What they don't teach you at B-schools

It's been more than 16 years since I passed out from IIM-Ahmedabad and a lot has changed since then. However, discussing the topic with fresh graduates, I realised that while B-schools keep enhancing their course material, keeping in mind the changing business scenarios, some things have not changed much.

B-schools have been and are an excellent platform for short-listing candidates for a corporation. However, they don't teach you the importance of understanding organisational behaviour and organisation dynamics. In fact, most students tend to treat papers on organisational behaviour lightly, and most institutes do not lay emphasis on the same.

Hence, students pass out with good functional knowledge, but have a limited idea of this topic that plays an important role towards their growth and development in an organisation. Related to this is the importance of teamwork, again a topic not discussed much at B-schools.

Being a good manager is equivalent to being a good coach, and this is something I learned on the job. People management skills are not an integral part of business studies curriculum. However, this is very important when you join a corporation and start managing a team.

In my days, not much emphasis was laid on honing presentation skills or coaching skills, which are the marks of a good team leader.

Also, some B-schools ignore the importance of group discussions, and in some cases, the teaching style can discourage interactive sessions by making lectures theoretical and pedantic.

The education system in India is such that right from school days a student is expected to fill sheets. The longer the answers, the better the marks!

However, in a corporation no one has the time to read pages and pages of documents, and hence it is important to be able to write precise documents and stick to the important facts during presentations. Also, "attention to detail", a phrase often used in corporate life, is seldom used in a B-school.

The most important thing, however, is that nothing you learn at the B-school will matter more than what you learn about the B-school. Your attitude during the two years at the B-school will determine what you take from it -- knowledge, networking skills and so on, and it is this attitude that will make a big difference in your career.

Vivek Khanna graduated from IIM-Ahmedabad in 1991