An MBA is often seen as a ticket to a better quality of life — both work and personal. Is it really so?
When I joined an MBA course way back in 1996, I had already worked for two years and was rather disillusioned — with type of work and even the quality of life I lead. Those days there was a big official reason — you just had to be an MBA (not just a post graduate mind you) to get ahead in life…to get recognition in office amongst clients and peers, to earn big bucks for that better quality of life. Though secretly I was yearning to go back to my ‘college days’ mood of having fun, doing what I wanted when I wanted, chilling with friends etc and escape the seriousness of an office culture. So like all others, I concluded that MBA would be a ticket to a better quality of both work and personal life.
I was only too glad to see the last of my workplace and get back into a student life. I entered my MBA school dreaming of fun days of a student life while knowing that after two years I will work at one of the big corporate houses, earn a big fat salary, travel the world, holiday in dream destinations, party over weekends etc etc…you know, live the high corporate dream.
And then came the job — not the plushest but then I had a job on campus. After two years you appreciate that to be the first big success. And then came many other humbling things. And the shattered dreams. The first thing I learned is there is little or no work life balance when you start working. As an MBA, I was expected to perform from the word go. The world around had expectations the size of infinite universes which I had no choice but to live up to. For the rest of my life it seems.
To begin with, let’s start from the MBA school itself. They are nothing like an under-grad college and it took the results of my first year to wake me up to this reality! It is hard work, a lot of classes (where you can go to sleep though) and a lot of copying from the studious set. That itself should have prepared me for my future days at work. But it did not. I should have realised I needed to let go of my dreams of that better quality life.
But then in an MBA school, while we study and work late into the night, the illusion remains that this is only till you get that golden job. Then life will be the one of your dreams. The drudgery and hard work become bearable.
I learnt during my days as an MBA student that the world is fiercely competitive because the number of jobs in the big dream corporate house is limited. You need to outsmart, outwit others, even your closest of buddies. You need to be cunning and scheming to get there. MBA school starts putting the seeds of such values into your head. An MBA school teaches you to cope, to work harder, to always drive yourself to success. Nothing else matters. Not even personal life, not relationships.
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Let me tell you what else an MBA school does not prepare you for. It doesn’t prepare you for failures. So when that big life isn’t happening, we only try that much harder. And fall that much flatter. While giving us a degree and making us feel like future rulers of the world, an MBA syllabus in fact makes us forget that what matters is the means to the end and not the end itself. On the contrary, two years of training is about the end goal.
So my MBA did not teach that I can choose how I want to be in a corporate set up. That I have the choice of saying no when I feel so. I learnt all the principles of marketing but never heard anyone mention ethics at work. I was not taught that I can say I will work hard during office hours but my personal life and space is sacrosanct. Neither did I know that I can tell my supplier that a deadline is a Friday 5.00 pm and not Sunday 12 noon.
And because everyone in the corporate world, or well the majority, go through this training process, there is no concept of a work-life-balance. So when I left the B-school I wasn’t prepared to put all my energies behind work. I was not prepared to give up on my passions and hobbies like biking, music, photography, travel. I was not prepared for spending all my time thinking about work, thinking of how to handle people and their egos, only think of how to go through a day at work! I wasn’t prepared to give up my personal life for my professional one.
Apparently, the learning in an (Indian) MBA school is not very different from all the 18 years of learning we get from the Indian education system. It is very process driven, there is system and methodology and a lot of focus on planning, structure etc. And of course it prepares you to tick off a check list — which means you are prepared to keeping adding more tasks to everyday life that makes you a super achiever! In all fairness to this programme called an MBA, we do get trained to think like leaders. But while doing so, it also makes us proud and egoistic, further lessening our preparedness to face the reality and harshness of a corporate life. And that is not the way humans are meant to be? Isn’t life’s purpose about living and letting live?
So while everything else could remain, one change that is an absolute must in a MBA programme, is to impress on all the students the art of balance between work and personal life. Teach students about a corporate culture where they can enjoy life, working as well as doing things that can fire their passions. Teach students a culture to live and let others live. Not to judge. That there is a life where everyone has a place to boom and not everyone is looked at with suspicion.
Teach them that they don’t need to be so wary and suspicious of their colleagues. That they can trust, they can let go. Let them do that they can make themselves vulnerable and that actually brings people closer (contrary to the popular belief). Vulnerability opens up relationships and opens opportunities to really connect with others, and connect with your own deeper emotions. Because only when you show your vulnerability, do you show your human side. And that is the bigger story behind human life.
In today’s world, MBA means professionalism. But isn’t having a work-life balance all about professionalism? Then why are the two at loggerheads? So next time someone says I need to leave at 6.00 pm because I want to finish a book, let us not snigger. Let us not give them the labels of being unambitious, unsmart, looser, selfish…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The author is director, Synovate India