Rethink Needed At B-school

Creativity was always a weak point with MBAs. They have always been known for left brain thinking and being analytical and logical. The MBA course needs to pivot some of its sessions to include creativity

The MBA degree is about 115 years old. The degree has changed with the times but I believe it’s at the crossroads right now. It starts with the skill sets it teaches.

The World Economic Forum outlined three critical skills for the next decade:

• Critical Thinking Skills
• Complex Problem Solving 
• Creativity

To this I add Collaboration and Communication which are softer skills.

Let’s look at the MBA degree and see how it prepares graduates on future skills. I will address this by looking at five questions:

Is the two-year MBA too long and too expensive?

The MBA programme has many versions, Executive MBA, E MBA, 18-month MBA, etc. From a fresh graduate’s perspective, a two-year MBA seems fine. However, for many young working people in the West, a two-year MBA is a break from work and two years is a long and costly affair. So many of them are opting for the one-year option. Most freshers or experienced people do an MBA to enhance their earning capacity. The fees at B-schools are moving up but salaries are not moving up except in the top 20 Indian B-schools. At ISB, the one-year programme costs close to Rs 40-odd lakh, a top IIM degree costs you about Rs 30 lakh. There are not many jobs that offer starting salaries upwards of Rs 30 lakh. So, I think the MBA is too long for today’s world and institutes must convince industry of the value of their students to get attractive salaries.

Is the employer keen on MBAs?

There was a time when companies took pride in hiring the best from the best. These were times when loyalty was a given, training programmes were planned etc. Today’s employer wants a RTS (ready-to-serve) MBA; the average company does not have the patience to train and retrain fresh MBAs. The management trainee programme that started as an 18-month programme in most companies is now down to between 6 to 12 months even in the companies that believe in and invest in the management trainee programme. More Lateral hiring has made employers think differently about sourcing talent. So, I submit, the employer is not as keen as before.

Are B-schools facing reality?

B-schools urge the students to see reality in the case studies.  However, the B-school leadership needs to see a new reality. The new reality is to do with their business model. The business model of B-schools is fees-based in India and that works when the government underwrites everything in the IIMs. That’s not true for private B-schools or newer B-schools. The dependence on fees must come down and the B-school must be open to revenues from management development programmes, research, alumni funds, naming rights etc. Without this pivot, many B-schools will go bankrupt. So, B-schools need to rethink their reality.

Is the pedagogy valid today?

I link this back to the five skills I started with.

I think the B-school is still good at teaching critical thinking skills. I think the B-school is not good at complex problem-solving pedagogy. This is so because they are teaching in the old two-dimensional world when the situation in every industry is three-dimensional with time as a big third dimension. 

Creativity was always a weak point with MBAs. They have always been known for left brain thinking and being analytical and logical. The MBA course needs to pivot some of its sessions to include creativity.

MBAs mistake articulation with communication. One can be articulate and communicate nothing. The B-school needs to focus on listening as much as speaking and focus on the ability to communicate words with feelings to create more inspirational leaders.

The B-school degree is a competitive one where students outdo each other in class participation, in case presentations etc. The MBA degree does not encourage collaboration. So, the B-school must rethink its approach to collaboration building.

Are professors at B-schools industry connected?

The professors at B-schools could do a lot more research and address industry issues and future focused issues.   A lot of the cases are from 1980s or 1990s. We need material that’s current and topical and need much better collaboration between B-schools and the industry. Till there is good collaboration, we will not see better connect.

The MBA is and will always be an aspirational degree. However, with the pace of change, every MBA needs to go back to a formal refresher once every five years. Maybe that’s a new idea for the B-school – a mini-MBA of say four weeks every five years! Both industry and B-schools need to rethink this notion of a degree for life in a word where companies don’t have a life!

The author is a management thinker and leadership coach. He is currently serving as the Operating Partner at Advent International, Gurugram

Shiv Shivakumar

Guest Author The author is a management thinker and leadership coach. He is currently serving as the Operating Partner at Advent International, Gurugram