuck with us since our session on Sustainability with Prof. Jose PD, faculty at IIM Bangalore, during our PGPEx journey at IIM Mumbai.

Through the Bhopal gas tragedy and the Unilever case, Prof. Jose didn't hand us a framework and move on he made us sit with the discomfort of cases that don't resolve neatly. No villain, no hero, just competing interests, real consequences, and decisions made in the middle of that mess.

What we walked away with:

The idea of "wicked problems" - situations where every solution creates a new problem, and the job isn't to solve them but to manage them well

That finding a middle ground isn't a compromise of principle - it's often the most responsible thing a manager can do

A more honest picture of how sustainability actually works inside a business - not as a policy slide, but as a daily negotiation between what's ideal and what's possible

That good management, at its core, is the discipline of holding tension without flinching from it

It's rare for a session to change how you look at a case rather than just what you know about it. This one did.

Sincere thanks to Prof. Jose PD for a session that will stay with us well beyond the PGPEx classroom.

And as always, grateful to our Director, Prof. Manoj Tiwari, and our Programme Chairs, Prof. Shirish Sangle and Prof. Upasana Agarwal, for making moments like this possible.