Here are some skill sets that are missing in many management graduates, along with my hypotheses on why they are not learnt:
How to hire and fire, and handle unions: Dealing with real people is so different from reading about industrial and HR (human resource) laws and theories, that it has to be only experienced or learnt at the feet of a master.
Communicate at all levels, and how to follow up: Since you are surrounded by people of equal mental calibre and motivations, you don't get to learn to communicate with people of varying intelligence and states of disillusionment. When the situation ultimately arises, it often ends in frustration for both parties.
How to conduct yourself within the organisation: The act of standing out even as you fit in is a skill that has to be mastered within an organisational set-up. You cannot learn it in a simulated environment where hierarchies do not exist, and the damage can never be too severe.
The need for high personal energy levels: Other than a strictly personal passion for physical activity and fitness, most people fail to understand the degree to which personal physical fitness matters in corporate life.
E-mail and phone etiquette: There are some unspoken and unwritten laws and codes of conduct prevailing in the corporate world regarding the use of email and phones.
Personal users, university network users and association users will never realise the importance of a formal escalation process before marking copies of email to several people, or why it is important to pick up the phone within, say, three rings.
So, where do you look for solutions? One option is the summer internship. But the kid glove treatment some organisations mete out to their trainees will come in the way of any real learning. Work experience before a management education may make the transition to a career smoother, but it's not guaranteed.
Joydeep K Roy is director, Alternate Channels, Tata AIG Life Insurance. He graduated from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta in 1991.
