The winning attitude

WHAT THEY DON'T TEACH YOU AT B-SCHOOL

What most of us need to know about succeeding in business, we learn after we graduate from business school. As a business leader, building, motivating and carrying a team are most important. But not many of us realise that before becoming a leader, one needs to go through the grind himself.

Most case studies that are read during a business management course start with: “You are the CEO of the company, you are the brand manager, and what would you do if...?” Business schools can’t churn out CEOs in one go; clearly, there is no substitute to hard work.

Decisions in a real business scenario are often ruled by constraints. A case study at a B-school might project the need to advertise, without worrying much about spends, but a real life business objective may not allow you to do so.

Both organisations and B-schools place a high premium on individual performance. But the difference being, working in an organisation also requires the willingness to help others to succeed, even if it means no gain to oneself. There are but a few jobs that don’t require us to interact with colleagues. We need to constantly interact with people and work in teams to achieve organisational goals. At different points, one may have to engage with multiple teams, or change from one team to another, and so on.

Everyone experiences emotions at work. Dealing with emotions, learning to cope with disappointment and failure, or welcoming constructive dissent, and so on are elements that B-schools cannot prepare one for. No two situations can be the same in a business environment. The ability to brace uncertainties in real life situations is something that students have to learn on the job. The real world has a very thin line differentiating success and failure. It is important to understand that it is not possible to succeed all the time; failures are a part of life, too.

Next, students need to learn to work across cultures, and respect and learn from one another. Globalisation has changed the way business works. We now have to look at global competition, global markets and benchmarks. With business boundaries dissolving, people have to be able to work with people from diverse cultures.

To summarise, there are two key attributes that an individual possesses — the skills he requires to perform and his attitude towards work. While skills can be developed over a period of time with hard work, it is critical to develop a positive attitude towards work, which includes learning from failures, helping others, working under stress and with people from diverse cultures.

Satish Kumar graduated from IIM, Ahmedabad in 1978