'There's more to life than a structured course'

WHAT THEY DON'T TEACH YOU AT B-SCHOOL

Chetan Bhagat

I completed my studies at the Indian Institute of Technology and then the Indian Institute of Management, one after the other "" which meant I had no work experience before my management degree.

I still remember an incident during my summer training at a leading confectionery company. My job was to improve the output of a lollipop machine.

This was a highly technical matter since the machine has 200 moving parts. Curiously, this is when I discovered the true worth of building relationships.

The machine could wrap 200 lollipops in a minute, but it was wrapping only 100. My job was to ensure that the machine doubled productivity. I was in the Pune plant and was trying to work through all the drawings and understand what had gone wrong, which parts had to be replaced and so on.

When I had worked for a week in the night shift, I met the shift supervisor at the workers' canteen. We got talking. He told me about how he had three daughters, one of whom was soon to be married. He had been expecting a salary hike, which he did not get. Because of this, he was under tremendous stress.

We spoke for two hours. When I told him about this lollipop project, he said, "I can fix this problem in two days. I've worked in this plant for 12 years; till date, no officer ever accompanied me to the workers' canteen."

And he did make the machine work. The reason was the relationship that I had struck with the shift supervisor. The trust he could associate with me worked in my favour. This example totally changed my mindset.

In my opinion, if B-school students are taught a little bit more about soft skills while completing their management studies, it could complement the existing education system. And it doesn't have to be a "serious" subject: you can approach it in a light-hearted way.

A course with character
Personality development is important because you need to have a certain presence in an organisation.

While you can be smart and brilliant, your personality has to be all-encompassing. During my years at IIT, I had self-worth issues because I was overweight. If you have issues like that, it can damage your personality.

Think tank
There's more to life than a structured course. I believe in the ability of the human mind to go beyond what is taught. Each of us have gifts that deserve to be brought out.

Creativity is not so easy to teach, but it's not impossible. Make a start by thinking "out of the box".

In a number of universities in the US, engineering schools are coupled with other disciplines such as medicine. So the engineering schools work on projects with the medical schools to make advances in medical technology. It's a radical thought, but it is interesting to have a cross-disciplinary approach with industries and work with them.

Stoop to conquer
When you are quite smart and you know you are, because you are one in a hundred and you were lucky enough to get a good education, it is easy to become arrogant.

But the moment you become arrogant, in whatever field you are, you have lost. You lose credibility. And this is an issue that's relevant not just to the IITs and IIMs: each one of us has scope to be more humble.

But there's an overwhelming tendency to be seen as special when you have graduated from a top college and everybody sees you as smart. It's easy to get caught up in that and lose humility.

As soon you lose your humility, you lose your connections with people. And connecting to people is more important than the degrees after your name.

For example, if you have an ability to appreciate art your personality will only be enhanced. You become humble and realise that there's more to this world than just businessmen and engineers. And remember, appreciating arts will not only inspire your creativity, it can be a great conversation starter.

Soft speak
Soft skills help you in many ways. They help in interaction with others "" and in business, that's an everyday affair. They also help you analyse yourself.

You cannot analyse yourself using Excel formulas. Our internal development is not just through technical skills, but also about how much we have changed as a person in the past year. We have a great tradition of philosophical texts.

If our students learn them they would be all-rounders. This would help them in self-enquiry rather than self-evaluation. Because evaluation is judgement that we have to move away from. Evaluation means there is a grade at the end of it. This means human beings end up being more comfortable with themselves.

Chetan Bhagat graduated from IIT Delhi in 1995 and IIM Ahmedabad in 1997. He is the author of Five Point Someone "" What Not to do at IIT.