Once you are back from a B-school, you feel you know it all. Two years of intense grind, reading through thick books within days, extempore speeches, overnight presentations, last-minute assignments, management jargon and sleepless nights - and you feel that there is hardly anything that you could have missed.
In the initial days, you are just trying to apply whatever has been learnt in the two years of management education. Soon, you realise that many a thing that is learnt at B-school was taught with an asterix mark, signifying that the same is applicable only in ideal market conditions.
I was rejoining my family business after a two-year stint at Geneva Business School. I soon realised that ideal market conditions hardly exist and what you learn at B-school has to be adapted to the prevailing market conditions. Adaptation was thus a key factor that made me understand and look beyond on many aspects that are usually not taught in B-schools.
Being a people's man was one important aspect that I felt I had not been taught at B-school. With a workforce of more than 10,000 people, HR and personnel management lessons did come handy to an extent, but the realisation came soon enough that to manage a large diversified, multi-skilled and multi-locational workforce, what was important was to think like them; act like them - ultimately be one of them.
This results in empathy and appreciation for them. Only then could I drive a solution, that would create a balance between the management and the workers.
Being a popular democratic leader was something I picked up on the job. It helped me to understand the other part of business equally well and coupling it with my acquired skill sets at B-school, I could create a win-win situation for everyone. Being a people's man, I could lead them from the front and take charge of any situation.
Ravi Jhunjhunwala is joint managing director, Rajasthan and Spinning and Weaving Mills Ltd. He graduated from Centre D' etudes Industrielles, Geneva, in 1981.
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