I believe that whatever B-schools teach, they teach very well. And if there are certain things they don't teach you there, it's because they are probably not supposed to be taught. These are the qualities and skills you need to learn through experience.
Let me begin with something that almost every B-school fresher experiences; something that I felt as well. All of us in the B-school were made to believe that we were some kind of "avatars" sent down to this world to revolutionise the world of business.
Consequently, most MBA students pass out with bloated egos, completely unaware of the ground realities. Not surprisingly, that results in a mismatch of expectations with the world outside.
I was relatively lucky: the director of my institute told students bluntly that all we had achieved in life so far was to "pass one bloody tough exam -- so, get off your high horses".
We came down to earth with a thud, but what a useful thud, I later realised. So, first on my wish list is the inculcation of basic values in B-school students -- the values of humility, patience and hard work -- to keep their expectations on track.
Another issue is that an MBA is one of the few professional programmes that do not require a prior bachelor's qualification in the same stream -- an MTech without a BTech is unheard of; nor can you get an MD degree without first clearing the MBBS.
A management degree lacks a strong undergraduate foundation, yet at the end of two years, students graduate hoping to become supermanagers. Which is why the second item on my wish list for B-schools is a stronger focus on the bachelor-level -- BBA -- programmes.
Taking this idea forward, ideally, an MBA degree should involve specialisation across horizontals and verticals -- IT, insurance, finance, FMCG, human resources and so on.
The time required to master a business education is critical, and a two-year MBA programme is insufficient to give a holistic understanding of the business scenarios today. That's why the BBA course could focus on general management issues while the post-graduate degree could be a specialised one.
The third issue relates to the importance of implementation. It has been my experience that management institutions pay attention to strategising, but not to the implementation of strategies.
B-schools emphasise the larger picture, but what they fail to take into account is that this big picture is made of many small ones, which need to fit together perfectly to complete the jigsaw.
And it is in fitting the pieces together that most grand plans fail. As they say, the devil lies in the details. B-schools should incorporate in their curricula the value of and ability to implement plans.
Finally, business is a living organism and, like all living organisms, it works differently in different environments. B-schools in India should focus on teaching management in the Indian situation and should not borrow everything (including text books and case studies) from American universities.
Time and again, quantity and quality issues have been talked about and the importance of soft skills education has been emphasised. These are certainly genuine issues and I am completely in favour of including these in management curricula.
So I'll come back to the point I made at the beginning. B-schools teach you very well, but they don't teach you everything you need to learn. In fact, you probably cannot even learn it all.
But I believe my wish list would make our managers more holistic in their approach and more articulate in their thinking and decision-making.
Manoj Tandon is assistant vice president, CSC India. He graduated from the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, in 1989. These are his personal views.
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