Let me preface this column by saying that B-school education is extremely useful and important for people wanting to succeed at business in these competitive times. However, there are a number of essential skills and topics that I believe are not taught at B-school, but are critical in making a person succeed at the highest level.
First, the most basic but immensely practical subject is that of “administration”. Much of the young graduate managers that pass out of B-schools are not taught the basics of good administration. In the initial part of their careers, the lack of administration skills cause them to stumble and take hard knocks where none were necessary.
I am amazed how smart, intelligent graduates falter at basics like time management, filing, the simple yet effective art of “follow-ups”, taking notes for research and presenting crisp, complete memos and “bulletin” or a “scoreboard” of the task at hand. Many of these may be thought of as old-fashioned, but I think our fathers and grandfathers were more effective at these and did better with paper and pencil than today’s B-school grads with their laptops.
The second thing that I find most B-schools don’t teach is that one thing that makes or breaks a business or takes an already running business to the next level — “selling”! It is seen to be infra dig and almost looked down upon with contempt. I think that is deplorable because businesses thrive on cash-flows generated by selling products and services.
Nothing is more injurious to the financial health and morale of the company than poor sales. Other subjects are given far more importance than sales. But in reality, selling is an essential skill for all people wanting to run a business.
B-schools encourage competition and don’t teach young, aspiring leaders on how to collaborate rather than compete. In the real world, the people who collaborate with their team-members and outside stakeholders (clients, partners and distributors) do much better than highly intelligent and capable managers who are seen to be “selfish” and/or “solo-performers”.
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Last, the more senior one gets in the company, what matters is “who you want to become” rather than “what you will do”. Let me explain — people are not clear whether they want to be great marketers, great systems analyst or maybe even start-up specialists.
That is where one should be honing their skills and art. Instead, people’s decision-making is more reliant on what others are saying or doing, what is currently a “hot” industry or trend, or a lot of times — what pays more. That approach can carry you to some extent, but ultimately to be “great” at anything, you need clarity of who you want to become and what you will be known for, that is, your legacy. That is the ultimate question.
Rajiv Jamkhedkar graduated from Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University