let me tell you cassius you yourself are much condemnd to have an itching palm julius caesar by shakespeare ambition and greed have brought down many a man be it during the bard of avons time in the 17th century or now as rajat gupta former head of mckinsey is arrested for sharing boardroom secrets with billionaire hedge fund manager raj rajaratnam even the occupy wall street protests are a reaction to this it comes as little surprise then that humanities and the liberal arts are now being introduced in the mecca of management iims to temper the tide and iimkozhikode has already made a beginning but what use can the socalled soft subjects be in the cutthroat world of management the art and science of management is the art and science of decisionmaking explains debashis chatterjee director of iimk but good decisions are not linear they come from a larger social context in that sense liberal arts opens up the mind brings in values of humaneness and subtleties of perception a competent head with a compassionate heart makes for a good manager incidentally chatterjee too did liberal arts from jnu management too is all about human beings and their behaviour says anupam das who teaches one of the liberal arts courses at iimk in marketing and finance one needs to know about clients how they buy how they invest liberal arts is no different no wonder the massachusetts institute of technology started a humanities course years back and goldman sachs stopped taking only mbas as they found them too clogged with data and statistics says chatterjee at iims the majority of students are engineers their view of the world is in black and white everything is like a formula for them says das but life is different if i am asked will you steal i will say it depends on what there is to steal your money or your heart life like this answer has shades of grey and liberal arts will help future managers realize that for indira parikh former dean of iimahmedabad iims are all about professionalism but she adds that its also important to look at human factors and delve into mythology and folklore to see the dilemmas faced by human beings engineering students are logical but their decisions are based more on the head less on the heart she says in fact its through the liberal arts that the history of people in a particular time comes alive says n p ashley assistant professor of english at st stephens college and staff adviser of its shakespearean society shakespeares knowledgeable quotes such as brevity is the soul of wit and dont borrow money and dont lend it taken from hamlet should be applied to management the humanities in management course at iimk for instance has four sections managerial communication social transformation in india business law and ethics in business and inferences are