What they don’t teach you at a B-school …..
Posted on February 8, 2010
Filed Under Blog, Career Launcher, College and education, Entrepreneurship, Satya Speaks | 8 Comments
The title of this article itself is clichéd and over-written. However, I guess it is almost like a love story. Every generation loves hearing / seeing a love story all over again with a fresh and contemporary perspective. Hence, I agreed to write this out by shaking off my own inertia ! May be, I owe it to the world for a long time to come…..
Let me share my thoughts from my own journey since that cannot be contested. Here are my share of insights on the topic. I entered a business school long ago. I stop short of saying, ‘in the Paleolithic age’. That was in 1991-93. I had squandered most of my teen trying to get to the Indian Cricket team and managed to get nowhere closer there. So, my safety parachute turned out to be CAT or MBA entrance exams just to make sure that I do not end up as a clerk on sports quota in some public sector enterprise !
In short, I reached an IIM with little knowledge but just one skill of cracking the DU exams through the 10-year question paper solving route. What does that mean ? I crawled the entire first team to under debit-credit, first chapter or two of ‘Kotler’ for marketing etc, when the batch was running at a speed of a Cheetah. At the end of the first term, my score card read ‘D’ against two of the easiest courses – Mktg and Prob/Stats. And, I was already making my way to the top of the ranking list arranged in the reverse order!
The journey was similarly traumatic despite my best efforts through the six arduous terms at IIMB. My best efforts got me a ‘C’ in my exams. By the end of two years, I managed to beat about 15 people in the ranking list – ranked around 150 in a batch of about 165 !
So, what were the things I learnt during my stay at an IIM ?
1. I learnt a few fundamentals (or at least the jargon) in areas such as marketing, finance, strategy etc,.
2. I learnt that I was in a large crowd of hugely competitive and gifted peers. My best efforts saw me top at the bottom. Anything less would have gotten me evicted from the campus !
3. To my relief, I did learn that I do have a skill or two that were valuable in my worldview and that I had in fair measure….Thankfully, I believed in my own insight.
To cut the long story short, my IIM stay provided me with knowledge that was relevant to appreciate management, business and a career in the corporate sector. Surely, what it gave was necessary for one to get started. Above all, it did give me the ‘thappa’ (Stamp) of being an IIM Alumnus. Most of the world believes that an IIM Alumnus cannot be an ‘idiot’. IF they come across one, he/she is seen as an exception.
What more is needed to be successful or happy in life ?
As mentioned, the management knowledge and skills that a B-school provides is necessary, for sure. However, it does not meet the criteria of sufficiency as you can imagine. There are a million or zillion things that are required to sail happily through ones life. A few of them that I could list here which can never be taught in a school are :
1. Self belief
Quite sadly, the education system globally is built on a rather dubious svaffolding called ‘Relative Grading’. This, in her design, works against adding to the self belief. And, no many in an competitive B-School have the innate ability to work around this institutional conspiracy. I guess this is considered too difficult or unimportant by the gurus in the B-school.
2. Dreaming
It is considered an unthinkable part of the syllabus. Even two decades after I have graduated, I have not found courses or mentor that allow youngsters to dream, to build fantasies of any kind, to imagine a world that they can build by not worrying about resources or limitations. Expediency, skills, ‘realistic assessments’ are put on a higher pedestal than dreaming.
3. Co-operation vs Competition
Successes in life are built around the word called ‘Cooperation’. Unfortunately, this is a non-existing and much loathed a term in a B-school system that is built on competition deep insider her DNA. Beating others to a game is a much celebrated attribute. The gifted horses get trained to do that and end up being champs in ‘gaming’ the whole field of performance. Looking for a Win-Win way of dealing with life remains a mere jargon learnt a B-school with neither imagination not belief to practice it in real life.
4. Choosing your own path
Success in life is about one choosing his or her own path. Every happy or success story is an illustration of this truth. B-schools do not look at themselves as ones who will facilitate this inside-out journey. Their allegiance to the courses and demands of the corporate sector is far higher than towards helping a youngster to move towards realizing his / her potential.
In sum, each individual needs to look at his own way of discovering the million things that he/she needs beyond the 36 courses delivered by a B-school.
While this is a piece in the context of a B-school, the handicaps of the system does not alter with other schools (higher education as well as K12) or with geographies (developed or developing economies). In many ways, a new era of delivering education with allegiance singularly towards the learner is waiting to happen.
In the meantime, the jobs will be back on the B-school campuses and life goes on!
Satya Narayanan R
Indus World University
Posted on December 8, 2009
Filed Under Blog, Career Launcher, College and education, Entrepreneurship | 14 Comments
The much awaited news has trickled in. The state Government of Rajasthan has issued the ‘Letter of Intent’ to CL to start ‘
Ruskin Bond and James Bond
Posted on December 1, 2009
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The trip to Mussoorie got sweeter when Mr Ruskin Bond, the infinite joy giver to children through his stories, politely invited Uma home on her call. Anytime between 4PM -5 PM was the appointed time. Nandu and Self were to join in this trip.
Inc !
Posted on October 8, 2009
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The office of Career Launcher is as unassuming as its founder, Satya Narayanan R. The waiting area is at best plain and the conference room is bare bones. Satya, as he is fondly known
http://www.9dot9.in/emagazine/oct09/coverstory.html
One thing that really makes feel the proudest….. Indus Academy
Posted on September 19, 2009
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Naveen / Nandini - This is, indeed, the most ecstatic part of all that we do at CL. I must express my deep appreciation for you and the entire IA team across AP to be making steady and sure progress…. We have miles to go, of course.