Being entrepreneurs

WHAT THEY DON'T TEACH YOU AT B-SCHOOL

Many a time, aspiring MBAs, starry-eyed at the prospect of a business education, have come up and asked me, "What is it that I am going to learn in a B-school?"

The question has made me stop and reflect upon my own years at B-school, and ask myself if my MBA education equipped me completely for the years that lay ahead. Needless to say, it equipped me in many ways.

It exposed me to an array of business techniques and subjects taught by professors of formidable scholarship. It attuned me towards new ways of thinking, of looking at issues in more complex terms. Last but not the least, it rewarded me with the thrill of my step into the corporate world.

But looking back upon the years since then, especially my early move into entrepreneurship, I have wondered if a B-school education prepares MBAs for an appetite for taking the right kind of risks.

A recent article mentioned the average age of B-school graduates starting-up their own ventures to be 36-plus. The majority of the bright, go-getting management graduates are even today settling for the beaten track of joining big, established companies with proven track records rather than opting for the uncharted waters of start-ups and entrepreneurship. And this in an age when global linkages are stronger than ever and access to funds easier "" making the prospect of doing business more and more attractive.

Why is it that instead of churning out youth with fire in their belly to try something new, we seem to be churning out more white-collar managers? Are students, when they opt for courses on entrepreneurship, creativity, innovation that are taught at B-schools, merely paying lip service to these ideas? Is it a fear of failure that deters them from taking a bold leap into the unknown? Are B-schools churning out graduates who are conditioned to be cautious and circumspect rather than enterprising?

I think these are important issues to be considered if our country is to leapfrog to the forefront of the world economy in the near future. The need of the hour for our B-schools is to mould their courses and curricula in such a way as to produce more Sabeer Bhatias and fewer faceless corporate managers. That is a critical objective that needs to be given the highest priority in the coming years.

Gautam Puri graduated from IIM, Bangalore in 1993