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Friday, December 08, 2006
Things I learnt at a B-School and things i didnt...
Things I learnt at a B-School and things i didnt...
Right now i am 5/6th of an MBA. One more trimester, boey i am an MBA!!! At the final juncture of my travel through an MBA School, i am bit sceptical, bit nostalgic and bit pensive. Having secured a offer i am relaxed. Nomore i care about CGPA! or attendance! Did i really care??? No. I never cared. I was always happy and content. I felt i always performed better than what i expected. Without much effort, i happily sailed through. That too top 30! Bluntly i will put it this way. If you want a decent CGPA here, you dont need to do anything. It will be a cake walk. Am i sounding bit too cocky??? But i felt this way myself. The quality and competition by my colleagues wasn't that tough. I wish i had tough colleagues! I hardly had a run for all the money i put in MBA. This is my point of view. There are others who feel, this two years were hardest part of their lives. Full of stress and pressure and competition. But i was never born that way. I take life easy.
My take-homes from this Bschool is developing a perspective. Ability to respect others for their views. It honed my way of thinking. i was amazed to see so many ways to look at a single thing.It taught me to have different persectives and have a groomed personality.
Second take-home would be, people wouldnt do anything, unless there is some interest. So one needs to identify that interest and set it as a goal and communicate that to them. people would be more than happy to work towards it.
Thirdly, putting a argument has to be bound with data. Without data, any argument look fake. Data supports your point or argument.
Fourthly, Logic. Yes, whatever one does has to have a logic. Before doing anything we need to ask WHY five times. When we are clear in our thinking as to why we are doing this, we have better understanding as to where we are going and we can better communicate.
Prioritizing things. At any point of time, inundated with assignments and projects to be submitted, the trick is to identify and prioritize things to do. One can do everything bery well but something very well.
Lastly, taking responsibility. We are responsible for what we do. We cant blame anyone. Its all ours.
There are other learnings, which i when reminded would jot down here.
What are the things that i didnt learn??
Brevity. Someone said "Brevity is the soul of wit". Real world has no time. When one presents anything to a client or a customer, these guys dont have time. There we need to sell ourselves within seconds. Dynamic environment today demands that one is precise and succint. But through out the course we kept giving more than 20 pages write-ups and more than 50 slides PPTs! Exams always were lenghty and testing the memorizing aspects not the ability to execute any learning from the book.
People skills. People here are at the same wavelength like us. More or less. Dealing with this crowd is easier. How about real life situation, when your customers are uneducated? Some how we dont know how to communicate and respect their point of view.
Ability to execute. We learnt all the concepts and theories but how to implement and execute. No matter how much one plan or clear about concepts, the ability to execute something is vastly different. It needs nothing but experience and can never be practised in a Bschool.
Moreover, B-school teaches you one bad thing. And that is EGO. An MBA i dont why, feels he knows everything, He feels he can deal with anyone. It this cockiness and complacency that sometimes becomes his own adversary. I will try my label best to remain grounded!!!
NB: Although many ideas are my own, I got inspired a lot by reading a write-up by,The senior vice president, sales and marketing, Prudential ICICI AMC Ltd. He also graduated from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore
Right now i am 5/6th of an MBA. One more trimester, boey i am an MBA!!! At the final juncture of my travel through an MBA School, i am bit sceptical, bit nostalgic and bit pensive. Having secured a offer i am relaxed. Nomore i care about CGPA! or attendance! Did i really care??? No. I never cared. I was always happy and content. I felt i always performed better than what i expected. Without much effort, i happily sailed through. That too top 30! Bluntly i will put it this way. If you want a decent CGPA here, you dont need to do anything. It will be a cake walk. Am i sounding bit too cocky??? But i felt this way myself. The quality and competition by my colleagues wasn't that tough. I wish i had tough colleagues! I hardly had a run for all the money i put in MBA. This is my point of view. There are others who feel, this two years were hardest part of their lives. Full of stress and pressure and competition. But i was never born that way. I take life easy.
My take-homes from this Bschool is developing a perspective. Ability to respect others for their views. It honed my way of thinking. i was amazed to see so many ways to look at a single thing.It taught me to have different persectives and have a groomed personality.
Second take-home would be, people wouldnt do anything, unless there is some interest. So one needs to identify that interest and set it as a goal and communicate that to them. people would be more than happy to work towards it.
Thirdly, putting a argument has to be bound with data. Without data, any argument look fake. Data supports your point or argument.
Fourthly, Logic. Yes, whatever one does has to have a logic. Before doing anything we need to ask WHY five times. When we are clear in our thinking as to why we are doing this, we have better understanding as to where we are going and we can better communicate.
Prioritizing things. At any point of time, inundated with assignments and projects to be submitted, the trick is to identify and prioritize things to do. One can do everything bery well but something very well.
Lastly, taking responsibility. We are responsible for what we do. We cant blame anyone. Its all ours.
There are other learnings, which i when reminded would jot down here.
What are the things that i didnt learn??
Brevity. Someone said "Brevity is the soul of wit". Real world has no time. When one presents anything to a client or a customer, these guys dont have time. There we need to sell ourselves within seconds. Dynamic environment today demands that one is precise and succint. But through out the course we kept giving more than 20 pages write-ups and more than 50 slides PPTs! Exams always were lenghty and testing the memorizing aspects not the ability to execute any learning from the book.
People skills. People here are at the same wavelength like us. More or less. Dealing with this crowd is easier. How about real life situation, when your customers are uneducated? Some how we dont know how to communicate and respect their point of view.
Ability to execute. We learnt all the concepts and theories but how to implement and execute. No matter how much one plan or clear about concepts, the ability to execute something is vastly different. It needs nothing but experience and can never be practised in a Bschool.
Moreover, B-school teaches you one bad thing. And that is EGO. An MBA i dont why, feels he knows everything, He feels he can deal with anyone. It this cockiness and complacency that sometimes becomes his own adversary. I will try my label best to remain grounded!!!
NB: Although many ideas are my own, I got inspired a lot by reading a write-up by,The senior vice president, sales and marketing, Prudential ICICI AMC Ltd. He also graduated from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore
