The missing links

WHAT THEY DON'T TEACH YOU AT B-SCHOOL

Through the year, alumni of the best B-schools were asked what was lacking in their management education. Here's a summary of their thoughts

Alfred Kallingal, senior consultant, Accenture Consulting and alumnus of IIM, Ahmedabad "At the end of the day, management is about managing teams and clients. You are considered efficient if you can get the guys around to work; ditto for client relationships and interpersonal skills can never be taught in the classroom "" you have to learn on the job. Academic analyses cannot work in real time."

Pranesh Misra, president and COO, Lowe India and alumnus of IIM, Ahmedabad "Management education teaches you to look at life in neat flow diagrams. While this is generally useful, sometimes you need to be comfortable with a degree of fuzziness. The creative process is both structured as well as unstructured."

Satya Narayanan, founder-chairman, Career Launcher and alumnus of IIM, Bangalore "B-schools teach students the fundamentals of the core subjects that are required for participating in business management. "Participating" is the operative term. Just that "" not "create". Not even "drive". Just participate."

Namrata Rana, managing director, FutureScape Netcom and alumnus of IIM, Ahmedabad "Theoretical courses taught in the classroom somehow don't ring true and tend to be ignored by most students. Perhaps a more practical approach would be more useful."

Navneet Dhawan, corporate manager, business development, Hotel Crowne Plaza Surya and alumnus of FMS, Delhi "For every multi-million dollar success story, there are umpteen cases of promising individuals who've lost out for no rational reason. Even the best B-schools don't prepare you for the darker realities of the corporate world."

Praphul Misra, director and CEO, Netcarrots Loyalty Services and alumnus of School of Management, Buffalo, New York "I had learnt the ropes of managing a job well with my MBA. But it didn't teach me what to do when I lost it or failed. A course on stress management should be mandatory in the MBA curriculum."

Hemendra Mathur, senior manager, strategic advisory (food and agribusiness), Rabo India Finance and alumnus of IIM, Ahmedabad "The corporate world needs an attitude that is positive, respectful of the opinion of others, adjusting in team work, one that can think beyond oneself and one that is innovative. While it may not be easy to teach "attitude", B-schools need to prepare their students abouts the rights and wrongs in the real world."

Advait Kurlekar, director, management consulting, Cedar Enterprise Solution and alumnus of S P Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai "Students believe that the late nights they have spent in B-school solving cases and studying hard for their exams is the last word on stress and work pressure and how to cope with it. On the job, real life stress potentially can be in multiples to that experienced as a student and the B-school curriculum does not give any answers on how to cope with it."

Madhabi Puri Buch, senior general manager and head - product and technology group, ICICI Bank and alumna of IIM, Ahmedabad "Exposure to highly experienced professionals who talk candidly would help students to at least start appreciating that in any given situation, one needs a minimum of two responses "" the short-term response and the long-term response."

Reet Chaudhuri, senior consultant, KPMG Consulting and alumnus of IIM, Kolkata "Most case studies are based on situations in which the environment behaves in an orderly manner. In contrast, real life situations are chaotic and involve complex co-relations between decision variables. Arriving at solutions to such problems needs lateral thinking."

Alind Sharma, vice president, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals and alumnus of IIM, Ahmedabad "No B-school teaches the mantra of perception "" till it is encountered. Be it peers, superiors, subordinates, clients or vendors, they need to get work done; thereby the need to deal optimally with others brings out a basic flaw in our B-school processes "" most of those who move out of the system are just not equipped in effective person-to-person interaction."

Arvind Nair, CEO, Domino's Pizza India and alumnus of IIM, Ahmedabad "What I didn't learn at IIM-A was the importance of managing people and the skills involved in it. It is not enough to have a great idea. You need people who will execute it for you and for that, you need to manage people and make them understand its big-ness and importance."

Sudhanshu Goyala, executive vice president, marketing insights, Pepsi Foods and alumnus of the University of Poona "B-schools need to reinforce that day-to-day management is not akin to cracking a theorem or equation where objectives, inputs and output, steps and the process is known. Please do not try to fit patterns to situations that seem similar, or force a similarity perception to fit the theory "" use intuition to see dissimilarities that are hidden somewhere."

Yasmin Javeri Krishan, chief financial officer, GrowTalent Company Ltd and alumna of Stern School of Business, New York University "What I had learnt were the hard-core tools while the so-called softer aspects like leadership, corporate values, culture and ethics had not been touched upon. Some critical lessons in leadership that could have been mandated in our courses are education and case-studies in leadership styles and values."